Post by Return of the Thin Olive Duke on Aug 3, 2016 0:39:15 GMT -5
Why Did I Get Married?
Dir. Tyler Perry
Premiered October 12, 2007
I could never forget the poster. It was raining. I was a high school senior, on my way home, taking some bus up North Lake Avenue when I saw the poster for Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married? on the Villa Street bus stop. Tyler Perry had only been directing for two years, but he’d already developed a reputation among my younger black neighbors and many critics as a didactic, moralizing closet-case exploiting the scarcity of African-American-centric films to make shitty movies. But I wasn’t black, and hadn’t seen any of his films, so I didn’t think it was my place to comment on them.
It was natural for me to give the poster a look: it was new, and the title was a question. But then I began to look closer, and saw the fine print...
“Oh,” I thought. “That’s why you got married.”
I immediately got the hate. Clearly this wasn’t a man to let not seeing the movie get in the way of telling you the moral. And now, after watching it...
College professor Patricia Agnew (Janet Jackson) has recently published the book Why Did I Get Married?, a semi-autobiographical advice book detailing her and her friends’ marriages. Just as the book is published, Patricia and her husband Gavin (Malik Yoba) head off to an annual week-long retreat with said friends. They include:
At the retreat, this time in the Rocky Mountains, secrets are laid bare, two murders are attempted, and Sheila is driven into the arms of hunky local Sheriff’s deputy Troy (Lamman Rucker). When they return home, each couple needs to face some hard truths about their marriages, but Patricia comes to the rescue when she gives them a system for assessing the positive aspects of their relationships, and they all live happily ever after. It’s not a spoiler, because the poster already tells you how it ends.
For such a low-concept film, Why Did I Get Married? is riddled with plot holes. In fact, they drive the story. The biggest, of course, is Mike bringing his mistress and his wife to a couples’ retreat, but there are many more; too many to go into here. In addition, the film is full of ancillary shittiness. The first act of the film might as well be called “As You Know,” since it consists mostly of characters telling each other things they already know for the benefit of the audience; Lindsay Ellis in fact singled this film out as a pristine example of how not to write exposition. In an early scene, a drunken Angela gets into a fight with a fuh-laming gay couple riding a train with a chihuahua named Fifi who are also blatant racists, and while we are clearly meant to hate them, we are also supposed to be on their side. The movie even features a Dr. Evil reference, which was already played out at the beginning of the decade.
And to address the elephant in the room, yes, after watching this film, I am totally convinced that Perry is gay. Not only is the movie’s male gaze concerned with beefcake and only beefcake, the script features men discussing their sex lives in detail in a manner I’ve told is more typical of women in our society. I’m a straight man of a much younger generation raised in a very socially liberal religious tradition and environment, so if I found that unrealistic, it can’t be any less strange for these characters. Perry’s startling ignorance of heterosexuality combined with the casual homophobia he shows off in this film is deeply off-putting. And of course the whole is sprinkled througout with shallow discussions about Jesus.
Altogether, Why Did I Get Married? is the most drab, boring, stagey movie I’ve seen thus far, full of awful weirdness and unexamined homoeroticism, and some bizarre statements about AIDS, all in service of a preachy, questionable message that makes the sexual politics of Knocked Up look freakishly progressive.
In other words, it’s a Tyler Perry movie.
I get it now.
Signs This Was Made in 2007
Dir. Tyler Perry
Premiered October 12, 2007
I could never forget the poster. It was raining. I was a high school senior, on my way home, taking some bus up North Lake Avenue when I saw the poster for Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married? on the Villa Street bus stop. Tyler Perry had only been directing for two years, but he’d already developed a reputation among my younger black neighbors and many critics as a didactic, moralizing closet-case exploiting the scarcity of African-American-centric films to make shitty movies. But I wasn’t black, and hadn’t seen any of his films, so I didn’t think it was my place to comment on them.
It was natural for me to give the poster a look: it was new, and the title was a question. But then I began to look closer, and saw the fine print...
...Because no one inspires me more.
...Because we complete each other’s sentences.
...Because two are stronger than one.
...Because every moment we share is better than the last.
...Because we complete each other’s sentences.
...Because two are stronger than one.
...Because every moment we share is better than the last.
I immediately got the hate. Clearly this wasn’t a man to let not seeing the movie get in the way of telling you the moral. And now, after watching it...
College professor Patricia Agnew (Janet Jackson) has recently published the book Why Did I Get Married?, a semi-autobiographical advice book detailing her and her friends’ marriages. Just as the book is published, Patricia and her husband Gavin (Malik Yoba) head off to an annual week-long retreat with said friends. They include:
- Pediatrician Terry and lawyer Dianne (Tyler Perry and Sharon Leal), who’ve grown apart following Dianne’s promotion and Terry’s desire to have a second child.
- Former football player Marcus and Salon owner Angela (Michael J. White and Tasha Smith), the latter of whom is an abusive alcoholic who resents that her husband has children from a previous relationship and that he works for her (thus making less money than her). They are both cheating on each other.
- Mike and Sheila (Richard T. Jones and Jill Scott). Mike is basically the worst person on Earth and has brought his mistress Trina (Denise Boutte) on the retreat, which doesn’t make any goddamn sense. And of course since this is a Tyler Perry movie, the worst man of the bunch is also the one with the darkest complexion.
At the retreat, this time in the Rocky Mountains, secrets are laid bare, two murders are attempted, and Sheila is driven into the arms of hunky local Sheriff’s deputy Troy (Lamman Rucker). When they return home, each couple needs to face some hard truths about their marriages, but Patricia comes to the rescue when she gives them a system for assessing the positive aspects of their relationships, and they all live happily ever after. It’s not a spoiler, because the poster already tells you how it ends.
For such a low-concept film, Why Did I Get Married? is riddled with plot holes. In fact, they drive the story. The biggest, of course, is Mike bringing his mistress and his wife to a couples’ retreat, but there are many more; too many to go into here. In addition, the film is full of ancillary shittiness. The first act of the film might as well be called “As You Know,” since it consists mostly of characters telling each other things they already know for the benefit of the audience; Lindsay Ellis in fact singled this film out as a pristine example of how not to write exposition. In an early scene, a drunken Angela gets into a fight with a fuh-laming gay couple riding a train with a chihuahua named Fifi who are also blatant racists, and while we are clearly meant to hate them, we are also supposed to be on their side. The movie even features a Dr. Evil reference, which was already played out at the beginning of the decade.
And to address the elephant in the room, yes, after watching this film, I am totally convinced that Perry is gay. Not only is the movie’s male gaze concerned with beefcake and only beefcake, the script features men discussing their sex lives in detail in a manner I’ve told is more typical of women in our society. I’m a straight man of a much younger generation raised in a very socially liberal religious tradition and environment, so if I found that unrealistic, it can’t be any less strange for these characters. Perry’s startling ignorance of heterosexuality combined with the casual homophobia he shows off in this film is deeply off-putting. And of course the whole is sprinkled througout with shallow discussions about Jesus.
Altogether, Why Did I Get Married? is the most drab, boring, stagey movie I’ve seen thus far, full of awful weirdness and unexamined homoeroticism, and some bizarre statements about AIDS, all in service of a preachy, questionable message that makes the sexual politics of Knocked Up look freakishly progressive.
In other words, it’s a Tyler Perry movie.
I get it now.
Signs This Was Made in 2007
- Another BlackBerry product placement!
- Sheila gets lost because she can’t read a map, demonstrating that GPS hasn’t totally taken over yet.
- This movie contains what might be the last positive reference to Dr. Phil McGraw in popular culture. In early 2008, the dubious television psychologist got in legal and ethical hot water for attempting to stage an unsolicited “intervention” for pop star Britney Spears while she sought mental health treatment, and in so doing lost any pretense of legitimacy as a mental health professional.
Additional Notes
The tension between Mike and Sheila is first made clear when she is asked to buy a second airline ticket to Colorado because she is too fat. This is a problem because (1) the highlighting of this airline policy was played out even then, (2) they’re telling her this on the plane, and (3) she’s Hollywood fat, and doesn’t need an extra seat anymore than you or I (which we do, but that’s a separate issue).
Next Time: Lars and the Real Girl
The tension between Mike and Sheila is first made clear when she is asked to buy a second airline ticket to Colorado because she is too fat. This is a problem because (1) the highlighting of this airline policy was played out even then, (2) they’re telling her this on the plane, and (3) she’s Hollywood fat, and doesn’t need an extra seat anymore than you or I (which we do, but that’s a separate issue).
Next Time: Lars and the Real Girl