racism

(S04E04) After a pre-credit opening where the male deputies try to conduct a "panty raid" and end up face to face with a completely naked and pregnant Wiegel, we cut to the first real scene of the episode where a motivational speaker Dangle found on the internet gives the deputies some rather confounding advice, including this diatribe:

"I ask you, does the belt not go through all the loops? You all see yourselves as brilliant little pebbles just waiting for your code word. Well, what if your code word doesn't come, huh? Are you gonna sit around in your cruiser and wind up ejected from somebody's crazy physics package?"

More profound advice I've never heard. Let's move on.

(S01E07)

Mr. Noblet (after showing his class a tape of Martin Luther King, Jr's "I Have A Dream" speech): King's dream was of an America without racism of any kind. The tragedy of course is that all this footage is in black and white. Imagine how powerful it would have been in color.

In this episode, a student spray paints the N-word in the hallway, and all of Flatpoint High is turned upside down as they try to figure out who did it. The easiest humorous route to take would have been to mock those blatantly racist enough to do such a thing, but this episode, like the "Ginger Kids" episode of South Park, cuts much deeper, exposing the varying degrees of prejudice that exist in all of us. Or, as one student says, "The only thing we hate more than a racist is spics."

(S02E04) Last night's episode mostly took place in the 18th century, with Chauncey taking on the role of the master of a plantation and his fellow puppets all serving as his slaves. Things start to get out of hand, however, when Him becomes a cyborg slave, able to bale hay, whitewash a barn, and whip other slaves with greater efficiency. Chauncey loves his new robotic slave, but when his young Southern bride puts the moves on Him, the new robo-slave is charged with rape. In a hilarious court room sequence, Sthugar, the young bride, blatantly admits she was lying about the rape, but they continue with the trial anyway. This became the main part of the episode, and one of the funniest, most absurd takes on race relations in the United States I've ever seen. A monkey who evolves into itself with a hat made of licorice, Chauncey having sex with the Bible, and a visit from God in the form of a banana were just a few of the things that popped up during the hearing.

(S02E03) Yeah, I know, this review is a couple days late, but that's okay. It means we've all learned an important lesson. You've learned patience, and I've learned not to trust Tivo so much. Luckily, the episode repeated last night so I was able to catch it without having a gap in my reviews staring at me like some kind of malevolent eye swirling inside a black hole. Or maybe that's being melodramatic. Anyway, my review:

In this episode, Chauncey and the gang are visited by Middle America (the puppet version), a yammering chunk of the United States who speaks only in gibberish and says "Texas" every other word. This eventually leads to a spoof of Hee Haw called Horse Apples which features a group of trailer park dwellers cracking jokes about incest and lynching. You know, typical family fare. The whole "Middle America" gag is funny for awhile, but eventually it wore thin. The other segments, such as Clarence's obligatory annoying of people on the street and a "Beat Kids" segment where we learn about pet castration seemed to lack their usual energy.

I'm hoping that UPN (soon to be the CW) has some kind of mysterious plan for Everybody Hates Chris that only it understands, because I've been genuinely confused by how the last few episodes of this season have been doled out. The show has been in reruns, but once in awhile, like last night, they'll toss a new one out there. On the surface, it appears as if UPN has abandoned a show they once touted quite enthusiastically by sneaking new episodes past fans. I'm hoping that isn't the case, that perhaps the show is just ending its first season with a fade out in preparation for a big second season.

Last night's episode focused on two storylines, Chris' father getting the gout from eating heavily-salted food, including, according to one sequence, "chicken-fried bananas" and Chris himself getting an F in math and trying to fool his parents into thinking he got an A. Math is the only class in which Chris can't get a passing grade, as his all-white school seems to give him a free pass as long as all his reports have to do with Martin Luther King, Jr. Taking advantage of the ignorance of white people is a reoccurring theme on the show. Everybody Hates Chris doesn't just focus on blatant racism, it also points the finger at those who work feverishly to seem "black friendly" but ironically ignore the individual. When Chris is at home, or hanging out with his friend Greg at school, he's just a regular kid. It's when his teachers single him out in class to talk about black history, or the basketball coach asks him to join the team without seeing him play, that he becomes a "black kid." Chris Rock has said before that races have much more in common with one another than people realize, and that when its all laid out, the differences are few and inconsequential. That seems to be the guiding ethos of Everybody Hates Chris, and it's what makes the show both hysterical and thought-provoking.

You click over to Wal-Mart's site to purchase a copy of the Planet of the Apes TV series on DVD. You click on the DVD and are given a list of similar movies as recommendations. Oddly enough, all the movies feature African-Americans. It seems this bit of covert online racism set off some backlash recently, which isn't difficult for Wal-Mart to conjure up since most people don't need much recourse to hate the mega-chain. The company itself issued an apology, but it still remains unclear as to just why it happened in the first place. The company says it was promoting films with African-Americans in honor of the upcoming Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, but that doesn't quite explain this incident.