Academics will tell you that "the American suburb and its racial history is realized visually in the act of cultural cooptation embodied through the contemporary stereotype of white, suburban youth subcultures known as the 'wigger,' [who] seize black popular culture to affirm their privileged racial and class position."
The realization of this phenomenon in Huckapoo character P.J. Bardot is so blatant (and, frankly, boring) that I haven't bothered to mention it before, but the image above raises the potentially more interesting issue of P.J. not as coded African but as coded male. P.J., in her white tank top filled out no better (or worse) than that of the young man seated behind her, is clearly "one of the boys." But she is not just any of the boys, she is the one on whom the others -- surrounding her like a pack of wolves -- can safely project their homoerotic desire. No doubt the lad in the foreground with the nervous but excited grin has removed his shirt in front of his mates many times before, but it is only the liberating (if sublminal) force of P.J. Bardot that allows him to finally declare -- literally written on his naked body -- "I Love... Huckapoo."
Obviously this theory has profound implications for any male fan who lusts after the Huckapoo "girls." Not that I know anybody like that.
Oh yeah. I happened to be thinking about this because somebody here points out that P.J.'s shirt appears to say "boy sex." Nice secret code.
