1. It’s Making Us Dumber!

A personal pet peeve, but the title character is called Madea. Don’t confuse her with Medea, tragic heroine of Greek drama. I am generally against things that make us dumber, and the thought that tweens today will grow up with THIS as their first impression of Me(a?)dea makes me vomit a little. I hear that Madea is maybe a common name for your grandmother in the South, but still. Is our children learning, people?

2 It’s a Crap Factory! Seriously. A Machine That Cranks Out Crap.

There have been 8 of these movies since 2002. That math alone doesn’t really indicate a quality product so much as an assembly line. The title progression smacks of a children’s book series, along the lines of The Berenstein Bears, Sweet Valley Twins/High, etc. With “Diary of a Mad Black Woman” the franchise was born, to be followed up with “Madea’s Family Reunion,” ”Meet the Browns,” and some other ones I can’t be bothered to look up. Next up, ‘Tyler Perry’s Madea and Too Much Birthday!” and “Madea and No Boys Allowed!” No, no, the latest release, currently in theaters and beating the JONAS BROTHERS MOVIE IN TICKET SALES is ‘Madea Goes to Jail’, and I hear ‘Madea’s Class Reunion’ is in the pipeline. You know why those book series have such simplistic and obvious titles? Because they are FOR CHILDREN, who fall in love with an easy to understand character, and for their parents who want to know exactly what it’s about before they open their wallets.

3. Being Popular Doesn’t Make It GOOD.

I am not of the opinion that popular movies cannot also be ‘good’ movies. It doesn’t all have to be German nouveau-noir puppet theater to be artistic. But by all outward appearances, these are bad, formulaic movies, based on the premise (already well-covered by Eddie Murphy, btw) that it’s funny to see a man dressed up as a fat woman. OMG, it’s a man! In laaaaaady clothes! And a fat suit! HAHAHA! What’s that you say, that other fat or old character in the movie is also played by the SAME MAN?! Unbelievable! I must see it again!

PLEASE. When the first Madea movie came out, it was panned as a stupid but popular piece of crap, along the lines of, say, American Pie. You know the type: critics hated it, but everyone you know has seen it and probably still quotes it from time to time. I wish that, like the American Pie franchise, Madea had died a slow, shameful box office death around the third installment, when producers realized that they had stretched one and a half movie’s worth of material over three full-length features. But noooo. We, as a people, are keeping it alive. By throwing our money at it.

4. We’re Not Stupid!

I really don’t buy the claim that Mr. Perry is tapping into the humor of the black community, and so I, as a white girl, just don’t get it, and of course won’t find it funny. Seriously? I admitted to American Pie, that was some shi**y white boy humor, and that didn’t make it secretly a good movie that certain demographics just couldn’t appreciate. Well-crafted humor isn’t entirely universal, but it’s pretty close, and if something is well done, you can at least appreciate that fact, even if you don’t personally laugh out loud at it. So don’t give me that garbage. I get it enough to know that it’s unoriginal and dumb, and that’s plenty.

5. In Conclusion! Tyler Perry is an Evil Genius!

I’ve got nothing against Tyler Perry personally. Madea was once upon a time a really funny character, and he is clearly a very, very smart businessman. He’s taken an already recycled idea, re-packaged it with some sort of hit-you-over-the-head moralism thrown in (I hear his films take an obvious stand against battering women. Well done.), and released it eight times, making a pile of cash in doing so. His power is growing too great. It seems that production companies will release anything with his name slapped on the front, and so, he must be stopped. I beg of you, critics and paying audience alike. Stop. Him. Before “Tyler Perry’s Song of Solomon” hits theaters.