Madea Response

            In Don’t Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings, Tyler Perry utilizes the character of Madea as a vehicle through which to convey comedy—she is openly and admittedly a stock character, a stereotype, whatever you want to call it, representative of a pervasive type of Black grandmother Perry says “used to be on every corner in every neighborhood when [he] was growing up and generations before” (Perry vii). He emphasizes that Medea is not a reflection of his own beliefs, but rather a representation of a universal figure from the past, one who can go further than he can as a character, rather than a real person:

“…Madea has an opportunity to say everything that I [Perry] can’t say because, number one, I’m a man, and women get away with saying things a lot more than a man would…and, number two, she has been around for more than a few decades, so she can get away with stating some opinions I’d be afraid to say. And, number three, she just has a way of putting things…” (Perry viii-ix)

His second point is one of great interest to me: Perry claims that Medea’s views in no way reflect his own—“Madea and I have different, extremely different, ideas about life, raising children, diet…but…we are both very loving and caring people” (Perry ix). Yet, just before on the very same page, Perry expressed appreciation for Madea’s ability to state opinions that he himself would be afraid to. This aspect of Madea, her unapologetically judgmental nature, has always sort of rubbed me the wrong way, no matter its accuracy in reflecting some of the elders in my personal life.

For instance, the chapter entitled “The Bag of Belts” was somewhat of a difficult read for me to get through. In it, Madea sings the praises of “whupping that ass” (Perry 76), which she views as a foolproof way to ensure children grow up to be obedient and respectful. She repeatedly tries to cushion her statements, peppering in statements such as “I don’t believe in child abuse,” but whether this belief is founded on conscience or consequence is up for debate: “The belt is whupping. The buckle is abuse. If you use the buckle, nowadays, children will call 911 on you. So be careful” (Perry 79). While I did take issue with certain sections of the book, I have still found others to be humorous thus far, and I hope to be pleasantly surprised in our reading for Wednesday.