madea s family reunion

Her arrival to lockup and to the multiplex is likely to be met with avid fan fondess and critical trepidation


Were this a bit of Tyler Perry- penned dialogue it might go like this:
Oh no she didn't. Oh yes she did. Oh no she isn't. Oh yes she is.
Come Friday, Perry's big, brassy, faux black grandma heads to the big house. And we don't mean Big Momma's house; that's a different faux black woman portrayed by a different performer.
Yes, Madea is headed to the slammer, the joint, the cooler in "Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail." And her arrival to lockup and to the multiplex is likely to be met with avid fan fondess and critical trepidation.
As popular images go, Madea (and the writer-director-actor's success with his bold creation) tends to vex folk schooled in spotting stereotypes, caricatures, buffoons.
One prominent African-American film director calls Perry's representations of black life the new, old version of blackface — a modern- day minstrel show. Ouch. Others take a more charitable view, still tinged with ambivalence.
Take, for instance, a snowy-night gathering of the Tattered Cover's race-dialogue group at the United Methodist Church in Park Hill. This month's challenge: the vertigo-inducing tango of popular culture and images.
"The thing that has frustrated me so much in our movies these days is black men playing oversized black women," said a soft-spoken member.
"By the time Eddie Murphy came out with 'Norbit,' I was ready to break the theater down.
"Why is that funny?"
Asked by the group's veteran moderator, Harold Fields, if she felt the same way about Tyler Perry's work, she paused. "I do, but I struggle with him," she replied.
"I wonder about intentionality," began another woman sitting in a circle of 45 attendees. "I don't know, for instance, what Tyler Perry is thinking when he's portraying Madea. But one thing I think is that there has been this presence that has been very influential in his life — African-American women that have been strong, positive and quite humorous.