It's an acquired taste. Tyler Perry is a genius for adapting urban theater onto the big screen, but I agree with Stephanie Zacharek, it is sad that the intellectual and artistic "ghetto" is mostly self-imposed these days. There may be plenty of room for the Tyler Perrys of the theatrical and cinematic world, but I'd be happier if there were a few more Lorraine Hansberrys and August Wilsons to round things out abit. (The Harlem Renaissance wasn't a meaningless exercise in artistic futility, but you wouldn't know it from the type of work mass produced by black artists today.)Black working class entertainment has never completely defined the black experience and it would be nice to have an opportunity to see all facets of our community represented equally. (I cannot identify with Tyler's work to any greater degree than I assume a Caucasian identifies with Inspector Clouseau on a daily basis. I'm sure there are plenty of people who are capable of such identifications, but they do not define the entirety of any racial group: Caucasian or African-American.)

I agree with most of your posts. My only problem is it is not self-imposed. Most studio heads just will not greenlight a Lorraine Hansberry unless a big name actor or producer is attached. "Soul Plane" did not have Tyler Perry attached. Money people recognize the stereotypes and think they sell better, no matter what the evidence otherwise. Lee referenced in in Bamboozled, as did Robert Townsend and others. This movie simply captured in one place many stereotypes that usually are scattered around multiple movies. I think it magnifies the effect. Zacharek is right that these actors should have better opportunities. This makes you miss The Cosby Show, much as some black workingclass activists excoriated it for not representing all blacks, either. No movie can every represent the entirety of African American subcultures, just as none can represent in one place the breadth of the subcultures of other race and ethnic groups.

There are few good movies about realistic aspiring black middle class people. Most of them are historical. It would be nice to have better material, and more diversity of material.

What Assezmalicieuse is saying about this being working class culture, and that there is a lack of realistic middle class roles in the movies is dead on. The same is true for white women (any women) after certain ages. This is working class humor, and those of any race who have been working class (and particularly, but not necessarily Southern) will get the jokes. It's also rather rural, too. I dislike the "middle class black as villian" theme in all of his movies. I also recognize a lot of the in jokes (the fuzzy slippers, the nuances of the language, etc). Some elements also reflect a certain lower working class/ underclass anti-intellectualism. Madea is Mammy-ish, and that stereotype irritates those who recognize it.

The good material is out there. How do you get studio heads to greenlight good material consistently? It's not just black "chitlin" movies that can be dreadful. The Horror/slasher genre, some of the mass produced and disappointing action genre, and "chick flick" genre in the last decade have also produced a lot of bad movies. We have the High School Musical franchise. I think they have a "generic element" computer where they pull a lever and out tumbles a set of generic storylines and stereotypes... insta-movie).

Many marketers claim we get the products we want or deserve.

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Child rapists are also prosecuted in order to protect potential future victims.

-- John Anderson

This is why it doesn't matter that the victim wants to move on. We have a a lot of assertions that he hasn't done this again. We know he hasn't been CAUGHT doing it again, not that he hasn't done it. He has money and power, enough that we are even having this discussion.

The same arguments against re-prosecuting him were used about Byron De La Beckwith, etc. Everyone did that back then; it wasn't that bad. Some older blacks want to move on, not think about those days. We all don't want to think about it. But we must do this not just for the victim. It meant a lot for many in my generation of black Southerners, and my mother's generation to see Ed Killen go to jail; to see Thomas Blanton go to jail; to see that priviledge does not always win.

Look at the people cleared by the Innocence Project. They cleared their names while in jail. They were poor and could not flee. They met prosecutorial misconduct that is far worse than the judge here. The man exonerated posthumously in Texas comes to mind.

Forty five days for child rape. Are you kidding? But she's white lower class. Some of the apologists' class bias is showing. Everyone did it? He came from a different culture? Most victims of the Holocaust didn't do stuff like this. Please.

I think some apologists here don't think 13 is a child. I do. And yes, I do not think 13 year olds should be prosecuted as adults. I hold to the Cosby standard: Teens are all mentally ill until 19 or so.

And segregation and killing people were also not unusual in Louisiana in the 60s, just like raping underage white lower class girls was not unusual in Hollywood then it seems. That doesn't excuse either.