Riley Freeman
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| Riley Freeman | |
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| The Boondocks character | |
| File:Riley Freeman.jpg | |
| First appearance | "The Garden Party" |
| Portrayed by | Regina King |
| In-universe information | |
| Relatives | Huey Freeman (brother) Robert Freeman (grandfather) Cookie Freeman (great aunt) |
Riley Freeman is a fictional character from the comic strip The Boondocks and its TV series adaptation.[1] He often refers to himself as "Riley Escobar," and in season two of the TV series, he has begun to refer to himself in some situations as "Young Reezy." He is Huey's eight-year old brother who aspires to be like the rap artists and the gangsters he admires.
Riley, who grew up on the south side of Chicago, was moved along with his brother to the peaceful, predominately white suburb of Woodcrest by their granddad. In some episodes, he and Huey would have a single storyline. In others, the two would each have their own in a single episode. Riley, like Huey, is voiced by Regina King.
Personality
Riley is a highly impressionable African-American third grader who tightly embraces the stereotypical "gangsta" lifestyle, who lives his life by living like his idol rappers.[2] Also doing his best to promote the urban culture in the contrasting suburb of Woodcrest. Influenced by the mass media by way of rap music and television, he frequently uses poor grammar, and tends to defend his idols even when his imitations go against common sense and righteousness. One example is his support of R. Kelly in "The Trial of R. Kelly": despite overwhelming evidence proving R Kelly's guilt, Riley believes he shouldn't have to miss out on his next album. This is further shown in "The Story of Gangstalicious Part 2" where he dresses in effeminate clothing only because Gangstalicious created the style (refusing to believe that the rapper was gay despite the obvious signs). In order to be like his idols, he collects airsoft weapons and tags houses, as demonstrated in "The Garden Party" and "Riley Wuz Here". He also seems to be a fan of the movie Scarface in that he occasionally quotes lines from or alludes to the movie, and he has a white suit similar to the one worn by Tony Montana. And because in season 3 episode 7, when Riley studies the Scarface movie to be successful in his "fundraiser scheme" where Riley get money for himself. With the money he acts like a drug lord, buy jewelery, hot cars. He even stays in the suite Scarface died in. "Being cleaned up" cleaning Tony's dead corpse and his enemies bodies.
Riley seems to have a fair amount of criminal aptitude, as is demonstrated when he helped coordinate the kidnapping of Oprah Winfrey, and further demonstrated by his criticisms of Ed Wuncler III and Gin Rummy for their lack of criminal know-how ("Let's Nab Oprah"). Despite his pretensions to the contrary, Riley is not stupid: he can in fact be very resourceful and pragmatic, and "beats" Tom, a district attorney, in an argument over R. Kelly's confinement and trial. Perhaps due to idolizing the gangsta rap lifestyle he seems to have a level of street smarts possibly as great as his brother, often able to manipulate situations through lying and reverse psychology, which he refers to as getting into someone's "mental mind".
Riley is quite brash and could often get into situations without considering first, also making him a trouble maker. He is also quite rebellious and doesn't listen to anyone, especially Huey and Grandad. He is brutally honest to the point of being very rude.
When forced to fight, Riley is his brother's exact opposite, resorting to a rather crude and thuggish form of attack. His method, is simply to continue attacking, usually with concealed BB guns, and random objects, like vases, or lamps, using whatever means necessary. Riley sometimes overestimates his own crude combat abilities, such as when he tried to fight his brother in "Let's Nab Oprah". His thuggish fighting style, both with weapons and hand-to-hand, failed several times against the precision of Huey's martial arts ability. He does seem to have some talent with airsoft guns, as he fought Huey to a tie in season two. It can be shown that he has a strong amount of endurance and determination, seen when he receives many harsh attacks from his opponents (like Huey and Butch Magnus) but is able to continue fighting, seemingly ignoring his injuries to a certain limit. In season 3, Riley successfully defeated the crazy felon, 10 year old Larry, a kid who is a "Menace 2 Society" Riley would of killed him, when Larry held on to the roof hanging.
Riley seems to take great pleasure in poking fun at other people, sometimes to the point where Huey or Robert have to hit him to make him stop, though such disciplinary actions usually have no effect on his behavior. He also holds grudges; he has a grudge, for example, against Santa Claus for not getting him what he wanted for Christmas back when he lived in the ghetto, and went so far as to stalk and assault Mall Santas with airsoft guns ("A Huey Freeman Christmas").
Riley's excessive interest in the "thug" lifestyle has made him into something of a misogynist. He claims that all women are "hoes", pointing to the custom that a man should pay for his girlfriend's dinner during a date - despite, as Huey points out, that men are actually paying the restaurant, not the woman — a contradiction that Riley does not recognize. He also tends to use "bitches" as a general term for women.
Riley is somewhat cynical. In "The Story Of Catcher Freeman", he recognizes that the stories of his Granddad usually are made-up: this can mean that he is, like his brother, a realist. He can keep a cool head, even under pressure: when both he and his idol Gangstalicious are under heavy gunfire, Riley remains stable while the supposedly hardcore Gangstalicious loses his composure, causing Riley to opine that Gangstalicious is a fraud, lamenting, "It's like going to heaven and finding God smoking crack."
Despite these less than admirable characteristics Riley is precociously clever, especially when required to think quickly or talk his way out of trouble. Usually he's able to get what he wants by manipulating people or disadvantageous events, like he did in "Let's Nab Oprah" - first with his Granddad, then when he saw Huey at the studios. He is also an extremely talented visual artist and had been using graffiti as his primary window for artistic gratification until the episode "Riley Wuz Here", during which he learns to paint selflessly and for the benefit of the viewer instead of personal glory. He still, however, admits that he hopes his artistic talent lets him "get paid." One might say it's the heavy influence of mass media, particularly modern-day rap culture, that inhibits his intellectual potential. Thus, Riley's characterization is McGruder's way of satirizing many youths today who have the potential to do so much but choose to waste it, and instead end up in trouble with the law or worse. In the episode Ballin' Granddad reveals Riley is a bed wetter.
Riley is said to use the word "Nigga" far more than any other character on the show, this was pointed out in the episode "The S-Word", as he was described as having used it so much, that when his teacher overhears him using it to ask someone to borrow one of his French fries, the teacher was more concerned on how he planned to return the French fries when he was done, then the fact that he used the word.
Riley has a range of nicknames, such as; Horsechoker, H.R. Paper Stacks, Louis Rich, Young Reezy, Pillsberry Doughboy, Dat Nucca, The Fundraiser and Riley Escobar.
Riley is Right Handed as you can see in The Episode "A Huey Freeman Christmas" from Season 1 when he is writing a Letter to Santa but Left Footed as its shown in the Episode "The Red Ball" from Season 3.
Footnotes
- ^ "Strip Tease". The Guardian. London. 2005-12-22. Retrieved 2010-02-07.
- ^ "Strip Tease". The Guardian. London. 2005-12-22. Retrieved 2010-02-07.
The Boondocks by Aaron McGruder | |
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