THE BOONDOCKS

Starting from Tuesday 16 March 2010 at 22,30 pm on MTV, the transgessive and irreverent cartoons of The Boondocks are broadcast, which for their contents and dialogues are aimed at an adult audience. The series was born in 1998 as a comic by the African-American cartoonist Aaron McGrunder, initially on the website www.boondocks.net, it was then published in a university newspaper and in the music magazine The Source, to finally arrive in national newspapers such as Los Angeles Time and Newsweek. Through the characters who are children of hip-hop culture, Aaron McGrunder in his short comic strips (strip) summarizes all the criticism of American politics in recent years: from drugs to racism, from the Bush government to the war in Iraq, from delinquency juvenile to 11 September. In Italy, The Boondocks comics were published in Linus magazine. The cartoon series divided into 15 episodes, each lasting 25 minutes, was produced by Sony Pictures Television International and the first three episodes were presented on November 3, within the Lucca Comics & Games 2006 event.

The story sees as protagonists the two African-American brothers Huey and Riley Freeman who, with their critical and disenchanted gaze, point the finger of accusation against the hypocrisies and distortions of their society. Huey is a 10-year-old boy, characterized by thick hair, who already has a strong personality, as he has been tempered by the life lived in the slums of Chicago, between drugs and fighting with rival gangs, which have made him mature his conscience radical revolutionary politics. He tries to venture into organizing rallies and demonstrations, but with little success. Riley is 8 years old, is passionate about rap music and dreams of becoming a gangster to get rich. Fortunately, his laziness prevents him from achieving these aspirations and he is content to vent his anger in video games. Huey and Riley's life changes when their grandfather decides to move to retire in the quiet and affluent town of Woodcrest, far from the degraded Chicago suburbs. Huey and Riley thus come into contact with the social class of the rich American bourgeoisie and this provokes in them a feeling of rebellion. The two boys feel discriminated against both racially and socially, as they see grandfather Jebediah pathetically play the role of the snob, to be accepted by his neighbors. In the first episode we find the Freemans, who as soon as they arrive in Woodcrest, are invited to a garden party by the rich Ed Wuncler, where they will meet Uncle Ruckus. In reality, he is not a relative of them, but the classic "balloon", which despite being of African-American ethnicity, does not tolerate black people, claiming that his own skin has become dark due to a disease, therefore he defines white race. They will also get acquainted with Ed III, the aristocratic and racist son of the Wuncler family, just returned from the war in Iraq. In the episode "Kelly on Trial" the R'n'B singer R. Kelly ends up in court for spreading a compromising video about him over the internet. To accuse him during the trial there is the lawyer Tom DuBois, the neighbor of the Freemans and to give him a hand there is also Huey who accuses Kelly of abusing a minor, while Riley defends him as still clouded by idolatry for the pop star. Singer Whitney Houston will also appear in the cartoon with her husband Bobby Brown. In the episode "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" the grandfather falls in love with a beautiful girl named Crystal, whom he hosts in his house. The two boys Huey and Riley look at her with suspicion and suspect that she is a prostitute who wants to trick their grandfather, so they decide to arm themselves with a video camera and film her during her private life, to unmask her.

All characters and images of The Boondocks are copyright Aaron McGrunder / Adelaide Productions Inc./Rebel Base / Sony Pictures Television International and are used here for cognitive and informative purposes.