A Madea Christmas Mary Did You Know
Motion picture Review
Tyler Perry wants us to know that even Madea celebrates Christmas—not just the holidays. She's big. She's bad. She's crass. She'due south crude. But she'll stick up for the existent reason for the season without so much equally a Santa snort.
Madea's trying her obnoxious all-time to make a little coin every bit Christmas approaches by working as a Santa saleswoman/homo/person at a fancy department store when she shows up onscreen this time round. But all she manages to practise is offend the customers and appall her boss. So information technology's merely every bit well that her niece, Eileen, asks her to accompany her on a little family visit. Maybe she'll do less impairment surrounded by loved ones instead of strangers.
Don't count on information technology. When Madea and Eileen arrive—unannounced—at Eileen's daughter's farm, in that location's more than than a lilliputian mischief waiting for the mad, mad, mad, mad Madea to stick her big nose into. Great niece Lacey, you run across, has gotten herself married—to a white homo!—without telling her mom. And and then hubby Connor's parents bear witness up for the festivities, besides. (Is Chevy Chase lurking backside a wall of Christmas lights?)
Madea'due south going to need some witness protection once again before this brouhaha blows over. Suffice information technology to say this is non one large happy family.
Positive Elements
The acceptance of interracial marriage is a big theme hither, with Lacey and Connor'south union becoming a focal bespeak. Eileen has made it crystal clear to her daughter over the years that simply a blackness man is an acceptable life partner. Lacey rejects that view, apparently, when she elopes with Connor, only she's been too afraid of her mother's disapproval to tell her well-nigh information technology. And so it's through Madea's advised bluntness and Connor's parents' winsome amiability that the truth finally comes out. Only does information technology set up them gratis? Well, allow'southward simply say that Eileen and moviegoers akin are forced to grapple with their prejudices.
When we're cut, we all bleed blood-red, Connor's dad, Buddy, says at one signal. "We're all the same within."
Racial intolerance gets pushed dorsum the other way, too, with whites in the minor town pushing to get Lacey fired from her job at the school. Only information technology's all a setup for communicating Perry's want to see diverse races make beautiful music (or is it movies?) together. Indeed, in the cease, nosotros see ane primal (and stubborn) character go and then far every bit saving the life of another, choosing (for in one case) to disregard the colour of the person's skin.
Lacey is a grade school teacher, and a pretty good one at that. We come across her nurturing students' special talents, too every bit working hard to make sure in that location's no exact bullying going on in class. When she learns that the school (and the town) is brusque on greenbacks for things like textbooks and the annual Christmas Jubilee, she steps right up to effort to help.
Her help, in this item case, involves orchestrating a corporate sponsorship for the schoolhouse and Jubilee, an action that triggers the film's secondary disharmonize: Whether or not Christmas should be celebrated every bit a holiday nearly Christ.
Spiritual Elements
The whole town, it seems, wants to continue talking about and paying homage to Jesus at Christmastime, but the corporate sponsor doesn't. After lots of handwringing, I'm happy to study, the town ends up winning the skirmish, with Lacey publically shaming the large company into complying with the townsfolk's traditional view of the holidays.
Thus, we hear several mini-speeches about Jesus' primal office in the festivities, along with many Christ-centered Christmas carols, including a poignant, center-stage rendition of "Mary, Did You lot Know?"
Unfortunately, nosotros're also subjected to a retelling of the Christmas story by Madea, who mangles information technology in about every bit many ways every bit it'due south possible to mangle, while linking the Virgin to Mary J. Blige and piña coladas. When she's done, nosotros meet that she'southward used strings of Christmas lights to necktie i of Lacey's form school students to a kid-size cantankerous.
Madea does, though, go a staunch defender of keeping Christ in Christmas … leaving me to wonder (in a friends-like-these sort of way) how much her support is really wanted. And we hear a line about the devil being a lie, followed by the quip directed at Madea, "And you're still married to him."
Sexual Content
Buddy and his married woman, Kim, share some bedchamber time. Information technology involves him slapping his overstuffed (bare) belly and request her if she wants "some of that," then draping himself in a canvas to play a "ghost"-themed sex activity game of theirs in which she must "capture the rapture."
Madea talks about having once been a pole dancer, and she goes on and on about the many (physical) reasons an older woman shouldn't be buying or wearing lingerie. She brags nigh "marching" in a horizontal position with Jessie Jackson, among others. And she reminisces most getting meaning while having sexual activity in a car, listening to Meatloaf'due south vocal "Paradise past the Dashboard Low-cal." A local yokel repeatedly talks nigh selling "pornsettias." We hears lines most "racks," women with hair on their chests, men with fat foreskin, "dry humping," dogs "humping" a woman'due south leg, Viagra, nipples, "weenies," "giblets," "woods" and other euphemisms for erections, sagging breasts, and breast feeding 'til a boy is in the ninth course. Buddy says it was a sad twenty-four hours when the boondocks's whorehouse got closed downward.
Violent Content
Nosotros hear several threats thrown around, i directed at Lacey. Connor punches an former bully of his in the face, decking him. We see an overturned pickup truck explode moments later on its injured occupant is pulled articulate.
Crude or Profane Language
More than than 100 swear words decorate this Perry tree, with "h‑‑‑" and "d‑‑n" comprising the vast majority (nigh threescore and 30, respectively). We don't hear an f-word, cheers to a bleep in the closing credits, but we do hear at least most of 1 s-discussion, along with ii or three more than trail off earlier they're completed. Close to 20 uses of "a‑‑," one "p‑‑‑" and ane "son of a b‑‑ch" besides pop up. Jesus, Lord and God's names are all misused once or twice. "Ho" is used hither as a putdown for women rather than something Santa might say.
Drug and Booze Content
Bud pulls a gallon jug of "white lightning" (moonshine) out of his truck and offers it to his son and Lacey. He talks about wanting a beer, and he does crack one open up in a later scene. We hear jokes nearly getting high and a facetious question almost whether Connor is growing marijuana.
Other Negative Elements
A sequence of visual gags and giggles revolves effectually white bed sheets, hoods and the KKK. Madea and others abet physically fighting back as a way of solving negative situations.
When Madea gets fired from the section store, she steals a stack of bills from the register, forth with some merchandise, just for spite. She talks about wanting to get some "scratch-offs" (lottery tickets). Vegetarians are crudely dismissed as being "tofu farters." The crew laughs at the idea of kicking a "dwarf's a‑‑." Buddy calls his wife a "bag." At that place's talk nearly defecation, setting burn down to passed gas, and of urination.
Conclusion
The reason for the season is … to make another Madea moving-picture show? Tyler Perry, who says he's "always wanted to practise a vacation movie!" once once again mixes upwardly some great messages with a mess of a big mamma who's but as comfortable cursing and crudely carrying on equally she is prodding her family and friends to exercise the right thing, tell the truth and celebrate Christmas the fashion it should be historic.
And how is that? Well, the movie couldn't be more explicit in spelling information technology out: Proceed Christ in Christmas.
Racial reconciliation and a bit of nudging to keep on moving past our quondam prejudices also consumes a good bit of screen time. Star Kathy Najimy says of that, "Philosophically, A Madea Christmas is well-nigh unity and inclusiveness and multifariousness." And Perry adds, "The nigh important lesson, to me, is that nosotros are all the same no affair what race, no matter where we come from. We're all the same people. If there'south 1 thing to take away from this motion-picture show it's 'Alive and let alive.'"
But why bring lowly Madea into all that high-mindedness? Says producer Matt Moore, "This movie is a big one-act for the whole family, and it actually captures that heartfelt feeling of family meeting—and also the comedy and anarchy—that Christmas is all about."
No … that'due south not quite right. I'm not really buying the "whole family" fun line, not with 100+ profanities, among other coarseness.
So possibly let's look at this from a slightly different angle. "I think Madea paired with the holidays spells just the right kind of trouble," Perry says. "'Cause there'southward zip holy about Madea."
You said information technology, Tyler, you said it.
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Source: https://www.pluggedin.com/movie-reviews/madea-christmas/
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