Reaffirmed Stereotypes in the Boondocks

Reaffirmed Stereotypes in The Boondocks

According to Alex Wainer, the history of American entertainment has displayed derogatory images of African Americans on TV and even Disney animated motion pictures. These negative stereotypes depicted in films included the tom, the coon, the tragic mulatto, the mammy, and the brutal black buck. In the last decade or so two new stereotypes emerged in the African American society, the black radical which developed during the Black Panther era, and the gangsta which could be argued to be the modern black buck. The hit animated television series, The Boondocks reaffirms these stereotypes and the classic tom and tragic mulatto stereotypes but purifies them with the intent to spark a change in the African American culture. The problem is viewers only see the humor in the show not the overall message and most critics, mostly black political leaders call the show demeaning and states that the show sets the community back with its racist content even calling it The Coondocks. The only reason why the show doesn’t receive wide scale resentment for its content is because the creator is black and most of the cast are well known black actors.

The show has number of characters that represent a certain stereotype and its notorious for loosely using the n-word to the point that by the end of the first episode it not shocking at all. The two that are mostly addressed are the Black radical and the gangsta. The creator Aaron McGruder, assigns these to stereotypes to two brothers ten and eight years old, Huey freeman is the revolutionist, his name is actually derived from Huey Newton the renown founder of the black panther party. Huey’s acts throughout the series ranges from being the voice of reason and the narrator of the show to striking fear in the upper middleclass white neighborhood he lives in by telling them 9/11 was staged and Ronald Reagan was the devil. He hates shows that depict negative African American stereotypes that are geared to African American audiences, which is ironic because the show is exactly what it’s protagonist despises. He hates what state the black community is in. One episode shows Huey starting a new black political party and recruiting Dr. Martin Luther King after he found out that he was still alive after coming out of a coma. The episode end with Dr. King ranting about how he is disappointed with the black community, when they turn the party