Curved, The End of Innocence and Juneteenth (The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder)

Curved, The End of Innocence and Juneteenth These three episodes' legacy of causing the right to turn against the reboot is certainly no myth. Series: The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder Part of Season: 2 Episode Number: 3, 6, 10 Air Date: February 1st, 2023

Curved, The End of Innocence and Juneteenth are the third, the sixth, and the tenth episodes (and season two finale) of the second season of The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder. They premiered on February 1, 2023, on Disney+. The three plots revolve around the show trying to tackle racism, much like the original show with episodes like I Had a Dream.

However, the episodes got negative criticism (especially by right-wing critics) for their overreliance on referencing Black Lives Matter, poor execution of their topics, and awful songs, and got not only the episodes but the entire show review-bombed and even the original show got review-bombed.

Why They Should Go Tumbling Down

1. First and foremost, the episodes are very overreliant on promoting and referencing the Black Lives Matter movement, acting like they are the only way to defeat racism when it's far from true.
   • The episodes (especially Curved) also have various songs that tackle this, and they're completely awful.
2. The episodes are also filled with plenty of historical inaccuracies that are sure to make anyone watching notice.
   • One inaccuracy in Juneteenth that is very major is completely demonizing Abraham Lincoln, claiming he only emancipated black people despite him freeing them. This episode even goes off the edge by saying that he wanted to deport them from America. Sure, Lincoln did consider and attempted to deport some black people to another place, but it was only 5,000 formerly enslaved Africans and not all of them as this episode claims. They also fail to mention that he eventually abandoned the idea as he got to see slavery as more of a moral issue rather than a political one.
   • They also claim in the same scene that the emancipation proclamation did not abolish Slavery in the Border States. While this is true, they forgot to mention that it was made so they wouldn't turn on them and join the Confederacy. In other words, it was a strategic maneuver to keep more states from rebelling.
     • But this line also does not make sense at all because the show is set in California, which was a free state, which makes the line pointless and useless.
   • Speaking of California, the biggest example of historical inaccuracy in these episodes is that Smithville was founded by a slave owner in 1827 and still had slaves in it in 1862; however, since Smithville is in California, it was part of Mexico at the time, which strictly forbade slavery (Even though it wasn't abolished in Mexico until 1829). California wasn't officially part of the Union until 1850 when it joined as a free state, meaning that if Christain A. Smith did own slaves in 1862, he would have been a criminal, which in turn would have led to him being arrested and jailed.
   • Juneteenth also claims that Juneteenth (Or Jubilee) was celebrated back in 1862 and even as far back as the 1820s. This is easily wrong because the first Juneteenth was Celebrated in 1866, 39 Years after Smithville was founded and four years after the diary was written.
   • The "song" in Curved has so many Inaccuracies in it, one of which is minor and says that Jamestown was built by slaves, even though the first slaves to arrive at Jamestown didn't arrive until 1619.
3. The animation is in a way worse than usual.
4. Some of the lines in these episodes are best laughable and worst pain-inducing.
   • "They're gonna arrest our babies, do something with your white privilege!"
5. Even though the show is targeted at kids, there are plenty of scenes that kids will not understand, such as the white supremacy (especially this scene), as well the names of various presidents, such as Abraham Lincoln.
6. Most of the characters here are very unlikable.
   • Penny's friends (except for Zoe) in The End of Innocence are very unlikable as they get jealous of Zoe for dating a guy who only dates white girls, going as far as not inviting her to the Princess Party because of it. They even outright call Zoe unattractive, which was possibly the worst thing they ever said to her.
   • Wizard Kelly is extremely unlikable in Juneteenth, as he decides to send a bunch of cops to arrest Penny and her friends just because they're protesting against the city positioning a slave owner's statue, and they didn't even care if they're minors.
7. Releasing a Juneteenth-themed episode in February doesn't make any sense, 'cause is too early. One thing is to release it 4-6 days before the event, but it doesn't work when it's 4 months sooner.
8. Even if you compare the way they tackle racism with the original show, it's still incredibly poor compared to the original show.
9. Plot hole: In Juneteenth, The Diary Maya finds is in near-perfect condition despite supposedly being buried underground for over 100 years with no protection, when it should've been completely unreadable within a few years tops. Also, it was somehow never discovered, even during potential park renovations, despite being in a rather shallow hole.
   • Plus, literacy was an incredibly rare skill amongst slaves, and even if she was one of the extreme few who could, there's no way she would have access to the paper and ink needed to keep a diary until after she was free.
10. There is another Plot hole in The End of Innocence as they don't explain why Noah only wanted to date white girls and those were only worth his time and affection.
11. The End of Innocence forgets the fact that Penny and Dijonay have boyfriends (Kareem and Darrius). Yet they are shown upset that they picked Zoe over them. If Penny and Dijonay's boyfriends found out about them being jealous, then they would probably get frustrated, especially when Dijonay was making a weird kissy face towards Noah.
12. Although very unintentional, The End of Innocence could give out a bad moral to children by saying that white and black people should not inter-mix.
13. The episodes were so bad it was recently review-bombed not only the episode but also the entire reboot got review-bombed because of this episode! Not only that, but these episodes also gave birth to the mentality that the reboot is "woke", which is not true, even if it does look like it from those episodes.
    • All of the criticism just shows that Disney outright missed the point of how the original show tackled racial issues.
14. Overall, these episodes permanently destroyed the reputation of the reboot, as most people now wrongfully think that the entire show is "woke" due to poor execution of the topics, and Juneteenth was also an abysmal way to end season 2.

Redeeming Qualities

1. The concept of tackling racism is very good and it was clear they wanted to remake the same way they tackled racism in the original show. Sadly, the execution was awful.
2. The animation in The End of Innocence is good and the best of these three episodes.
3. The voice acting is good as always.

Reception

The episodes received mixed reviews from critics but were universally panned by audiences. After the release of the episode, the episode and show were review-bombed by the audience, who now consider the entire show "evil", "woke" and "anti-white". These episodes currently hold a 3.7/10, 2.8/10, and 2.1/10 on IMDb, making the latter the lowest-rated episode of the entire show. While most people who are critical of the show were mostly right-wing (and occasionally alt-right) who bashed the episodes and the show with criticism such as how the show is "anti-white" and is "teaching kids to be racist" (when none of those statements are true and even the infamous Fox News is claiming those false statements), people who are neutral made valid complaints, such as the way they tackled racism was rather poor in comparison to the original show, but they acknowledge that this thing only happened in the season 2 finale other parts and that the most show doesn't suffer from that flaw. Despite that, fans are still defensive of the show and rightfully don't think the show is woke. In fact, one of the critics, HenryBean2019, defended these episodes with giving them positive ratings. He even said that the original show was "woke" before "woke" was a thing.

The poor criticism from right-wing people and the poor representation of racism in the aforementioned episodes made this event one of the worst cases of review-bombing in the history of television.

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