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Tyler Perry has a Stalker!

April 17th, 2008 by Scott Marks

tyler-perry.jpg

Judging by the simple-minded nature of his films, I’m surprised that Tyler Perry attracts an audience let alone a stalker. According to his website, the cross-dressing comedian behind such lucrative drivel as Diary of a Mad Black Woman and Meet the Browns is being hounded by an over zealous enthusiast.

Mr. Perry writes, “I’m trying to be careful how I say this without inciting this person, but I have a stalker. This person sends several hundred emails a day to my office and has planned our wedding and bought rings and such. She has showed up at my house several times. What’s crazy is I’ve never met this woman nor have I even responded to her emails. I’ve had to increase the guards at my house as well as travel with body guards and I hate that. I hate to have big guys following me around. Anyway I’ll try to keep this positive. Let me breathe…”

What with all the black guys dressing up as fat women, surely the stalker would be better off pursuing genuine talents like Eddie Murphy or Martin Lawrence.

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Filed Under News

DIARY OF A MAD BLACK WOMAN / Darren Grant (2005)

February 9th, 2005 by Scott Marks

DIARY OF A MAD BLACK WOMAN (2005)

Diary of a Mad Black Woman (2005)

Directed by: Darren Grant

Written by: Tyler Perry

Cast: Kimberly Elise, Steve Harris, Shemar Moore, Tamara Taylor, Lisa Marcos, Tiffany Evans, Cicely Tyson, Tyler Perry, Terrell Carter, Carol Mitchell-leon, Avery Knight, Vickie Eng,Gary Anthony Sturgis, Bart Hansard, Chandra Currelley-Young

Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1

Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

What is it with contemporary black male comics who feel the need to don layers of makeup and padding to play obese women? The list is mushrooming: Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence, Oprah.

Following in the footsteps of Murphy and Lawrence tramples playwright Tyler Perry. After a couple of his works were transformed into direct-to-video releases, Perry now brings his drag character Medea to the big screen. Was anyone aside from Perry’s mother clamoring for the cinematic unveiling?

The statute of limitations on drag comedy ran out somewhere between Milton Berle’s Texaco Theater and Mel Brooks’ Roger Debris in the film version of The Producers. If only fat guys parading in drag was the film’s only drawback.

On the occasion of their twentieth anniversary, Charles McCarter (Steve Harris) decides to coldly gift his wife Helen (Kimberly Elise) with a divorce. Before the credits end we’re led to expect an old fashioned potboiler complete with a soon to be ex-wife being dragged across the marble floor before hitting the curb. Isn’t this supposed to be a comedy?

Charles’ emotional abuse should have resulted in Helen pulling a Farrah and setting him ablaze, but that’s not what Jesus would do. According to the film, even if your spouse beats and cheats or consumes enough drugs to deteriorate your family, it is your sworn duty to God to stand by them.

The story is nothing if not ambitious. Aside from the marital melodrama we have the all-too familiar look-what-drugs-can-do-to-a-family scenes, a courtroom drama, a musical number, crude sexual comedy, the blush of new love, and an Act III miracle.

There’s even a sadistic nod to Baby Jane brutality that, according to the screening audience, was played strictly for laughs. For the first hour the sheer audaciousness on the part of the filmmakers to throw every cliché at you is acceptable in a first-film manner.

After about the third reel Jesus is brought into play and its not long before the film sinks under the weight of its mixed messages. When Helen is confronted by Orlando (Shemar Moore), the most perfect environment of man either black or white to hit the screen in ages, she must first finish getting even with Charles before she can join Mr. Right in eternal happiness. Was it the book of Matthew or Leviticus that preached the benefits of mentally torturing a man in a wheelchair to enact revenge?

Even before the ham-fisted climax where a cripple walks and a drug addict is instantly rehabbed, the film was on a downward spiral. Perry’s latex tonnage and cartoon characterizations take away from Elyse’s emotional transformation.

The prosthetics are an unwelcome distraction that cushions the filmmaker’s anxiety over addressing the more substantial material. It will play, but only if the material is interrupted every ten minutes by flabby comic relief. It’s refreshing to see a pot smoking senior go unpunished, but in this context the hypocrisy was laughable.

Cicely Tyson, that symbol of empowered black women everywhere, is on board to add credibility. She went from starring in Sounder and The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman to winking out Viagra and fart jokes. The last time Ms. Tyson appeared in a theatrical feature was the equally dreadful Hoodlum in 1997. This is the vehicle she chose to make a big screen return. While she doesn’t embarrass herself, this uncomfortable blend of boorish yuks and Bible-thumping is far beneath her talents.

Most distressing of all is watching a group of African Americans basically echoing and endorsing Bush’s ungodly use of God as a tonic. Given all the strides society has made in the past ten years on behalf of emotionally and physically abused women, the rationale behind this forgive-and-forget mindset escapes me. What would Oprah say?

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Filed Under Reviews, Theatrical