Pause.

Incisively left-wing cultural productions are a red flag for mass media--this is no secret or mystery. It is precisely this sort of political stigmata that made Aaron McGruder's sublime, early-2000's comic strip The Boondocks such a rarity and a gem. Focusing on the trials and tribulations of Huey Freeman--a ten-year old, self-proclaimed revolutionary Black Chicagoan transplanted into the upper-middle-class white neighborhood of Woodcrest--and his family, the comic more or less served as McGruder's proxy to wax poetics on the contemporary politics of race, class, family, war, nationhood, the media and pop culture from an unabashedly progressive lens. And it was nationally syndicated.

However, this legacy has made its subsequent adaptation as an Adult Swim television show frustrating to watch at times. For practical reasons (animated, half-hour shows require far more production time than do ink-on-paper daily comics) The Boondocks has shifted from a commentary on recent events and news to a multimedia exposition on Black cultural politics. This is by no means an intrinsic hindrance to the show--which has deftly taken aim at class privilege, the commercialism of hip-hop, reactionary patriotism, the "War on Crime," police brutality, the death penalty, internalized racism and more in its 35 or so episodes--but has altered the tone and scope of the program. Moving the limelight to the extended cast has provided a platform to further investigate many of these social issues, but one must wonder if it comes at the expense of diluting the presence of Huey--The Boondocks' McGruder incarnate and in many ways the moral foundation of the entire franchise.

This is no more evident than in Sunday's episode "Pause," primarily a satirization of Tyler Perry, his series of ever-popular plays/movies and his ubiquitous character Madea; The Boondocks treatment offers Winston Jerome as the Perry archetype and Ma Dukes as the theatrical matriarch. Yet the episode's title refers to the vernacular practice in hip-hop culture of disassociating oneself from language that could be interpreted as homoerotic, by quickly blurting the phrase (or alternatively, "no homo") after the purported double entendre. Jay Smooth does a far better job of breaking down the inherent heterosexism and homophobia in this language, so I won't even try:



To recap the story briefly, Granddad auditions for and wins the leading role in Jerome's new play as a romantic interest for Ma Dukes. In the process, he learns that Jerome's theater troupe is in effect a cult, an eccentric cocktail of evangelical Christianity and the veil for Jerome's closeted sexuality--Granddad's role is revealed to be a vessel for him to join Jerome's stable of sexual partners. Huey and Riley intervene, Granddad storms off of the set (with a final "no homo" to Jerome), and the Freemans drive home as Riley watches a video of Ma Dukes attempting to kiss Granddad on stage, literally and vocally "pausing" the video every few seconds.

Winston Jerome as Ma Dukes

What makes "Pause" troubling is that The Boondocks has previously tackled the issue of masculinity and homophobia to great effect. Its other closeted gay character, the rapper Gangstalicious (voiced brilliantly by Mos Def), received a two-episode story arc that touched upon the rootedness of heterosexism in hip-hop culture without falling victim to the woes of intolerance. As the show reveals the inveterate currents of homosociality in hip-hop culture (the camaraderie of brotherhood, the exaltation of prison life, the attention to fashion, etc.) and suggests that hip-hop's homophobia needs a popular, openly gay rapper to break the stranglehold on its ostracization of LGBT people. Gangstalicious, threatened with the exposure of his sexual orientation and confronted by the consternation of his fanbase, chooses to remain in the closet--and the cycle continues.

Gangstalicious

I enjoyed "The Story of Gangstalicious" not because it circumvents the homophobic attitudes within hip-hop culture (and society at large), but rather makes said attitudes manifest and uses the show as a platform to demonstrate their absurdity--Riley, Gangstalicious's fan and friend, is reduced to tears because he firmly believes that listening to a gay rapper makes him gay too; a fellow rap group hides from Gangstalicious while clad in his new line of gender-non-conforming clothing ("I'm keeping the pearls," remarks one of them, voiced by Snoop Dogg). Huey, the sole voice of reason, looks on in disdain at the hysteria caused by Gangstalicious's sexuality, and it is implied that we should follow suit.

In contrast, "Pause" finds Huey partaking in the rescue of Granddad from Winston Jerome's theater cult, with no clear-cut message that the cloud of "pauses" and "no homos" are the extension of an antiquated social norm. Jerome's sexuality, rather, is lumped in with his otherwise eccentric behavior--say, requiring that his actors forsake their families, or his feud with Ice Cube for the throne of Black entertainment--and his theatrical cross-dressing becomes part of those aberrations.

For the most part McGruder et al's critique of Tyler Perry--formulaic plot lines, adherence to Black stereotypes and colorism, for instance--does remain on point, but the episode robs Perry of one of his core strengths: that a devoutly Christian, straight man can portray a woman on stage and screen and elicit a hefty viewership. I don't think Perry's work is liberatory in the grand scheme of things, but it's a troubling of oppressive gender norms that The Boondocks unfortunately renders as something to be gawked at.

This is not a defense of Perry, nor a condemnation of The Boondocks, which has shown that it has the brilliant potential to poke fun of homophobia and homophobes. It's also a show that involves quite a bit of nuanced understanding, embodying the comic strip's explicit left-of-center stance in more subtle ways. But if McGruder and his fellow producers choose to depict said attitudes towards LGBTQ people without showing the destructive capacity of those behaviors--whether vocally or subtextually--then it's a strike against one of the most consistently progressive voices in the entertainment industry in the past decade.

And that, not Ma Dukes, deserves a moment of pause.

Charlie Chin x Chris Iijima: "Back To Back" (1982)

DOWNLOAD (.zip)

SIDE A (Charlie Chin)
A Song for the Manong
Only Chinaman in Great Falls, Montana Blues
Mott Street on Sunday
Down in the Street
Digging for Gold
Shakuhachi

SIDE B (Chris Iijima)
Dust Don't Fly
Say What You Will
El Salvador
Thinking Ahead
Asian Song
LA Song

In 1973, three young Asian American musicians and activists--Chris Iijima, William "Charlie" Chin, and Joanne Nobuko Miyamoto--banded together to record A Grain of Sand: Music for the Struggle by Asians in America, a 12-track LP that has earned the title of the first "Asian American" album. I won't go into details, because I tend to talk about it endlessly, but do listen to the album if you get the chance: it's a masterful interpolation of Asian American activism four decades ago. Yep, APA music was "born" in egalitarian community organizing. Gotta love it.

Nine years later, Chin and Iijima rejoined forces to put their second album on wax. Fitting for its time, Back to Back resonates with a Movement in decrescendo--more about survival than struggle, less about the world in revolt than the people on the day-to-day grind. Questions of capitalism and communism aside, the twelve songs tackle issues indicative of the changing landscape of social change: alienation, gentrification, environmental justice. As Vincent Chin--who was murdered that same year--demonstrated, the very stigma of Asian Americans as unwanted, inimical "foreigners" was a massive problem unto itself in 1982.

Yet the fire is still there. This is (arguably) most evidenced in Chris Iijima's "Asian Song," a working-class ode that weaves between past and present to assert that Asian Americans have, quite literally, built the country from the ground up. The chorus (because we're here / and going strong / and we're getting tired of proving we belong) struck me as somewhat reserved at first, but after repeated listens it seems perfect in its brevity. The thirtysomething Iijima wasn't the professional revolutionary he was a decade prior--in fact, he was a schoolteacher on the Upper East Side by then--but the impatience and disgust he subtly intones says it all. We'll keep on fighting, and you can't stop us.


Chris Iijima, "Asian Song"

I admittedly appreciate the Iijima side more than Chin's half, but together they provide a twenty-eight-year old survey of Asian America spanning multiple peoples, communities, locations, sentiments, frustrations and battles. It's by no means complete, but it's a history lesson you can nod your head to. Enjoy!

Thanks to Michael for owning the album, Derek for ripping it, and Charlie & Chris (RIP) for translating your creative impulses into action. Sorry for the poor audio quality--vinyl is vinyl.

New Year's Irresolutions

I am, and likely will always be, a horrible blogger. Part of this comes with the tendency to be longwinded, but moreso because I can't seem to stick to an endeavor for more than a week or so before it falls into the imminent heap of dreams deferred. Lots of exploding raisins in the sun, if you will.

And, as much as I doubt my own abilities to commit to a New Year's resolution and stick to it, expanding this blog may be my best option, precisely because it'll develop a skill that I'm definitely going to need in the years to come: the ability to consistently develop my thoughts in writing.

I'm not going to set any sorts of quantifiable goals for myself (doomed to unfulfillment), and half of the posts will inevitably end up talking about hip-hop, but I'll do my best to keep the content fresh and aflame. Like fiery bags of poo on the doorstep. (I've already failed at eloquence. Ah well.)

So, let the great experiment begin. For the 4th or 5th time.