Critical Analysis of ‘Freedom Ride or Die’
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The concern of this paper is to present a critical analysis of fifth episode of the animated television show The Boondocks, season 4 (Imdb.com). It used to be telecasted in Cartoon Network of United States. The theme of this episode revolves around Civil Rights Movement and freedom of African Americans. As per the feedback from the audience pole, the entire season was mediocre and shallow as compared to other seasons. However, the fifth episode of the same carries extremely positive feedback from the audiences and termed as best of the season.
The episode, “Freedom Ride or Die”, narrates story of an African American, Robert Freeman who became a part of Freedom Riders by chance. The entire episode covers the dark and shameful phase of American history in a wrapper of comedy. Use of political sarcasm can be spotted as the serious topic of Civil Rights Movement has been presented here in a comical way. Different characters of these series have presented different points of view and among them, the concept of ‘American dream’ was consistently coming in front. The mentioned episode consistently talks about contemporary political setting and mocks it. Freeman took part in the civil rights movement by accident and his personal feeling was to flee from the serious environment of movement, fighting for equal economic and social rights. Robert Freeman has been portrayed as a civil Rights movements pioneers like Martin Luther king and Malcom X. However, in reality he was extremely reluctant to be a part of this turmoil.
According to Mirzoeff, Nicholas: 22, it can be stated that American dream of serving equal social and economic rights to every people irrespective of skin color was initiated with the historic Civil Rights Movement and for Robert it was fleeing from a bus, which was heading towards Mississippi carrying freedom riders. Both the objectives have been presented as a fight for freedom. In this due course, entire scenario has been presented comically using sarcasm and irony. The fighting scenes were designed with the undertone of laughter. This episode is an excellent example of dark humor to present the dark truth of American history.
Works Cited
Mirzoeff, Nicholas. “INTRODUCTION The multiple viewpoint: diasporic visual cultures.” Diaspora and Visual Culture. Routledge, 2014. 15-32.
Imdb.com. “”The Boondocks” Freedom Ride Or Die (TV Episode 2014)”. Imdb, 2018, https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3711132/. Accessed 22 Oct 2018.
