Art & Creativity Quote by Aaron McGruder

McGruder nails a cheap trick that works precisely because it feels beneath notice: the news doesn’t just report urgency, it manufactures it with the same sonic grammar as a thriller trailer. “Dramatic theme music” is doing the real work here, a cue that bypasses deliberation and goes straight for the nervous system. You don’t evaluate the story; you brace for impact. The line “they scare you into watching” is a blunt accusation, but it’s also an admission about the medium: attention is the currency, fear is the easiest way to mint it.

The intent is less “media bad” than “media theatrical.” McGruder, as the mind behind The Boondocks, has always treated American institutions as performance machines - politics, policing, celebrity, and especially TV news, where tone can outrank truth. His phrasing implicates a whole production pipeline: editors selecting footage, producers choosing pacing, anchors modulating concern, composers and soundbeds “sweetening” the package. The result is importance as an aesthetic, not a judgment.

The subtext is that viewers are being trained. If every segment arrives scored like a crisis, the public’s baseline for normal gets distorted; calm becomes suspicious, nuance becomes boring, and policy turns into episodic dread. McGruder’s cynicism lands because it’s observational, not theoretical: you can hear the sting operation in your head. He’s pointing at a manipulation so standardized it passes as professionalism, and asking why we keep mistaking adrenaline for information.