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[Ed. note: Joe Mande, stand-up comedian and the creator of the popular blog Look At This Fucking Hipster (soon to be a popular book!) is forced to do things that we don't want to do, for our education and amusement. If you have a challenge/suggestion, submit it to t14tt@videogum.com.]
Like most of the people I know, I have no real idea who Tyler Perry is. I mean, I know he’s a zillionaire and I know he runs some kind of Media Empire making a bunch of self-help Martin Lawrence movies or whatever. But that’s pretty much where my knowledge of Tyler Perry ends. So, last week, when I found out that Tyler Perry was coming to New York City to perform a brand-new live show, Madea’s Big Happy Family, I took one for the team and went. By myself. Yeah, that’s right. I spent over $100 on a ticket and went by myself to a Tyler Perry stage show. Because I’m a journalist (I brought along a notepad) and wanted to get to the bottom of just who this Tyler Perry guy really was. Sadly, after sitting through his three-hour extravaganza, there was one glaring question that I felt needed an answer: “Who the fuck does this Tyler Perry guy think he is?”
Sure, I knew going in that I’m not a target audience member for a Tyler Perry show. This play was not for me. Literally. This play was literally not intended for me. I get that. But, J-WOWW was I confused the entire time.
This is how I looked going in to the show:
And this is how I looked when I left:
Here’s the Cliff’s Notes version of the story:
The play starts off inside a hospital, where we meet Shirley and her friend (or maybe her sister?) Aunt Bam. The two women sit around in an examination room, telling gay jokes, waiting for a doctor. In walks the doctor, a young muscular man who is immediately sexually harassed by Aunt Bam. She is told to leave. The doctor sits down and tells Shirley her cancer is back and will kill her in 4-6 weeks. Shirley takes the news well because she’s ready to go to Heaven. Outside the hospital, Shirley catches Aunt Bam smoking a joint. They laugh. Shirley tells Aunt Bam she will die in a few weeks from cancer. They sing a gospel song. Shirley tells Aunt Bam that they need to get the whole family together so she can tell her kids that the cancer that none of them ever knew about is back and is fatal this time.
That’s the end of Act One (I guess?).
The stage then rotates, Lazy Susan style, to reveal a cross-section of Shirley’s two-story house (which, coincidentally, has the EXACT same layout as the Huxtable’s house from The Cosby Show). Here we meet Shirley’s daughter Joyce, who is a frumpy middle-aged maid. Aunt Bam makes fun of Joyce because she’s lonely, overly religious, and needs a man. Then Madea enters (to thunderous applause) and the first thing he/she does is break the fourth wall, running up to the front of the stage and yelling at people in the crowd like an insult comic at a roast. “Why are you so late? That’s a dumb hat! This usher looks like George Burns!” At this point I am thinking, “What is going on?”
After a few minutes of this, Madea announces he/she will now enter the scripted scene. Everyone claps. Madea sits down and starts making fun of Joyce for being so lonely and overly religious. We then meet Shirley’s son, who is a reluctant drug dealer. He only deals drugs because his girlfriend has such expensive taste in purses. Madea makes fun of the drug dealer’s girlfriend. Then two more daughters enter the scene. One is loud and bossy and in an unhappy marriage with an auto mechanic. (They have a bad marriage because their gender roles are reversed and she’s dominant while he’s submissive.) The other daughter is mean and selfish because she has a real estate license. Then Shirley’s youngest child comes home from school. He’s seventeen and mentally retarded (i.e. comic relief). He says some stupid things, naturally, and everyone laughs at him. The doorbell rings, and he thinks it’s jingle bells, therefore he thinks it’s Christmas and gets very excited because he’s mentally retarded. Madea slaps him. Everyone laughs, except for me, who is like:
The retarded kid goes to the door and tries looking through the peephole, but he can’t figure out how because his brain doesn’t work right. Finally, he opens the door and it’s Shirley’s brother, who is a crack head (i.e. comic relief). The crack head goes upstairs and starts to steal things because he’s a crack head. Then the drug dealer’s ex-girlfriend, who’s a single mother with paying her way through beauty school, stops by and starts yelling at the drug-dealer about bills. Then Joyce and the Real Estate agent get into a fight about men and crack head teaches the mechanic the right way to choke a woman. Then Madea starts singing the “Pants On the Ground” song and shakes a baby because it’s ugly. Then he/she accidentally tells the retarded kid that the Real Estate agent is his biological mother, not Shirley. That makes things awkward, and people start leaving the house. Madea pulls a gun out on the mechanic because her car won’t start (i.e. comic relief). The next day, the retarded kid tells Shirley he forgives her for lying to him his whole life. He sings a gospel song. Then the doctor stops by the house to ask Joyce out on a date. Joyce says no. Aunt Bam sexually harasses him. Then Joyce says yes. The doctor leaves and the drug-dealer’s ex-girlfriend gives Joyce a makeover and it turns out she has really big boobs. Aunt Bam tells Joyce how much the doctor will like her big boobs. Then Aunt Bam accidentally tells Joyce that her mother only has a few weeks to live. Joyce runs upstairs and sings a gospel song. After that, the doctor stops by to pick Joyce up for their date. But when he arrives he tells her he’s not there to pick her up on a date, but to pick her up and take her to the hospital because there has been an accident and her mother is about to die of cancer (which is how doctors do things). The stage rotates back to the hospital scene. After a couple minutes Shirley dies. Everyone cries and the doctor covers Shirley’s face with a sheet. Then, like a magic trick, Shirley appears a few seconds later on the other side of the stage wearing a white robe. She sings a gospel song about heaven. Then there’s a video montage of Shirley growing wings and flying into heaven. And when I saw this I was like:
But when I realized no one else was laughing, I was like:
And that’s the end of Act Two.
Act Three starts back inside Shirley’s living room. It’s right after the funeral and everyone is sitting around wearing black, mourning. This is the part of the play where Madea goes “off-script” and starts yelling at all the characters off the top of his/her head. He/she is like, “You need to stop dealing drugs and start a business. You need to stop yelling at your husband. You need to start yelling at your wife. The only reason you’re retarded is because your mom was raped by her father and no one wants to talk about it. And I’m mad about the mortgage crisis, and Haiti, and why can’t kids respect their elders?” Everyone claps. After that, the show just turns into a giant sing-along for the next 45 minutes, with each character singing his or her own rendition of a Lenny Williams, Rose Royce, or Luther Vandross song. Then, for closure, Madea chokes the drug-dealer’s girlfriend, the Real Estate agent apologizes to everyone for her behavior ever since she was raped, and the mechanic husband learns how to yell angrily at his wife in order to fix their marriage.
Then during the curtain call, Tyler Perry comes out (wearing men’s clothes) and gets a standing ovation. He grabs a microphone and tells everyone in the 5000-seat theater to sit down. He then delivers a thirty-minute advertsermon. He says he wrote Madea’s Big Happy Family in honor of his mother, who died in December. (As in December 2009. As in just over a month ago.) Then he says people have to stop getting diabetes so much. Then he says he’s going to donate a million dollars to Haiti. Then he says that his cable show House of Payne just wrapped its 172nd episode in just under a year and a half on the air. Then he informs everyone that it took shows like Seinfeld and Cheers eight years to accomplish the same feat. Then he tells everyone to go see his new movie Why Did I Get Married Too? on opening night, because in show business that’s the only day that matters.
The end.
Now look, this is sort of a delicate thing to talk about. If you like Tyler Perry and you choose to spend your time and money on the work of Tyler Perry, that’s great. There’s nothing wrong with that at all. People like what they like! For example, I love Albert Brooks movies. But if someone told me they don’t get Albert Brooks movies, I’d say, “Fair enough.” So, in no way do I mean to criticize or offend anyone who is a fan of Tyler Perry. Play on, playas. But, I want to say two things to Tyler Perry.
1. YIKES!
And 2. WHAT THE FUCK IS THE RUSH?
Are you serious? Your mom died in December? Are you okay? Is this a cry for help? Because I’m sorry. And also can I have my $100 dollars back? Don’t you think that maybe you should have written a second draft of this play in honor of you mother too? Because it was reeeeeally slapdash. Like, sorry if this is nitpicky, but how is a woman getting raped by her father causing her to have a retarded baby a throwaway line? That’s nuts. Also, if you’re going to end your show with a giant R&B sing-along, how about you don’t sing along to the EXACT same songs that Steve Harvey sang along to in The Original Kings of Comedy? There are so many other songs! Choose other songs! Also, I think it’s great you are donating a million dollars to Haiti. That’s a lot of money. But you know if you charge $100 a ticket for a 5000 seat theater, you get half a million dollars, right? And if you do six such shows over the course of a weekend, you get three million dollars, right? So, how about you donate, I don’t know, three million dollars to Haiti? That seems like nice thing for a zillionaire to do. Especially a zillionaire who just made three million dollars in one weekend from a play he wrote the week before Christmas. You could even pretend it’s just a down payment on another PRIVATE ISLAND THAT YOU OWN. Also, how about you let the staff of House of Payne out of their box and them see their families? 172 episodes in a year and half? Are you serious? That’s not something to brag about, dude. That’s something you should go to jail about. Go to jail, Madea! Real jail. And I’ll totally go see your next movie opening night, if that movie is Tyler Perry’s Why Am I Not So So So So So Ashamed of Myself?
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A+++.
That is almost an exact recap of last night’s LOST episode, as I remember it.
The lengths you go to, Joe, to entertain us. God bless you. *Gospel Song*
No way! I sang a gospel song too!
I don’t get Madea either. Madea goes to Jail was not a funny movie…it was a serious movie with this crazy/dumb Madea subplot and it was terrible.
but maybe it’s all about the money. and the private islands. and is the black exploitation? i don’t know. i’m not black.
I am black and I don’t get Madea.
I have a picture of a black person in my wallet, and I don’t get Madea.
I forgot that Tyler Perry is black and I don’t get Madea.
well, my white canadian mother-in-law LOVES her…and Tyler Perry is very succesful and popular so there must be something there. I just don’t know where it is. (apparently no one does?)
okay… let’s start from the beginning…
I appreciate the disclaimer that’s been used because you don’t know about Tyler Perry and just don’t “get” him… so… why not ask first?
For someone, like myself, who has followed Tyler Perry’s plays and movies since the late 90’s, I can very easily explain certain concepts that you truly do not understand and even possibly equate them to your own family relavance…
But before I do that… let me first clear up this misconception… Tyler Perry does NOT set the prices for the venues… the venues do! 10 years ago, Tyler Perry would bring his plays (nicknamed chitterling circuit shows) to venues and the price was very reasonable (damn near cheap)… Once Tyler’s plays and movies and tv shows starting doing well and capturing mainstream audiences, the venues decided to capitalize on it. I used to go see Madea’s plays when they were in New York and never paid more than $60 for the seat… NOW, it’s not even at the Beacon Theater (for space issues), it’s at MADISON SQUARE GARDEN WAMU THEATER and they are charging over $100 per ticket for the REAR SEATING!!! $400 for FRONT SEATS! What the hell?!?!??! That’s not Tyler… his price is his price… and I can tell you that he is coming to CT and the tickets are half the price here that they are in New York… is Tyler’s price changing? NO! So, it’s the venue not the artist….
Back to Tyler Perry/Madea…. For those that haven’t grown up in a family oriented setting where you have grandparents and aunts and uncles and brothers, sisters and cousins that could be into any and everything… then, you won’t get it…. Yes, Tyler tries to use comedy to get through some of his points, but his stories are always about forgiveness… He has done shows on divorces, on parents/spouses with alzheimers, on almost every situation that HE has been through or has had family go through…. I’m sorry you don’t “get it”… but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a base to the storylines and a population he reaches…. and no, it’s not just black folks… If you really want to learn more… go to his website and read the comments from people that CAN RELATE to the scenarios he presents… that have been through similar situations… If you have been so blessed not to have gone through it, then you won’t get it… but if you’ve ever had any type of trouble or pain in your life like he presents… not only can you relate, but you may also find a way to cope with your life even more……
I hope that helps you understand a little more…………..and if not….. then it’s just not meant for you.
I think that Tyler Perry is a Genius. He touch on ALL aspects of life. I don’t know about yours or anybody elses family, but I know my family and probably every family in the world has one of Tyler Perry’s created Character. Attic, prositute, mixed marriages,fatherless child, motherless child, irrating next door neigbor with ashy knees,uppity, racist, last but not Big Mamma. Now my white brothers and sisters if you don’t know what a big mama is, then allow me to introduce you. Madea is a tipical 1960’s and 70’s big mama. She keeps the whole family in line. No one is to big or to small for a big mama A_ _ Wuppin. Yeah I said it Wuppin not whipping. If you can walk and talk you not to big or to small. A lot of us Bishops congressmen,women, lawyers Doctors, Professors, etc. that are Negro had a big mama. Big mama would love you, lift you up and make you feel good about yourself and tare you a new A__ hole at the same time. That is why everybody respected big mama. Madea. If you don’t get it, that’s becasue you can’t relate so in that case you have just learned something about the black cultural. Welcome to our world.
thank you well written.
Madea Goes To Jail the movie was “AWESOME!” and madea is not dumb!!!! thank god she not a real person other wise she would have slapped the taste out of anyone who says that! it was a well put together movie!
Amen californiasun. =]
I thought it was serious and funny, and I LOVE Madea. I love how all of Tyler Perry’s work is so powerful but he still manages to throw some humor in it. It’s all enjoyable and the hours pass when I watch Tyler Perry stuff. It’s just a shame that some people aren’t able to feel the same experience and/or understand the messages.
OHmg I really thought you photoshopped this to fit what Joe wrote about, but as I read on, with a creeping horror I realized that this is a thing that exists in reality.
Thanks I feel old.
so…what you are saying is that you didn’t enjoy the show?
172 episodes in 18 months? That sounds like something a crazy person who is performing feces puppet re-enactments of Dr. Who episodes on his handi-cam in an effort to convince Carla Bruni to marry him would do… How many days a week does that show air?
Feces puppet gospel song
Been done and it “airs” every time there’s a concert at the Hollywood Bowl:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C70CBfwhUPY&feature=related
The wonderful thing about Tyler Perry’s House of Payne is that you don’t have to be an actor to be on the show! No, literally, open casting call for it literally means “If you’ve seen a Tyler Perry movie, come on down and try out!”
I think we all know what the next T14TT should be, then.
When I’ve asked people I know who like Tyler Perry why they like Tyler Perry they are always just like “Why not?” And when I saw Tyler Perry on 60 Minutes or whatever a couple months ago he pretty much said that if you don’t like him too bad, he has a million billion dollars that says your opinion doesn’t matter. I think its just one of those things I learned to let go. He is awful, lazy, unfunny, and panders to every stereotype in the book but dude has fuck you money and fuck you fans so game over.
How successful (moneyed) someone is in popular culture shouldn’t inoculate them from levelheaded criticism.
Madea bothers me. A ?tell-it-like-it-is? grandma who’s homophobic, misogynistic, anti-feminist, and physically/emotionally violent? All reasonable traits for a fictional character, and I’m sure a lot of us have racist/ideologically-disturbing grandparents (who we love), but why is Madea an effective agent for positive change? We might laugh at our grandparents when they say baldly racist things because they grew up in different times from our own, and it’s hard to challenge old, culturally reinforced beliefs. But Madea isn’t being laughed at. She’s being laughed with. Madea ?tells it like it is,? a cliché ideological nightmares (Tyler Perry) like to hide behind because it gives the illusion of ideological neutrality: I tell you what others won’t (i.e., the truth)! But Madea doesn’t tell it like it is. She tells it like she thinks it is (truthiness), a subtle difference with big consequences. This means Madea can degrade retarded people, gays, women (?It’s OK because Madea is a woman!? –Tyler Perry, a man, playing Madea), etc, and phrase these degradations as ideology-neutral wisdom. And that these degradations come from one person, Tyler Perry, dragged out and made up, bothers me. That said, cultural critiques of Tyler Perrys and Jeff Dunhams won’t stop them from getting richer, more private islands-er, and promulgating their scary beliefs. Scary beliefs sell, I guess, because lots of people have scary beliefs.
But shouldn’t we call people on scary beliefs? Futilitygum?
Sounds like you are forgetting Worthington’s Law
Granted, I have not had the fortitude to bear witness to any “Tyler Perry’s _______”, but this is about what I expected. And also, Yikes!
Geez Louise. RELAX, Tyler Perry! I’m pretty certain the people on your payroll would be perfectly happy if they got a day or two off work every once in a while.
Joe Mande has a picture of Tyler Perry in his wallet.
tyler perry has a picture of joe mande in his wallet. He takes it out sometimes when he is sitting alone on his island and thinks “thanks for the hundo”
My head just about exploded with laughter from “Then he says people have to stop getting diabetes so much.” I am seriously so glad that I’m not in public right now.
i guess the best (worst?) thing about being your own producer is that there’s no such thing as a redlight.
OMG! He’s 6′4″! And dressed in drag! LOLZ!!!111!!!!
I think its really sad how you could sit there and laugh at the part where she was an angel going to heaven…what is funny about that? Tyler Perry went through something similar its so people feel better about a family member dying but thats just terrible how you could sit there and laugh smh and about you saying he’s dressed in drag. He is a real man and he will do any and everything to provide for his family im sorry if you think thats ‘Gay’ or whatever but hes far from that hes a real man trying to care for his family. That play was wonderful i think it was his best one. You people must not have lived because his plays are about real things that happen everyday and you guys ‘dont get him’ WTF smh Madea is a way to get through peoples heads to make you understand this review was terrible i feel bad for that guy i hope one day you will realize the messages he gave through this play.
When people tell me they don’t like Albert Brooks movies, I say, “No no no no no, ‘The Scout,’ ‘Mother,’ The Muse,’ and ‘Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World’ don’t count! He used to make good ones! I swear!”
Otherwise, top-notch T14TT.
He didn’t direct The Scout though…and it’s not that bad, for the record. Especially for something originally intended as a Rodney Dangerfield vehicle. But Mother is very, very good. The others, not so much.
Ernest Writes a Minstrel Show
Upvoted so hard.
I guess you could call this T14TT “Joe Mande’s ‘I Can Do Bad All By Myself.’”
Wow, when my family told me I was the product of incest it took me waaaaay longer than a month to write my play about it…..mostly because I’m retarded.
RACIST!
Christ, people. Isn’t it high time we white people stopped scoffing at the Madea comedies, and started understanding them, then stealing them, like we did to Jazz?
This was a funny post, but when I think of the phrase “taking one for the team,” my first thought is “having sex with an unattractive person.” My very next thought is “hanging out with Juggalos.” Never would I think of “going to a terrible stage play.” So? Find some Juggalos and get Juggy with it, already. Feed the monsters what they want!
I once saw a Tyler Perry play starring Coco from SWV, Babyface’s little brother, and the second-shortest girl in En Vogue. It was about a retired successful football player who works in a post office for fun. It was both awesome and also the worst. And Tyler Perry took me right out of Star Trek twice and for that, he should go to real jail.
Joe’s Dad?
My Dad: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8Sk0cvfNZ4
May you and your dad win all the Oscars, sir. All the Oscars.
(that is meant sincerely, in case it sounds like i am a jerk.)
tl:dr
Black Culture:1
Joe: 0
A thing I just learned from Madea’s wikipedia page:
She will argue with anyone, frequently threatens people by pulling a gun out of her purse, and is known for her unique pronunciation and enunciation of words as reflected in her tag lines, “I oughta punch chur in da face!” and “Get that man a hat!”
Full Disclosure: I am white and a percentage of me is a penis*. And I have only limited exposure to Tyler Perry, BUT: I really really really really need to start seeing examples of non-white / non-mostly-males-in-the-writing-room comedy that is intelligent and rises above this lazy stereotype reinforcement, because it’s basically making me racist.
Who is the non-lazy, thoughtful version of Tyler Perry or George Lopez? (alternate version of this question: Who is the spiritual successor to what Richard Pryor was doing, and where is the audience for that person?)
* 70%
I’m pretty sure Chris Rock always does what you’re asking for.
Agreed. I guess I was thinking more of Pryor’s appearances on “Actual TV” than stand-up, like the episode from the first season Saturday Night Live he hosted or his 4-episode show from around that time (so “Dave Chappelle” is the answer I was looking for, I suppose).
But I guess what I really want is Greg Daniels to create a show around Wyatt Cenac and then get out of the way..
But, like, Good Hair, or even Everybody Hates Chris. That should count.
john leguizamo has made a few smaller, thoughtful projects about latino culture (as well as turrrble stuff but how do you think he funds the side projects?)
Leguizamo and Rock are good examples. also, can we still count Dave Chappelle? can we count Donald Glover yet?
*slow clap*
Sounds like Tyler Perry is trying to go EGOTS in 2010!!!
I like your sweater.
Madea is like Snookie for black folks.
‘What will he call his own private isle? “It won’t be Tyler Perry’s Island!” he laughs. “I’m so sick of seeing Tyler Perry all over everywhere!”‘
So true TP
Private Islands are the new hangars full of expensive cars.
And this play seemed harder to follow then JAY LENO (topical zing)
Is it possible to upvote an entire post?
I don’t think a lot mainstream (white) audiences are aware that Tyler came up doing plays, and first got superfuckingrich from the VHS sales of the recorded performances. I witnessed it firsthand.
my dad use to make bootleg movies, and in those days (THOSE DAYS!) you had to manually play a tape in a dualdeck VCR and have a blank tape in the other side, recording it. I don’t know if that’s a clear explanation, but pretty much at all times of the day there were three movies playing on separate TVs all over the house. So I saw a lot of movies. A lot of times.
And when the play version of Diary of a Mad Black Woman caught fire around 2002, it was aaaall Madea aaaall the time in my house. I would get home from school, and a young’n would be attempting to lie to Madea about how that bruise got on her eye (spoiler: the husband did it — “girl, you ran into a shelf? Was it movin’?!”). I’d finish my homework and go into the front room and Brown would be pop-locking and snapping his suspenders. Or Madea would be chasing that one Bitch With the Bad Attitude That Nobody Likes and Isn’t Treating Her Man Right out of the house, pistol in hand, as the crowd erupted in thunderous applause (“peace be still…” *takes gun out of purse* “piece be steel”).
I was thrilled freshman year when the film version of Diary of a Mad Black Woman opened to huge success. I never got the chance to see the actual film. As I got older, I actively avoided his work and to this day have never seen a Perry film (though Why Did I Get Married Too looks super intense. sry guys.). And don’t feel I need to. I saw about 30 minutes of DoaMBW on TBS a couple years ago, wherein which the Cheating Asshole Lawyer Husband cheated, and then was an asshole to his wife, and then got shot in a courtroom by his angry client or something, and then was paralyzed, and then then the wife tortured his Cheating Paralyzed ass for bigtime yukyuks.
And we (“we”) all know it. His core black fan base that is. We know Tyler is pandering. We know he’s a union buster. That’s horrible, he’s horrible. But he’s our union buster. We built him from the ground him, not some studio. His representations of black people may often be basic and insulting and reinforce stereotypes. But at least we’re there. And more importantly he can use his power to open doors for other, more creative black films and filmmakers. Like when he became an executive producer on Precious and helped a great film reach a much wider audience. And also who the fuck else is going to give Lou Gossett Jr a job?
What I’m saying is, I spent the entirety of this post nodding and going “yep. that’s Ty.” And so shall it ever be.
whoa. I thought this post was from today. how did I even wind up on a post from a month and a half ago? oy.
This is the most retarded stuff I have ever read in my life! If he was white u would have no problem but since he is black, God bless your little ignorant souls!!!!!!
Ok I gotta bone to pick with, ok who the hell do you think you are, you didn’t have to begin this article or whateva the hell this is like that. The only reason y u didn’t get it is because u weren’t paying attention and don’t know your facts, yes if a family member has sex with another one, it can be the cause of a special needs child, it wasn’t a throw away line. And another thing, what makes you think tyler was being homophobic, I seen the show and I didn’t fill like he was being mean in the beginning, you’re supposed to laugh. Get you facts straight, Madea didn’t reveal that the retarded kid, Donnie wasn’t the shirleys’, Aunt bam did, so get that straight, and tyler only had 1 song from the damn kings of comedy, not every single song, get that straight, and aint nobody ask u to pay 100 dollars for the ticket, that was your stupidity, I paid 40 for mines, you need to go to the show again and pay attention and then maybe you’ll understand better, because obviously u wasn’t. And another thing why would you laugh in that death scene, that was rude, and if u were sitting next to me I really would’ve punched you real talk.