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.