The hills are alive with the sound of ‘helerr’ – now that Tyler Perry’s latest film “Madea’s Big Happy Family” is in theaters. These days, I’m wishing Madea would take some of her own advice and “shut the hell up” because the way I feel now, using Madea’s own caustic words: “I don’t like you.”
For those of you unfamiliar with the Tyler Perry phenomenon, let me brief you a bit. Perry got his start as a playwright in the 90s, persisting to write, direct and produce stage plays featuring themes centered around the importance of family, messages about forgiveness and realizations of self-esteem while emerging from adversity. Sounds admirable, doesn’t it? At least for now…
2001 was when the world met Madea, a character featuring Perry in drag who stands as a large, wild, gun-toting grandmother oozing with sass, Biblical misnomers including “Blessed are the peacemakers … blessed are Smith and Wesson” and random spurts of traditional wisdom via relationship advice or insight on handling personal conflicts – and gunslinging.
Plays like “Diary of a Mad Black Woman” and “Madea Goes to Jail” have since been adapted for the silver screen, grossing millions and garnering a large following despite poor reviews from critics for poor production value and perpetuating negative stereotypes of African Americans.
Among them is filmmaker Spike Lee, who went as far to call Perry’s work “buffoonery” while expressing his concern that imaging of Blacks in the media produced by Perry is setting us back from progress. Other critics panned Perry’s adaptation of “For Colored Girls” for how it demonized Black men as cheaters, addicts, abusers of women and feeding perceptions that HIV is primarily an issue in the Black community because of men on the “down low.”
But the sad thing is that Tyler Perry can’t offer a sound answer to his critics. In a recent interview with HipHollywood.com, he answers Spike Lee’s ongoing criticism by playing a recording of Madea saying, “I will punch the hell out of you, say something else.” Perry later claims that “I’ve never seen Jewish people complaining about ‘Seinfeld,’ I’ve never seen Italian people complain about ‘The Sopranos,’ it’s only us as Negroes that do this to each other.”
But this isn’t true because other media works have had their fair share of criticism from groups finding the material demeaning. “Jersey Shore,” although widely popular, has received criticism from Italian advocacy groups for attempting to “make a direct connection between ‘guido culture’ and Italian-American identity,” with some Italian officials promising to make it difficult for MTV to film the show’s next season in Italy. The Anti-Defamation League, whose misson is rooted in combating anti-Semitism, expressed concerned over Sacha Baron Cohen’s “Borat” film and how it could be misunderstood by audiences who may “… not always be sophisticated enough to get the joke, and that some may even find it reinforcing their bigotry.”
Unfortunately for Perry, the reality is his critics don’t only come from the Black community. Critics from other ethnic backgrounds have publicly voiced similar concerns about his work. I guess in my case, Perry would consider me just another hater of a Negro.
I’m all for laughs and realize that comedy often plays up stereotypes as long as we look at them in a vacuum, realizing they don’t inform or teach us anything about a group of people beyond a simple comedic sketch. But the territory Perry continues to tread has largely become damaging, if my experience seeing “Madea’s Big Happy Family” with my roommate is any indication. My roommate and I are from two different ethnic backgrounds, and even he found the movie deplorable.
If you haven’t seen the movie, you might wish to ignore the next two paragraphs. Consider this my spoiler alert.
Watching the movie on opening weekend, we entered a crowded theater having to scour for seats, not before being graced with the presence of two police officers that remained in the theater for the film’s duration. In the film, we see characters including a bitter wife that constantly berates her husband in front of their children, with the kids behaving unruly and not listening to their father because of it. And what does Madea have to say about this? That a man needs to be a man, put his foot down and put his wife in her place, saying women don’t like a “weak” man. That’s what the husband does in place of a rational conversation.
There’s also baby mama drama between a former drug dealer attempting to make an honest living and his ex-girlfriend, who works in a fast food shack and annoyingly bugs him about ponying up child support money. And, not surprisingly, the Maury show ends up in the mix, with the woman calling her baby’s father out publicly. Throughout the movie, we’re presented with clips of paternity test shows, including a scene where Madea is on the show for a test. If you’ve ever seen a Maury paternity test show, you know it’s full of fights, censoring, name-calling and often perpetuate the worst of stereotypes.
I’ll admit to initially finding some of Perry’s earlier films funny, though as time goes on, it gets less comical, more poorly written and increasingly troublesome. Instead of promoting more positive images of the Black community, Perry chooses to continue pandering to the worst of images and stereotypes. It doesn’t help that every other female character is a Black woman suffering domestic abuse, a victim of incestuous molestation or a successful career woman who feels she’s “too good” for anybody, especially for most Black people. For men, we’re constantly presented with emasculated caricatures, gangsters and abusers. Any positive images – where we see things like family values discussed in a constructive manner, portrayals of healthy relationships and successful people contributing positively to their families and communities – are few and far between.
As for me, I’ll be saving any ‘hallelujer’ I’ve got for church instead of sparing my change for another one of Perry’s unruly minstrel shows. Perhaps Cartman from “South Park” can teach us a lesson on this one from a recent episode: If you stop giving Madea money, maybe she’ll go away – that, or we lock her in a capsule and bury her in cement.
Derrick Clifton is a Communication junior. He can be reached at [email protected]. Illustration by Alice Liu.
