This morning I received an email telling me: “You have got to see Tyler Perry’s Madea looks for OWN in The Color Purple. This is so funny!!!”
The email came from Tyler Perry himself, so I figured it must be true. After all, Tyler Perry has never steered me wrong on comedy before, especially as it relates to the comedy of Tyler Perry. Why should this be any different? I mean a MAN, dressed as a WOMAN? Who ever heard of such a thing! Haha, LOL!
Haha, he pronounces it “OWNt!” Okay, serious question: Is Madea pronouncing things OWNt and “good afternoont” a joke based on something that people actually do, or is it just supposed to be funny because Madea did it once a long time ago and now it’s a callback, and it’s pleasing because of familiarity and plays on people’s ability to recognize a pattern and all of that? I’m honestly curious here. The comments section wasn’t much help in answering, but it seems like they liked it.
Tyler Perry’s fans seem to treat him like a pal, to where when he puts out a video like this, and it’s not so much they click on it hoping that it’ll be funny, it’s more like they’re just excited to see their buddy Tyler Perry in a video. It seems like they treat all of Tyler Perry’s stuff less as a cultural product and more as if Uncle Steve got tagged in a hilarious wedding video on Facebook. “Oh look, there’s Steve in a silly hat! Ooh, and there’s Steve with a celebrity! Haha, you go, Steve!”
Look, I know it’s just a dumb video made for people who like dumb videos, but the depth and breadth of Tyler Perry’s appeal is fascinating. We need to try to understand whatever it is he’s doing now before someone uses it to take over the world.