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A comparison between irony and sarcasm through the lens of two cartoons.
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Thomas Cole CSCL 3175 Essay 2
Option 1
Billy and Mandy meet Huey and Riley: An Examination of Sarcasm, Irony, and Activism
When dealing with the terms sarcasm and irony, I could think of no better example
of both of these terms than the animated television shows The Grim Adventures of Billy and
Mandy and The Boondocks. While outward appearances may dictate otherwise, as The Grim
Adventures of Billy and Mandy is quite often ludicrously ridiculous, and The Boondocks
makes heavy use of intellectual humor, The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy also
employs subtle irony that Gramsci would refer to as “excessively literary”, while the The
Boondocks epitomizes impassioned sarcasm (117).
The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, also known as Grim and Evil, was a
creation of Maxwell Atoms for The Cartoon Network and also holds the record for the
longest running series on the network. This show chronicles the adventures of an
excessively moronic and simplistic boy named Billy, his sarcastic and pragmatic best friend
Mandy, and the Grim Reaper, a supernatural entity that the pair of children tricked into
being their best friend for all eternity. The premise of the show is, in itself, completely
ironic, as one would not expect a seemingly limitless immortal such as the Grim Reaper to be
under the control of two children. The second television show, The Boondocks, is the
television adaption of the comic strip of the same name by Aaron McGruder. The show
chronicles the life and times of a ten year old African-American boy named Huey. Huey
serves as the narrator for the show, as a surprisingly intelligent voice for modern
Afrocentrism, and holds a noticeable and vehement contempt for modern black popular
culture. Huey is antagonized by his grandfather, Robert, and younger brother, Riley, neither
of which share his beliefs.
Both shows are veritable cornucopias of irony and sarcasm, but specifically, two
individual episodes from each show are worth examining. The sixth episode of the fourth
season of Grim and Evil, “Wishing Bones,” show us the exploits of the main and supporting
cast of the show when a magical, wish-granting talking skull falls out of Grim’s robe, and
begins unleashing havoc upon the denizens of Endsville. While the entire series appears to
be somewhat mindless, slight moronic, and generally pointless, many episodes share a great
deal in common with the literary forms of allegory and fable. Likewise, in these particular
episodes, Grim often acts as a sort of moral compass, offering advice which is generally
unheeded by other characters in the show and Mandy acts as the narrator. When the skull is
revealed to have the ability to grant wishes, Mandy confronts Grim and asks why he hasn’t
used the skull to set himself free. Grim replies with, “No. Wishing is a dangerous business.
More often than not, wishes are corrupted and twisted back upon the wisher. I’ve got
enough problems on me hands with you two” (Grim and Evil, Episode 38). Naturally, this
advice is ignored by everyone except Mandy as the skull proceeds to bounce from character
to character, granting their wishes in the most ironic of fashions.
The “excessive literary” (Gramsci, 117) quality of Grim and Evil is a bit difficult to
detect, if one is a member of the “target” audience for the show, which is rated TV Y7. This
rating indicates that the show is designated for children ages 7 and older (V-Chip).
However, like many cartoons with this rating, there are often intertextual references and
humor which I would not expect children to catch on to. For example, in Billy’s wish, he
asks the skull to grant him a rather extensive and detailed wish, in which he is an
internationally known boy adventurer. The specific details of his wish and the following
scene clearly describe another television show, Johnny Quest, and proceed to parody the
format of the show. This process of parody is repeated in the wishes of other characters,
covering diverse media such as Donnie Darko , Transformers, and even music videos.
Loosely applied, this exclusion of the target audience in favor of a smaller subaudience who
would understand these intertextual references is one factor which supports Gramsci’s
definition of irony.
However, far more telling is the dispassionate and detached commentary that could
easily be read from this particular episode. The concept of making wishes and having
horrible results occur also fits very nicely into Adorno’s theory of satire (211), as the targets
of the skull’s wish-twisting are nearly a word for word listing of the types of targets of
literary satire: the poor, women, the deviant, and so on. Furthermore, the idea that modern
individuals are no longer citizens, but consumers limited to a pre-selected menu (211), is
echoed in the admonitions by Grim and Mandy, bemoaning the danger of the unlimited
freedom of choice. The politics of this particular episode are, ironically, rather grim and evil:
The admonition to take the advice of a powerful overseer, the Grim Reaper, being ignored
leads to chaos among the common folk. This can clearly be read as an echo of the capitalist
power structure, where the bourgeoisie should be trusted to limit the choices of the
proletariat for their own good.
In turn, the episode of The Boondocks to view in comparison to the rather
dispassionate and gloomy allegory of “Wishbones,” is the also highly allegorical “Return of
the King.” Here, Huey dictates for the viewers an alternate reality in which the assassination
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. failed. Instead of his death, Dr. King fell into a coma for 33 years,
and awoke to a much different world than he envisioned. The politics of this episode are so
powerful and so impassioned that you can literally taste the vehemence for popular black
culture. The scathing commentary on both the nature and content of black popular culture
has all the subtlety of being hit in the face with a truck. While at first glance this episode
would appear to be entirely and profoundly negative, a deeper inspection reveals a rather
positive and uplifting message to the black community.
When Dr. King awakens from his coma, he is hailed as a hero and given dozens of
awards. In the process of writing a book, he is approached by a movie producer to make a
biopic about his life. The film is completed and released the week after the terrorist attacks
on September 11th, 2001, and fails miserably at the box office. When Dr. King is asked to
appear on a talk show to talk about the terrorist attacks, and asserts that his religion dictates
to turn the other cheek, even to terrorists, he is labeled as “un-American” by a unnamed talk
show host who bears a strong resemblance to Bill O’Reilly of Fox News. This particular
incident leads to a plummeting downward spiral for Dr. King, as he is shunned as a social
pariah for not being caught up in the post-9/11 sense of nationalism. Further events in the
episode culminate in Dr. King organizing a town meeting, which fills to the brim. Looking
around at the spectacle, outraged at the willfulness in which the black community has
embraced all manner of negative stereotypes, Dr. King launches into this soliloquy:
“Will you ignorant niggers PLEASE shut the hell UP? Is this it? THIS is what I got all those ass-whoopings for? I had a dream once but it was a dream that little black girls and black boys would one day drink from the river of prosperity freed from the thirst of oppression. But lo and behold, some four decades later, what have I found, but a bunch of trifling, shiftless, good for nothing niggers! And I know some of you don't want to hear me say that word! It's the ugliest word in the English language! But that's what I see now!”
This particular scene in the episode caused all manner of controversy when it first aired on
Cartoon Network, including outcry by modern day civil rights leaders such as Al Sharpton,
for besmirching the name and image of Dr. King. Indeed, upon first glance, this speech
seems to be nothing more than an outright negative and pointless attack. But, if one were to
examine the rest of the episode, Huey explains what happened as a result of this speech being
televised: a number of positive social outcomes, such as graduation rates for black males
increasing, and a general waking up of black America to the reality of their situation.
This passionate plea to black America in this particular episode is almost a literal
textbook example of Gramsci’s passionate sarcasm (117). In almost an emulation of Marx,
McGruber takes the aspirations of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960’s and reforms and
regenerates them into a digestible, modern simulacrum. While the ending of the episode
acknowledges that all the events that took place are entirely fictional, the words of Huey
summarize the entire point of the episode into four simple words: “It’s fun to dream.” This
dream that Huey has is one for a revitalization of the black community back into action, and
to reclaim itself from subservience to a culture which promogulates and reinforces both
negative stereotypes and rampant consumerism. Gramsci’s idea of passionate sarcasm also
works nicely with Bakhtin’s ideas about folk humor, in this particular scenario. When
discussing the elements of folk humor, Bakhtin discusses how it “denies dignity, hierarchy
and superiority, but revives and renews at the same time” (11). Clearly, Dr. King’s usage of
the rather derogatory term “nigger” is a strong denial of dignity and superiority, but the
specific usage of the term is also meant as a way to both revive and renew a community that
he sees as having lost its way. Likewise, Bakhtin also mentions the common factor of mixing
both the sacred and the profane (6). While it would be somewhat of a stretch to literally
consider Dr. King “sacred”, there is a certain air of reverence around him which mimics the
form and structure of other sacred objects. By having such a respected figure utilize this
particular language, especially in the terms of reviving and renewal, this episode is clearly
paying homage to the tradition of folk humor, even though it does so in an intellectual and
“highbrow” fashion.
As can be seen by both of these episodes from animated television, both literary irony
and impassioned satire have easily, and readily, made the transition from the written word to
the performed word. While Grim and Evil is marketed for children, there are also
multitudes of examples of humor, of many forms, more easily understood and appreciated by
adults. The Boondocks, however, is both designed and marketed for an adult audience,
which I think allows for a more blunt approach to these issues.
Works Cited
Adorno, Theodor. Juvenal’s Error. Books.google.com. Google Books, n.d. Web. 8 Dec. 2009 <https://moodle.umn.edu/mod/resource/view.php?id=370551>
Bakhtin, Mikhail. Rabelais and His World. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1984 Gramsci, Antonio. Prison Notebooks. Books.google.com. Google Books, n.d. Web. 8 Dec.
2009 <https://moodle.umn.edu/mod/resource/view.php?id=371587> “Return of the King.” The Boondocks. Cartoon Network. 15 Jan. 2006. Television. “TV Ratings System - TV-Y7 and TV-Y7-FV.” V-chip.org. v-chip, n.d. Web. 8 Dec. 2009
<http://www.v-chip.org/cbs/faq.html> “Wishbones.” The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy. Cartoon Network. 10 Jun. 2005.
Television.
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