Photos
During the Academy Awards of 2009, Lindsay Robertson and I picked our favorite nominees, and then we made a bet. Whoever lost the Oscar Pool would have to go to see the latest Tyler Perry movie (and the number one movie in the country) Madea Goes to Jail. I lost that bet because Slumdog Thiefenaire made a mockery of the Best Sound Mixing category. But, fair is fair. My name is my motherfucking name, and my word is my bond. So this Sunday, I went to the movie theater and saw Madea Goes to Jail. By myself.
I wasn’t the only white person in the theater. There was one other white person. But I was definitely the only white person by himself at the theater. Which is fine. Actually, the other white person in the theater was sitting with a friend in the same row as me, which made me strangely uncomfortable. I was only in that row because that’s where the best available seat was, duh, but somehow it felt like we had both gotten the White Gazette that morning and read the instructions about which row white people must sit in at Madea Goes to Jail. Obviously, there’s nothing actually suspicious about two white people sitting in the same row at Madea Goes to Jail, big deal, but, you know, eracism.
There were a couple of other things that made me mildly uncomfortable:
1. My notepad for note taking
2. My snack of a fresh fruit salad
I hid them both until the lights went down. I’m such a fucking lame weirdo.
Anyway, this movie:
Madea Goes to Jail has two storylines. The first storyline is about Madea, who eventually goes to jail. For a long time she does not go to jail, and I thought maybe they made a mistake in naming the movie, but then she does go to jail, and I was like, OK, you named the movie correctly I guess. The other storyline is about a junior prosecutor in the DA’s office who is reunited with a childhood friend who is now a prostitute, and spends most of the movie trying to help her stop being a prostitute despite the fact that helping her is driving a wedge in his relationship with his fiance, another junior prosecutor in the DA’s office.
I had never seen a Tyler Perry movie before, so I didn’t realize how bipolar they are. The Madea storyline was mostly Nutty Professor style comedy, based on how funny it always is (?) to watch men pretend to be fat women, which is about what I expected. But the prostitute-junior prosecutor storyline, which was actually most of the movie, was serious drama. Well, serious-ish. I mean, at a climactic moment when the junior prosecutor is telling a social worker that he feels responsible for his friend being a prostitute because of how in college he unwittingly invited her to a football team gang rape, his tearful confession elicited as much laughter in the crowd as the part where Madea tackled a cop. So it’s hard to tell sometimes.
This movie was pretty terrible…but it wasn’t bad like anything that I had ever seen before. It wasn’t even a movie like anything that I had ever seen before. From the narrative structure to the cinematography, the whole thing was just…different. The closest thing I can compare it to, in all honesty, was watching a foreign film. Or at least a foreign After-School Special. Does this mean I have to go to jail now?
Obviously, I am not the target audience. I don’t find extended cameos from Dr. Phil to be funny, and I don’t find heavy-handed melodramatic moralizing to be touching. All of the writing was pandering and lazy and obvious, and people loved it. Of course, they also loved the trailer for Dance Flick, which played before the movie, so not liking Tyler Perry movies is probably only one of many differences between me and that audience. Not that Tyler Perry needs me to like his movies. Dude is buying a PRIVATE ISLAND. But as condescending and white and post-colonial as this may sound, I did find it interesting. Thank you for letting me observe you in your native habitat, Tyler Perry audience! Your culture is so odd and exotic to me! Just like mine is to you:
Barack Obama 2012. Bye.
 |
 |
You Might Also Like
 Renaming The Academy Awards Venue, Oh No! |  The Videogum Why Don’t YOU Caption It? Contest: The Annual… |  Ryan Gosling’s Dramatic Reaction To His “Oscar Snub”… |  This Week In GIFs! |
My grandparents love the Madea movies. They are white and live in a small farming town.
Okay, SO:
this ad came on before the Eddie Murphy video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdMwTLbboBQ
and i thought that was the actual video you had posted. and was okay with it. like, it sort of made sense? Brahms coming in to gentrify the community’s breakfast tables? I don’t know.
I don’t get it either – but was forced to see it on my grandmother’s birthday this past weekend it because I’m often accused of avoiding my extended family (which is true – mainly because they like to do things like see Tyler Perry movies for fun).
My sister and I ended up sitting in a different row and making our own jokes about Rudy Huxtable playing a prostitute because, HUH???.
but whatev, I’m Black and my family somehow manages to make me feel like a sell-out for not liking this nonsensical foolishness….
Gabe, you’re a brave brave man. there was a white guy in my theatre too – all alone – and old. I’m guessing it had to do with some sort of fetish I’ve never heard of.
or some fetish that I’ve just invented.
I just can’t get behind Tyler Perry, while I think it’s great that films catered to African Americans doing really well are a good thing the movies themselves are just…so bad. He has the clout to make a good product; though it may be a case of Madea being the equivalent of the “summer blockbuster” where the quality doesn’t matter to much because it will make a lot of money anyway.
Sorry for going all Seriousgum for a second there.
I was raised on a houseboat in Spain.
I felt the same way about “Quineanera.” My wife and her family (who are all Mexican) thought it was good, and I thought it was badly-acted crap.
This was supposed to be in response to Darren87. My commenting debut is going about as nicely as I thought.
with a Stains avatar, you can’t go wrong.
signed,
your internet BFF
Well, hopefully that will prove true.
Both my parents were poets, so, I don’t really get it.
Both of my parents were prop comedians, so, watermelon I guess.
That made me laugh. Thank you.
Tyler Perry is to black folks as Robin Williams is to white folks
tyler perry is to black people as eddie murphy is to white people.
tyler perry is two black people.
Not funny?
I wish you could scan in those notes you took on your notepad.
“-Fruit Salad. Embarrassing. Shouldn’t be, but just is.
-Sat in White People Row. Feels wrong. Shouldn’t, but just does.
-This movie. Unlike ANYTHING I have ever seen.”
No but you REALLY like to talk about racism. You are pretty self-consciously white, Gabe. I was actually going to criticize you for the us-versus-them tone of this post, but you kind of preempted that with your “condescending, post-colonial” self-jibe. And then I realized there’s no real good way to talk about this kind of thing if you’re white and/or not used to watching highly targeted, painfully unfunny movies like this one all the time. So I guess…good job with the carefully observant post, as usual. I do think it’s weird that they laughed at the gang-rape thing, I really hope that’s an immature-audience thing and not a racial-divide thing.
I kind of agree though.
I was raised on a covered wagon in the 1840s.
Were you a banker from boston, a carpenter from ohio or a farmer from illinois?
I always felt like Tyler Perry stuff was more appealing to old people who mutter things like “that’s not right” to themselves when they see a boy with an eyebrow ring more than just appealing to black people.
However, if it makes you feel better, I felt very similar when I saw State and Main.
Unwitting invitations to football team gang rapes are the worst invitations to football team gang rapes.
Gabe, you silly negro.
dude, I think that’s hilarious – take a cue from Gwyneth and ‘fuck the haters’ for voting you down.
I HATE TYLER PERRY, BUT I LOVE VIDEOGUM!
Madea sounds like a barrel of laughs.
I feel like this genre of movies are very similar to christian movies, in that they’ll forgive just about anything as far as acting and plot and quality goes just to see someone putting “their message” out there. Even if their message is told by a guy in unconvincing drag.
300 GET
We take it back. Madea seems like a sweet lady.
She is pretty sassy. But at the same time, he’s pretty sassy. My mind is in a knot of confusion!
Tyler Perry is certainly more talented than Quentin Tarantino.
Good job, Grabe
Is it really any weirder or more horrid than Left Behind?
On the other hand, why the hell is it acceptable for men to dress in over-the-top, stereotypical drag? Isn’t that basically a minstrel show?
Drag is always over-the-top and showy. If it’s just a person who is or used to be male wearing ladies’ clothing as part of his or her everyday life, or for sexual gratification, the individual is a transvestite (latter) or transgendered person (former).
But even in this carefully worded reply, there are of course gray areas and exceptions that I ignore.
-Terrible grad student
Strange that the dude that can find something racist in pretty much every movie ever made writes an overtly racist column.
oh now you’re all sanctimoniousgum. oh noes.
This is random, but I just so happened to wander over to Perez Hilton and read this first post he had up, a review of Britney Spears’ concert. It was a “bull-shit free” review despite that fact that he had backstage passes to he concert and starred in the video that opened her circus concert. Long story short, after reading his review and his users’ comments I am SO HAPPY THAT VIDEOGUM IS MY HOME.
Yes, my best friend and I argued over who got to have Gabe as their Valentine this year (please tell me you are single, Gabe) and yes, this is the first thing I read everyday. But I can NEVER, EVER forget how much this site makes me LOL.
I’m sorry pat3537, but IT’S TYLER PERRY!!! The man’s entire body of work is perpetuation of black stereotypes! It’s NOT racist to say, as a white person, that Perry’s “material” is not something that’s easy to relate to, it’s just honesty. Tip-toeing around racially sensitive commentary and trying to pretend that cultural differences don’t exist and “are a thing of the past” is ridiculous and small-minded. Disliking a crappy movie that happens to be wildly popular in the black community doesn’t make you a racist….IT MEANS YOU DON’T LIKE CRAPPY MOVIES!!
I mean have you ever seen House of Payne?!? (I’ve only seen the endless previews for it–which is bad enough), but I imagine House of PAIN is a befitting title….and as Gabe discovered, Tyler Perry really nails it when it comes to nomenclature. duh.
I saw an ad for tryouts for Tyler Perry’s House of Payne sandwiched in a blog.
The small print said “No acting experience necessary”. My first thought was “That is so true.”
Hahaha! SHOCKING!
I’m black and I don’t enjoy those Madea movies that much either… thank goodness Tyler Perry has made a few more other half way decent movies like “Why DID I GET MARRIED” and “THE FAMILY THAT PREYS” … but the irony is that the Madea movies always make a boat load of money… way more than the other ones. That’s why the dude is buying a damn island… TAKE THAT!
Tyler Perry is a shameless 10 Percenter devil and will be punished by Allah.