A Washington Post Article made me write this blog....i did not post the entire article, if you want to read it go to the link...I only wrote some excerpts from it... http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/24/AR2009022403303.html?referrer=emailarticle
What's So Funny About Madea? Nothing.
By Courtland MilloyWednesday, February 25, 2009; B01
By Courtland MilloyWednesday, February 25, 2009; B01
I went to see the Tyler Perry movie "Madea Goes to Jail," in which Perry plays a wise-cracking black grandmother, Madea, short for "Mother Dear" and ebonically pronounced "muh deah."
With an extensive criminal past that includes "supersize stripper," attempted murderer and check fraud artist, Madea is a near-cult figure among many African Americans, especially women. Thanks in large part to them, Perry's comedic creation debuted as the No. 1 movie in America over the weekend, raking in $41 million and 34 percent of the weekend moviegoing audience, according to box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations.
..........with the movie featuring guest appearances by Whoopi Goldberg, Dr. Phil, Judge Mathis and Al Sharpton, perhaps I'd even get in a laugh or two.
Boy, was I wrong -- on both counts.
.....There is nothing funny about this black man in pantyhose. And where is all of this cross-dressing-black-man stuff coming from, anyway? First, comedians Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence star in high-grossing movies as the fattest, ugliest black women that Hollywood makeup artists can conjure up, and now here's Perry with his gussied-up version of the same butt of the joke.
By the way, I don't want to hear diddly about Robin Williams as Mrs. Doubtfire or Milton Berle in high heels. Having a black man play super mammy is not the same thing. Perhaps it would be were it not for America's perverse, systemic and centuries-long efforts to humiliate African men and women and turn them into slaves.
......The only good a Madea movie could possibly do would be to remind us that the scars of oppression are deep and enduring, often operating below the level of consciousness, then breaking out in the most bizarre manifestation of self-hate and self-sabotage, including pathetic images on the big screen.
Of course, Perry's fans don't see it that way. .....
I'm not taking away anything from the 39-year-old Perry's resourcefulness and ingenuity. He pulled himself up by the bootstraps from a low-income household in New Orleans, started writing and putting on stage plays about Madea (supposedly a composite of women in his life) and went on to become one of the most successful filmmakers in America.
He has a beautiful home and his own studios in Atlanta. He hires lots of young black actors and production personnel and makes considerable contributions to worthy causes.
He is awesome.
It's just that his movies are awful.
Here's a typical scene:
Madea's brother, Uncle Joe, also played by Perry, is a crusty old coot who breathes with the aid of an oxygen tank while smoking marijuana throughout the movie (he even wears a bong around his neck). Madea, ever the boss woman, scolds him mercilessly about the dangers of mixing fire and oxygen. And -- here's where the audience howls -- as Madea waddles past, her behind wide as a doorway, Uncle Joe cracks: "King Kong ain't got nothing on her."
How'd you like to see that on a movie marquee: Madea the black woman as King Kong? That's about as funny, say, as a dead monkey cartoon from the New York Post?
....... Sure, all of Perry's fans claim to know someone like Madea. But in truth, we know nothing -- only that she is aging and irrationally angry, existing to clean up everybody's else's mess, a linebacker of a house servant whose unmet emotional needs remain a mystery even to the great Dr. Phil himself. We may laugh at her, but the joke is on us.
HERE IS MY RESPONSE BELOW!!!
I think this article is one sided. I mean, sometimes we have to laugh at ourselves, movies imitate life and life imitates movies at times. Regardless of how we portray ourselves, as educators, thugs, inmates, doctors, lawyers, no matter what we do it's not good enough to change the perception that anybody, white people, or even uppity Negroes have for us. The man is making his money, and there is nothing wrong with that. If white people can make movies as stupid as Pineapple Express (white kids smoking weed all day long), That Zack and somebody make a porno movie (white kids making pornos for money), Step-Brothers (where 30yr old white men, sleep in bunk beds and have fart fighting contests). White people don't complain about that tainting their image or make a big deal out of it. Because they are just movies! There is not one movie out there that doesn't not have a critic/hater finding something negative to say or write about it. Movies are a source of entertainment to make us laugh, cry, etc. If they can do that, we can make a movie that contains many messages not just about an over sized black woman who is blunt with her words. We as a race need to be more positive, for years and years we have been trying to prove ourselves, movies aren't going to do any more damage than what the past has already done for us. No matter if we do positive things or negative things, it won't change people's perceptions of our race, so just laugh about it, keep working hard and do what you do. That won't stop our hard work, it hasn't thus far.
Anyway, the Editor neglected to mention the lady in the movie who helped the prostitutes get off the streets, using religion to help change them, he neglected to mention that the movie contained young blacks who were district attorneys, helping some of our black people get lesser sentences in jail. He failed to neglect that family is portrayed to stick together, and how love can conquer all. So he should makes note of both sides to the story, and not just one. I don't even care for his pity and ending to say, oh but Tyler Perry fought through poverty and yada yada....if so, then find something positive to say about his movies. At least for once we can spend our money on our movies to help our black actors and actresses and not have to go to the movies and see all of the movies with predominately white characters who don't relate to us in ANY WAY. That is how I feel about it. Thanks!
