Reprising Ma-Dea

Strong Mother God, working night and day,
Planning all the wonders of creation,
Setting each equation, genius at play;
Hail and Hosanna! Strong mother God!

Warm father God, hugging every child, 
Feeling all the strains of human living,
Caring and forgiving till we’re reconciled;
Hail and hosanna! Warm father God!

Great living God, never fully known,
Joyful darkness far beyond our seeing;
Closer yet than breathing, everlasting home;
Hail and Hosanna! Great living God!
Brian Wren, 1989

One of the most controversial contemporary figures on the American scene, is actor, director, producer, writer and Hollywood Mogul Tyler Perry’s “Madea.” Known in full as Mabel “Madea” Simmons. In one respect, Madea is vindictive in nature, quick to not only stand up for herself, but also get even in a bad way. Madea is willing to threaten the use of deadly weapons; destroy property; use violence; take on the law; and use any and all means necessary to show up an offending party. Perry’s Madea has repeatedly landed herself in court, anger management classes, house arrest, and even prison.

Amazingly, in spite of all the cultural criticism of this character as a “racial stereotype, denigrating our culture, and worse a clear sign that Blacks need to produce more positive stories about black mothers and fathers,” the masses of Black American Africans as well as a sizeable percentage of the rest of the American population, flock to the theaters for “Madea” movies. When Perry has tried to make so-called positive, uplifting films, where he was not only the hero, but a positive role model and uplifting image—films like Alex Cross and Good Deeds, these have been box-office failures.

So how do we reprise Madea? We are using reprise in the sense that it means a return to an original theme. To reprise Madea, we need to ask “What is it about Mabel “Madea” Simmons that draws us, that makes us laugh and cry at the same time?”

We are drawn to Madea because, in the words of her creator Tyler Perry, she represents “Big Momma” and to others “mother dear” or Ma-dea, a positive cultural icon in many Black American families that Perry wants to celebrate in his works. She is and has been a real positive symbol of the tri-generational grandmothers and grandfathers who have had to stand in for defeated, down and out, drug addicted, incarcerated, selfish, self-destructive and narcissistic children, carried away with the so-called “freedom” and willingness to live by the “hustle” or ust be as thoroughly “American” as the rest of the country. That Madea is depicted as loud, prone to violence, and ruthlessly blunt, is, in our minds, overshadowed by her motherly nurturing and occasional use of sass and threats of corporal punishment, to get the intended recipient of the same to behave, to change, to see a different way of being. She is a God figure, presence and archtype of God in the Black American African family.

The average black audience knows these negative depictions are really absurd, untrue and finds more laughter than humiliation in the fact that whatever the exaggerated stereotype, big momma and occasionally big poppa, can always be counted on when all else has failed. The Perry movies are not really focused on Madea, as much as they are the real life dramas and crisis situations, broken relationships and traumas of our families that this God-figure/Big Momma has the efficacy to change and transform for good.

The black audience knows all this already, although much of the white audience unfortunately does not, and accepts this comic relief as truth, having already accepted as fact the pathological stereotypes of black women and black people in general. I would argue that these pathological stereoitypes are neither created nor reinforced by Perry and other Black American African producers, but as he pointed out in an interview, “The majority culture will continue to believe these negative images, no matter what he portrays. As Frantz Fanon wrote three generations ago, these pathological views of Blacks and Black life are forged in the dark distorted collective unconscious of white racists, nurtured in the ideology of white supremacy (Black Skin, White Masks). Until whites and “wanna-be imitation whites” stop running from Blacks, making blacks invisible and start attempting to learn from and interact with Blacks, these will persist.

The theme of Madea as a Black cultural icon of motherhood, exploited for commercial success is well illustrated in Acts 16. Paul and Silas, on their way to the place of prayer in Philippi, encounter a young slave girl who had a gift of divination and brought her owners a great deal of money by fortune-telling.

Contrary to some biblical commentators, there is no evidence she was demon-possessed. The spirit she had was a gift. African people are used to having such gifts and using them for good in the community. The scriptures teach that human beings were given gifts that were taken from fallen angels after Satan was cast down to the ground with the other angelic beings that rebelled against God.

Until we know Christ as savior and Lord, these gifts can be exploited, just as the image of big momma and big poppa can be exploited for negative attacks on the nature and quality of Black American African life.

Because she had this prophetic gift, albeit one not under the control of the Holy Spirit, she cried out repeatedly, “These men are slaves of the most high God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation.” In her unregenerate state, she was focusing the attention on Paul and Silas as messengers, rather than on the message they were presenting. Further, Paul found all her constant crying out to just be plain annoying. “He ordered the spirit out of her in the name of Jesus Christ.” She didn’t experience convulsions or die; she just was no longer a profit to her owners.

No matter how we may protest that the majority culture will embrace racial stereotypes as truth, these negative images will continue as long as they are profitable. The issue for her owners was that they could no longer make a profit, so Paul and Silas were arrested and brought before the officials of the marketplace. In other words, they were dragged before the corporate moguls to answer for this disruption of Philippian commerce.

When the sitcom Good Times was created by black writers Michael Evans (whom we know as the first “Lionel” on the sitcom The Jeffersons, and Eric Monte, the latter of whom we are familiar with as the writer of his own semi-autobiographical story, Coolie High, they created a family living in the Cabrini-Green housing projects of Chicago. Producer Norman Lear could not adjust his and America’s pathological racial stereotypes of “black fatherless families” and “sassy ignorant combative wives-mothers”—such as the vile, outspoken mother portrayed regrettably by the late fine actress, Lynne Thigpen, in movie Lean on Me. This unnecessarily negative and fictional “parent” was portrayed as an angry Black American African parent who antagonized Principle Joe Clark and called in the white authorities on him. Hollywood goes to great lengths to pit Black American African men and women against each other, even adding fictional characters to real life stories to do so.

After a year of fighting against negative depictions of black fatherhood, Evans and Monte were fired as writers of Good Times, John Amos was fired as the father, and Esther Rolle was later fired as the mother as she continued to fight against Norman Lear’s racist pathological depictions and stereotypes in each episode.

The Devil loves pathological stereotypes of black and brown and red mothers. Our communities are already economically and socially at risk, and the promotion of our selves and our people as pathological assures that the people locked in them will never rise and be free from his Satanic grasp. The Devil wants us to accept negative images of ourselves, of our abilities and of others like us, negative stereotypes about what is possible and not possible for us as human beings, even negative beliefs about what is possible for us as children of God, heirs of God who have been set free, made righteous, made wonderful, by the blood of Christ.

The reprised Madea is none other than the image of God, of “our Mother God” in our midst. She is the words of English songwriter Brian Wren. a “strong mother, working night a day, the genius of our creation”--a nurturing mother, who wants to gather us as her children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings. This is the Gospel of the Lord. “Strong mother God—Warm father God, hugging every child, Feeling all the strains of human living, Caring and forgiving till we’re reconciled.” This is the reprised “Madea” we seek, even in the Tyler Perry movies. Though we are somewhat frustrated by the negative stereotypes included as comic relief for commercial success—we keep on going to see who Madea is going to free next, what family she’s going to set on the right course, What crooked politician or greedy developer she is going to outwit, what mother she is going to restore to her children, what children she is going to restore to their mother, what father she is going to beat and browbeat and love into fatherhood in the end.

Yes, the reprised Madea, our Big Momma/Big Daddy is the “great living God, never fully known, Joyful darkness far beyond our seeing; Closer yet than breathing, everlasting home.” Through faith, we reprise Madea, we find our home in her motherhood, in his fatherhood, in our great living God.

Thank you Tyler Perry. God is using you, notwithstanding the demands of the marketplace, and the misguided plantation oriented criticisms of middle and upper class critics and “academics.”

Have a wonderful Mothers' Day celebration.