The Boondocks
The trouble began before The Boondocks — now a Peabody Award-winning send-up of American race relations and stereotypes — ever even hit the airwaves. In print, the 300-newspaper comic strip on which the show was based toned down its frequent use of the n-word with profanity symbols. But in July 2005, a few months before the TV version aired on the Cartoon Network, creator Aaron McGruder declared that the show would use no bleeps. “I think it makes the show sincere,” he said. “I understand the word offends a lot of people. But that’s what late-night cable is for.”
Next: Family Guy and Sarah Palin
Family Guy and Sarah Palin
Sometimes one line is all it takes. In a February episode of Family Guy—a show not exactly intended for the entire family—a character with Down syndrome says, “My dad’s an accountant, and my mom’s the former governor of Alaska.” Cue the real former governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, whose youngest child, Trig, has Down syndrome. She was not happy with the episode, and made it known on Facebook and on the air.
But Andrea Fay Friedman, the actress who played the Family Guy character and who herself has Down syndrome, said in an email to the New York Times,”I guess former Governor Palin does not have a sense of humor.” She also noted, “My parents raised me to have a sense of humor and to live a normal life. My mother did not carry me around under her arm like a loaf of French bread the way former Governor Palin carries her son Trig around looking for sympathy and votes.” Ouch.
Next: Pokemon Panic
