"The Trial of R. Kelly" is the 2nd episode of the 1st season of The Boondocks. It originally aired on November 13, 2005.
Parodying Robert Kelly's sex scandal, the R&B singer is being tried on charges of urinating on a 14-year-old girl. Assistant District Attorney Tom Dubois is the prosecutor on the case. But Huey watches with dismay as an army of ignorant R. Kelly fans (including Riley) defend the singer to the end, despite how obviously guilty the man is. Meanwhile, Robert and Ruckus argue about white people during a checkers game.
Tropes:
- Amoral Attorney: R. Kelly's defense attorney gets his client acquitted of urinating on a 14-year-old girl regardless of how obvious it is that his client is guilty.
- An Aesop:
- The bad actions of some people — famous or not — just can't be excused or ignored, and it needs the support of fans looking past star worship to have their favorite stars held accountable.
- Past oppression does not give a person a free pass to oppress or harm others.
- The institutional racism of the criminal justice system doesn't mean that every single person who is brought up on criminal charges is an innocent victim of a racist system.
- Being in touch with Black culture does not mean that a person has the community's best interests in mind. The show comes back to this one a lot.
- Badass Bookworm: The tragically small group of three black intellectuals who came to oppose R. Kelly run to Huey's defense when the R. Kelly supporters try to ambush him, holding their own in spite of being massively outnumbered. Thus beginning a grand tradition of the show.
- The Bad Guy Wins: Huey's big speech changes nothing. R. Kelly is acquitted despite overwhelming evidence for his guilt, and his fans celebrate. Huey says in the ending narration: "I did battle with ignorance today... and ignorance won."
- The Cameo: Rosa Parks has a halfway
Deleted Role (technically anyway; she didn't play herself but she was meant to make an appearance) in this episode. She was meant to have a chicken leg thrown at her by the fat woman, to which the latter adds "That's right, take a seat! That's what you're known for anyway!". It was cut out due to rather poor timing, as the real life Rosa Parks passed away before the episode aired. However, she can be seen walking behind Huey and Riley in the ending, being hugged by the same woman who slugged her as she celebrates R. Kelly's acquittal. See here
. - Chewbacca Defense: Kelly's attorney uses a defense strategy that's hardly relevant to the actual subject matter of the trial, such as claiming that illegal sexual contact with a minor is somehow still acceptable for modern society just because it was okay to sleep with underage people in the past, or chastising the prosecutor for not being married to a woman of the same race as him.note
- Common Nonsense Jury:
- A jury full of R. Kelly fans are easily convinced that the trial was all about racism against the defendant. Never mind that there's a lot of damning evidence against R. Kelly or the victim in question is underaged.
- Uncle Ruckus claims to have served on a mostly white jury, where he convicted a blind black man of shooting three white women. (Though if this story was true, then how did the black Ruckus get around segregation? Even if he does hate other black people, he still probably would've been barred from jury duty due to race.)
- Courtroom Episode: This is a satirical version of the real trial of R. Kelly.
- Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting: Two different protest groups, one side pro-Kelly and the other side anti-Kelly, clash with each other in a riot.
- Everyone Has Standards: In a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, the otherwise all-white jury Uncle Ruckus claimed to serve on looked legitimately shocked when Ruckus revealed that he brought his own noose to the trial to hang the accused black man with.
- Excrement Statement: When hearing on the news about how R. Kelly is going to be on trial for giving an underage girl a "golden shower", Robert doesn't know what that really means, and says that he wants a golden shower too.
- Fan Dumb: In-universe; R. Kelly's supporters. They like his music so much, they think that's reason enough for siding with him against the law.
- Fat Bitch: An obese woman who supports R. Kelly is very belligerent about it. She also voices her objection to Mr. Dubois' interracial marriage.
- Hidden Depths: The normally thuggish Riley manages to school Tom, a trained prosecutor, on several legal points that R.Kelly could use to defend his actions.
- Ironic Echo: Riley tells Tom before the trial that if he was the girl that R. Kelly allegedly urinated on, he would have escaped before it happened. When interviewed on the news, he asks the audience if they were in the same position as the girl, would they choose to either "smile and beg for more" or "get the hell of the way". During the trial itself, the recorded video shows the "victim" never resisting or fighting back during the deed. In fact, she casually, clearly, enjoyed it. When the very same girl takes the stand, she outright says if she didn't want to get peed on, whether it was from R. Kelly or not, she would have chosen to get out of the way, exactly what Riley said.
- Karma Houdini: R. Kelly is acquitted of the charges, despite how painfully obvious it was that he's really guilty.
- Maligned Mixed Marriage: Tom's marriage to a white woman is used against him by the defense, who is easily able to convince the jury that what he really objects to is that R. Kelly finds Black girls attractive.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed:
- R. Kelly's unnamed attorney is a parody of radical lawyer William Kunstler.
- The trio of intellectuals advocating against R. Kelly bear a strong resemblance to the Real Life academics Cornel West, Eddie Glaude Jr., and Tony Brown.
- "Not If They Enjoyed It" Rationalization: About half of R. Kelly's defense is that "if she didn't want to get peed on, she would have moved out the way." As Tom repeatedly emphasizes, minors simply cannot consent to such acts, but he has absolutely no luck convincing the jury of this fact.
- Odd Friendship: This episode marks the start of very weird — but genuine — friendship between Uncle Ruckus and Granddad. Despite Ruckus being an intense Boomerang Bigot, the two spend the entire afternoon together playing checkers and having a (mostly) pleasant conversation about their youths.
- Orgy of Evidence: To elaborate, a videotape clearly showed Kelly urinating on a minor, while showing his face, and clearly stating his name, occupation, and Social Security number.
- Pretty Fly for a White Guy: Deconstructed with R. Kelly's lawyer, who wins his case largely by playing to stereotypes and pandering to the majority-black jury. It's pretty clearly an affectation on his part, but no one calls him on it because he's able to successfully paint the prosecutor as a Category Traitor.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Huey chews out the entire courtroom for defending R. Kelly's actions just because they like his music.What the hell is wrong with you people? Every famous nigga that gets arrested is not Nelson Mandela! Yes, the government conspires to put a lot of innocent black men in jail on fallacious charges. But R. Kelly is not one of those men! We all know the nigga can sing! But, what happened to standards? What happened to the bare minimums? You a fan of R. Kelly? You want to help R. Kelly? Then get some counselling for R. Kelly, introduce him to some older women, hide his camcorder! But, don't pretend like the man is a hero! (beat) And stop the damn dancing, act like you got some goddamn sense, people! Damn! Through playin' around here!
- Pixellation: The eyes of the girl who was urinated upon by R. Kelly are always seen pixelated out. (the rest of her face is visible, though).
- Screw the Rules, I'm Famous!: Despite the huge amount of evidence against R. Kelly, he was still acquitted. It didn't help that the jury consisted of some of his fans and the victim herself enjoyed what happened.
- Special Guest: Adam West as the unnamed defense attorney who represents R. Kelly.
- Tall Poppy Syndrome: A female R. Kelly supporter derided the anti-Kelly protesters, who are prominent black intellectuals, as "uppity niggas" for having the temerity to not support a singer accused of urinating on a 14-year-old girl, and because they were stressing the importance of reading.
- Tempting Fate: Tom believes that he can convict R. Kelly, regardless of the star's status. As Huey warned, that's not the case due to bias from his most loyal fans in the courtroom and the jury.
- Toilet Humor: R. Kelly urinating on an underage girl is played for both cheap laughs and satire.
- Where da White Women At?:
- Kelly's (white) lawyer points out that Tom Dubois has a white wife named Sarah (with whom they have a mixed daughter named Jazmine), which he claims must make him a hater of black women. This earns the Dubois family the scorn of the all-black jury.
- Ruckus is shown to have a creepy, fawning lust towards white women, to the point where he can barely discuss them without breaking out into sweats and nearly having a stroke.
