The Boondocks is a show known for its groundbreaking ideas and overall representation of American culture perceived by Huey Freeman. But recently I have fallen in love with an episode of this series that I think represents the artists’ mindset on the work they created and how those around them try to take it away from them.
Episode 8 of Season 1 of The Boondocks titled “A Huey Freeman Christmas” is about Heuy getting a chance to direct the Christmas school play at 10 years old, with the narrative joke being him taking it incredibly seriously–researching, studying, and writing the whole script himself. He eventually expands the department working on it, firing all the kids on the set who weren’t good enough actors for the production in his eyes.
The relationship between Huey and his liberal arts teacher represents the reverse relationship between a corporation and an artist. It’s revealed that his teacher signed a contract with Huey saying he will not interfere with his vision for the play.
The show goes on developing the anti-cultural ideas and immense effort put into the play. Huey hires a sound team, adults, musicians, and anything to make it exceptional, and he makes Jesus a black man and finally names the play “The Adventures Of Black Jesus,” removing Christmas from it as Christmas is a Roman adapted into a Pagan tradition that doesn’t represent the birth of God’s son.
But the school finally interjects saying nobody wants to watch a play with no kids in it and, “You can’t make Jesus black,” even though it is more historically accurate to not depict Jesus as fair-skinned. They rip up the contract that had freed him and threaten the teacher who signed it with firing if he doesn’t fix everything.
The teacher allows the play to go through, but as Huey had planned. It becomes a cultural moment and is regarded highly. Incredibly, all the recordings of it are lost. But Huey reminisces about this fact, preferring not to talk about his old work. The plot of this episode is one of the most funny but incredibly real moments I’ve seen on TV. Universally relatable in multiple ways to the experiences of most artists in the world, especially ones who have all had to deal with subtraction from their vision that could culturally impact the world for the better to please the majority who might not get it yet.
Big money in the world wants you to believe that they care about culture, but they will treat every artist like a Huey Freeman. In this episode, the corporations are represented by the school standard of a simple and traditional play. A simple-minded take compared to the complexity that Huey had spent days crafting and working towards, which is the point of art. I think it is an insult to record labels, producers, and companies that hinder artists’ vision and I would label them as culturally adept as an elementary school board in a rich white town.
But the big moment for Huey is when it’s shown anyway by a teacher interested in his experience and taste. The parents might not be there, and the school might fire him, but the culture is acclaimed by those who understand the vision, too–showing Huey, “Yeah I was right. Y’all never knew nothing!”
Even though somewhat crude, this is a beautiful message to teach people how artists are treated and disregarded by those in power–how acceptance usually comes before the message in a world full of people who can’t accept differences.
So, if you’re a Huey Freeman in a world full of people who teach elementary-level things, raise the bar because you know who will root for you? The people who matter.
