“I’m not passing judgment about the Christiana thing. I know sometimes bitches step out of line. Lord knows I do.” — Sarah Dubois
It’s Season 4 and “The Boondocks” are at it again with the premier episode “Pretty Boy Flizzy.” Aaron McGruder has always been good at ruffling the feathers around the heart of a matter. He showed us that MLK would be disappointed in us, that The Itis is a killer, and that any woman named Crystal Like the Champagne is probably hooking and doesn’t want to be saved. Only, in Season 4 of “The Boondocks,” Aaron McGruder isn’t writing for show anymore. Surprisingly, that still didn’t stop the series’ new writers from tackling a big issue right off of the bat: the curious case of women who love Pretty Boy Flizzy, a.k.a. Chris Brown, because he hits women.
That’s a pretty inflammatory statement to make. Except 2009 definitely happened: Chris Brown hit Rihanna and we watched wide-eyed as #TeamBreezy erupted in support.
“I don’t care what anyone says. Flizzy can whoop my a** any time. Come on, beat it up Fleezy. Whoo.
That wasn’t Team Breezy. That was a fan from last night’s episode, but the sentiment isn’t much different, if less explicit. People debated the reasons to hit a woman, speculated that maybe Rihanna had given him an STD, which maybe made it “OK”… and then Rihanna shocked everyone and got back with him, and Karreuche Tran followed suit.
Why would they do that? You know good and hell well why. Because Chris Brown is dangerous. And women like it, at least according to season four, episode one, when Chris Brown Pretty Boy Flizzy said:
“Women hate to be bored. A woman would rather be with a guy that beats them to death than one that bores them to death. Trust me, ni**a. I know.”
The episode went like this: Tom and Sarah DuBois argue because Tom is an apologetic doormat which Sarah is having a lot of trouble finding sexy. She wants Tom to “man up” and be “dominant.” The whole episode she dares him to hit her and throws tantrum after tantrum for any reaction at all.
That’s a side of women you don’t always see on TV. It’s the type of touchy subject matter that feels like the old Boondocks is back. When we talk about men with tempers, or even domestic abusers, we rarely ever talk about the women who love them.
Take my cousin, for example. One day, sometime after graduation, she called me crying. It wasn’t the first time she’d cried about her man. He was always bad news. But this time he’d hit her, elbowed her in the eye in the back room of the Pappas restaurant they worked at together. I broke every traffic law racing to help her. Not that I knew what to do when I got there. I’ve still never been in a fight. And certainly not with a man. But my 911 finger is mean and I was mad. When he followed her out to the car, I stood in his way. I cussed him out and chicken necked until she got in – with everybody on The Pappas patio watching.
I didn’t know that this wasn’t the first time; that this is just what they did. Every once in a while he’d act out, she’d call a friend and cry – until she was ready to take him back again. And when I called her out on it, she looked me in the eye and told me that she felt sorry for me: because no man had ever loved me enough to hit me. That was my first rodeo, but it was far from my last.
Maybe Sarah is that type of woman too. There’s some truth in what “The Boondocks” started with, but they don’t really go further than those surface statements.
Spoiler alert: Tom never hits Sarah like she wants. When she taunts “what are you going to do, Tom? Hit me?” Tom just gets up and leaves – which is the right thing to do even if it wasn’t funny at all.
Second spoiler: the convenience store Pretty Boy Flizzy was accused of robbing at the top of the episode was never robbed at all. It was a publicity stunt of his own doing. Why? Because “women hate to be bored” and as long as Flizzy is still dangerous and still pretty, he’s still relevant.
And then the episode was just over. No need to look any deeper… no need to learn anything. Women like dangerous, good-looking men. And thanks to those women, Chris Brown is famous. End of story.
Which, in the end, felt like a cop out. First of all, we forgave R. Kelly and he’s been accused of a lot of things but being attractive isn’t one of them. And not many of Chris Brown’s antics feel like a publicity stunt. That argument may have flown before I saw Lindsay on OWN. But Hollywood’s other problem child is deeply damaged. It is not an act and it is hard to watch. And I still don’t know why that “Office” episode where Darryl checked Kelly and told her to “access her un-crazy side” put Craig Robinson on a lot of ladies’ maps. In fact, now that “The Boondocks” we’ve come to know is gone, a lot of us are realizing that it was one of the only shows tackling controversial black issues from within black culture. It was full of simmering anger and biting social commentary…and it’s all missing now. And without digging deeper, all the characters just feel empty. Rappers are all about publicity stunts and women like to get hit because they’re bored. And we don’t get any closer to why.
Its white washed. And maybe that’s why McGruder left. Well, we don’t know why McGruder left. In the one interview he gave on the subject, he simply said:
“For three seasons I personally navigated this show through the minefields of controversy. It was not perfect. And it definitely was not quick. But it was always done with a keen sense of duty, history, culture, and love. Anything less would have been simply unacceptable.
“I’m finally putting a life of controversy and troublemaking behind me with my upcoming Adult Swim show, BLACK JESUS”.
It sounds like an episode of the boondocks where an important black voice gets tired or the pressure to sell out, so throws his hands up and just tries to focus on making himself happy. Sort of like the same deal Chappelle got.
