Tyler Perry's The Have and Have Nots: Season 1 Review

When I first heard about Tyler Perry's The Have and the Have Nots I wasn't too thrilled about it. I have a love hate relationship with Tyler Perry. Also the African-American masses were raving about it through social media so that also steered me away from it. Following in the same steps of Scandal, I simply feel that blacks don't give a lot of shows a chance unless it is involving a strong black lead or cast. About 3-4 episodes in however I found myself at home with nothing to watch and a DVR with the first several episodes recorded. I did what any primetime junkie would do. I watched.

Needless to say it had quickly become my guilty pleasure and the number one show I loved to hate. It is sooo deliciously Tyler Perry and my African-American roots couldn't seem to refrain from the unnecessary drama that he created. Watching the show is like looking at a terrible car wreck, you can't help but to look. It has been argued that rather or not this series is a soap. I honestly have never liked soap operas but I will say that it is a soap without being completely boring. The exaggerated drama is there but the characters are so much more interesting than those you would see on a common soap. The story line always puts me in a mind of Tyler Perry's movie entitled "A Family that Prays" which is unoriginal but also a good thing since I feel that it is Perry's best movie. The resemblance is so close he might as well had called the series the same thing.

The Have and the Have Nots is about three different families whose lives intertwine. On one hand you have the Cryers whom are a wealthy white family, then you have the Harringtons who are friends of the Cryer who are also wealthy but black, then you have the Youngs that are lower class and African-American. The story plays out by these three family's interacting with one another. It all starts off with Candace Young (Tika Sumpter) sleeping with Jim Cryer (John Schneider) and then spiraling out of control from there when her mother Hannah Young (Crystal R. Fox) gets a job as a maid for Katheryn Cryer (Renee Lawless). Tika Sumpter is primarily the reason that I was soo hooked. She plays her character Candace so well and commands attention whenever she is on the screen. It is definitely a breakout role for the young star. However as the series progressed it became more evident that a lot of the other characters have just as big of personalities. Primarily Katheryn Cryer who easily got Candace together when she revealed that Jim was having an affair with her. Katheryn promptly called her "Nine" and sent Candace packing. Also, Veronica Harrington played by Angela Robinson has proved to be a force to be reckoned with. She is that black lady that NO ONE likes in real life but is a thrill to watch on screen. Tyler Perry of course doesn't stray from using stereo types in this series but most of the time it is in a way that is tasteful.

There are also other characters such as Benny Young (Tyler Leply) who Tyler Perry just seems to use as a poor scapegoat to keep the plot going. I feel so bad for him because the guy just can't seem to get a break between being framed and more recently getting hit by a car. He does however provide some good eye candy whenever he is on screen. Tyler sure knows how to cast them.

The Cryer siblings consist of Amanda Cryer (Jacyln Betham) and Wyatt Cryer (Aaron O'connor). Rich white kids with issues. Nothing original there. Tyler really doesn't do a good job incorporating them into the storyline. There was even a point where Wyatt was complete absent for two episodes back to back. Amanda is a suicidal teenager with issues and tries to kill herself after getting raped by her teacher. Wyatt is a recovering drug addict that is constantly followed by Jeffery Harrington (Gavin Houston) who is secretly in love with him. The struggle of Jeffery's character may be what I hate most about the show but more on that later.

What I love about The Have and the Have Nots are the relationships between the characters. I especially love that of Hannah and Katheryn. It just seems so genuine and special. I like how Perry gave them the common ordeal of Cancer so that they could relate to each other initially. I like that Candace can legitimately care about Amanda as a friend but totally try to ruin her father Jim. It is also fun to see the dynamic characters such as Candace, Katheryn, and Veronica go at it. Katheryn is still at the top of my list at this point. I don't think anyone can get her together. I also love the battle of the genders seen on this show. In one corner you have Jim and his friends and in the other you have Candace, Veronica, and Katheryn putting a thorn in their side. It causes for a great portrayal of the type of power woman still have in one is widely considered to be a man's world.

What I hate about the show is that it is SO Tyler Perry. The drama is ridiculous and unnecessary at times. I feel as if Perry just thinks, "Okay how can I make this situation worse"? I understand that it is a soap opera but DAMN. The show could've ended exactly how it did without Amanda getting raped and trying to kill herself or Jim having slept with the Hispanic housemaid. Also I hate when things are too coincidental in any type of narrative. I understand you have a small cast to work with but there are ways to work around that and make the story still believable. But above all I absolutely HATE how Perry dealt with Jeffery's character. Tyler Perry has been accused of being gay since he was doing plays. So I would think that he would be able to write a homosexual experience in a way that is true and not stereotypical. I was wrong. Jefferey is documented as having a crush on Wyatt earlier on and also called out by Candace. The early scenes with Jefferey however promote the idea that gay males often have secret crushes on their heterosexual friends or peers which is almost NEVER the case. I couldn't believe that Perry would write something like that. Also Jefferey acts as if he is just learning he is straight. Jefferey is way to damn old to be discovering his sexuality and way too damn smart and educated to have acted the way he did over Wyatt as well as get tricked by him. The scene was just messy and shameful. The only admirable part about Jefferey's experience is him having to deal with Veronica's reaction to his coming out. That is something that many can relate to and actually makes you feel for Jefferey. Him falling in love with Wyatt was ridiculous and not helpful to the gay black community at all.

All in all, The Have and the Have Nots is a wonderful addition to the Oprah Winfrey Network and should run for several more seasons. I will be watching with caution of course. In the next season I do hope to see more depth from the characters though. I don't feel as if the main characters have been flushed out enough to make them completely human. I mean I can totally believe I could me a person just like Candace Young but I also feel that person would have more of a story to tell than, "me and my mother just never got along." So I do feel like Tyler has great characters it is just that we are 10 episodes in/done with the first season and the characters are still not nearly developed enough. If he does that and makes the drama more believable I think we will see Perry's best work outside of his plays since A Family that Prays.

Movie Review: Lee Daniel's The Butler

When I sat down to watch Lee Daniel's The Butler, I was all but unenthusiastic. The movie had received a ton of hype and for very good reason. It had an all-star cast rich with Oscar winners and nominees as well as several household names. I was most excited for Oprah's return to the big screen. I mean come on, who can not be excited for Oprah? That woman is amazing. I waited a while into the release of this movie in order to give people time to see it as I do plan not to hold back any information. So be warned, this review contains spoilers.

In a nutshell the butler is a story that gives a historic account of a butler that served under eight presidents. The story is loosely based on real life butler. And when I say loosely I mean loosely! It is definitely a story that takes a real life experience and attempts to transform it into something compelling and interesting. From the time that Cecil's (Forest Whitaker) father is shot and his mother is raped while he was in the share cropping fields you feel an emotional connection with the character and it very easily explains how he came to be a "house nigga". I like this scene because displays how Cecil gained his skills that would help him to become established at the cost of his fathers death. It also shows how slave owners did have some kind of sympathy and compassion for their slaves. Fast forward to adult life he is married to Gloria (Winfrey) and the story morphs into one about two very different experiences during the Civil Rights movement. The contrast is between Cecil who is a subservient African-American butler and his son Louis (David Oyelowo) who is dedicated to fighting against the oppression of the civil rights era. His son joins the freedom writers as well as the black panthers in the process. Daniels does a fine job with his juxtaposition of these two themes in a way that ignites passion within his audience. The scene where Cecil is serving the White House guests during a dinner while his son is getting taunted during sit-ins in the house is both chilling and enthralling. Forest Whitaker does a phenomal job with the physical characteristics and movements for his character however I felt as though his character never really experienced a dramatic change. I think the role wasn't able to really be explored because of it's nature. He was an African-American Butler serving during the mid 20th century. Only to be seen and not heard. I simply wish he would've been more active within his domestic life. It never seemed as though it pained him to endure serving for so long and listening in on all the racism and remarks without being able to comment. In my African American literature class we learned of a character in slave narratives that was described as somewhat educated but undeniably obedient to their owner. This type of character is also portrayed by Samuel L. Jackson in D'Jango unchained. Imagine if D'Jango had been a movie based around Jackson's character and Fox's character was just a catalyst at the end of that movie to bring everything to an end. How terrible would that have been? What I am trying to say is that we love stories with protagonists that do something. Precious and Monsters Ball had main characters that were iconic and memorable but I honestly walked away from The Butler not admiring much about Cecil Gaines. In Lee Daniel's The Butler we simply saw Cecil's environment occurring around him with him barely reacting to it. I understand he is a passive character but he wasn't even aggressive in his passiveness. While I understand that the story in told from Cecil's account because he ties all the characters together and gives insight into the White House I still feel as though the expert testimony that comes from his experience still isn't fully realized. A lot of the presidents aren't featured long enough to become that memorable and Cecil really doesn't have much of an influence on the decisions they make. His reactions with them only seem to reinforce how passive his character is and must be. Ironically these scenes do however work to better illustrate the struggle Cecil's son faces as he progresses in his journey to fight for equal rights.

Then there is Cecil's wife Gloria played by Winfrey. For me she stole the show. I was much more interested in her story and background than I was her husbands. I do believe Oprah is well deserving of nominations this upcoming award season as she commanded the screens attention whenever she was on it. Viewers truly saw her character deal with a lot of pain and emotion as well as react differently as her character developed and grew throughout the film. The scene in which she is asking Cecil about how many shoes does Jackie Kennedy have was absolutely priceless. Can we get a spin off movie featuring Gloria? 

All in all I give Lee Daniel's The Butler a 3.5 out of 5 stars. While Daniel does try to bring his connection of the two stories together by the end of the movie I felt it was a bit rushed and fell flat. Especially after the way Cecil treated his son when got a surprise visit in the white house kitchen only to rally with him and end up and jail in what may have been two scenes later. I think the story would've been more intriguing if son and father switched roles as main character and supporting character. That way I think we could've received that raw, darker approach that Daniel does so well. There was so much more I wanted to know about the character. The dynamic of his relationship with Carol (Yaya Alafia) to the reason why he didn't attend his brother's funeral. Maybe it would've come across as simply another civil rights drama had that been the case but it would've been a much finer story in my opinion.

My Thoughts: Multimedia Personality B. Scott's Unfortunate Ecounter with BET

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B. Scott is the model of androgyny done right.

First and foremost, I have been a fan of B. Scott ever since he used to post videos to Youtube from his L.A. home. He’d sing classic Mariah Carey with nothing on but a towel wrapped snugly around his head and chest. I have always admired him for his bravery and confidence especially when considering the society that we currently live in today. It is amazing to me how he was able to build his brand into the success that he is today.

On Sunday evening I tuned into the BET awards with my family. BET is a station that I am not very fond of. I feel as though they have had a history of taking ideas from successful shows on rival stations, destroyed my beloved sitcom ‘The Game”, and never have had any really good original programming. Quite honestly the awards only held my attention due to the Twitter community’s commentary of the event. When I saw B. Scott during the pre-show I was immediately excited. It felt good to have someone from my community representing a station that was founded by and ran by members of my race. However, that excitement quickly turned into disappointment once I realized that the B. Scott I was viewing wasn’t in the image that I had known and grew to love. My followers and myself noticed that his appearance was extremely toned down from his usual standards. His hair was pulled back, makeup was barely on, there was no heel, and he was wearing a blazer. Now the typical viewer probably didn’t pay much attention to this but as a dedicated Love Muffin… I was upset!

It was clear that there was something bothering the multimedia personality. While interviewing K. Michelle he asked her to sing some words of inspiration because he had gone through a lot that day. Twitter was already in an uproar by that time. Many still attacking B. Scott for his appearance. Others attacking BET for hiring someone with an image as profound as B. Scott’s then asking him to change it at the last minute. I felt as though BET took a step forward with hiring B. Scott to represent them and then two steps back by asking him to appear as something he was not. I was still satisfied that B. stayed true to his personality and character even if his appearance didn’t necessarily match. When he came on for a segment and let out the classic, “It’sssss Beeeeeeee Scoootttttt!” I knew that he was making the best out of an unfortunate situation and not letting down all of his fans and supporters.

B. Scott's appearance before and after.

After all was said and done, Scott posted to his blog and shared what really happened to him first hand. Apparently the blogger had gone through several precautions to ensure that BET was okay with how he was to appear on the show. This made sense to me because when you have an image as distinct and unique as B. Scott’s that issue probably has arisen several times. Once everything was seemingly approved he had begun the show. However, after some internal phone calls BET had made a last minute decision that the multimedia personality’s wardrobe and makeup choice “wasn’t acceptable”. They immediately had him pulled off set after the first segment to be replaced by Adrienne Ballon. I didn’t view the very beginning of the show so when I saw B. Scott in his alternate clothing I didn’t even realize he had already been on. In the post he also expressed his feelings about the situation stating, “I was hurt, I am hurt.” I am personally hurt for him. As a gay black male I have also been through similar situations with family, friends, and society. It is definitely not okay.

BET has since then made a response to the entire situation stating the incident “was a singular one with a series of unfortunate miscommunications from both parties. We regret any unintentional offense to B. Scott and anyone within the LGBT community and we seek to continue embracing all gender expressions.”

B. Scott wasn’t having it. He communicated, "I want a real apology from BET. This was a not a mutual misunderstanding or miscommunication. I pride myself on being very professional".

I agree. B. Scott has always been about his business and it is no surprise that BET has tried to blame everything on a miscommunication between “both” parties. They never issued an apology they simply said, “they regret”. As in, “too bad for you if you got offended". Also, what has BET ever done or aired that embraces all expressions of gender?

The main thing I wanted to talk about in the light of all of this is what does this say about society today? More specifically, what does this say about the African-American community? While BET isn’t a representation of Black America as a whole, I feel as though this entire situation can be used to reinforce the backlash that homosexuals experience within the black community. I feel as though they could have used this situation as a way to stand firm and fight against the homophobia found amongst racial minorities today. Even when B. Scott hit the stage in what was considered to be toned down clothing and makeup, African-Americans all over Twitter and Facebook were still posting negative thoughts about him and his appearance. We have come too far as a society for something as simple as this to be an issue. The Supreme Court just deemed DOMA unconstitutional as well as turned over Proposition 8 in California. Yet a gay male cannot commentate an awards pre-show in an ensemble that adequately expresses himself?

I for one will not be watching another BET Awards show or any of their lackluster programming for now on. They have truly disappointed me. My heart goes out to B. Scott but I know from history that he will rise above this and continue to stride forward. I can only pray that someday situations such as this will cease to be an issue.

Someday...

It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.

-Agnes Repplier

          I wasn’t a virgin but my wedding dress was white. My love for him was pure as if I’d waited all my life trapped high upon castles and deep within dungeons hoping he’d burst in at any moment sporting blinding silver armor to save me. Life for me had been fickle before he arrived, before love we can honestly only view the world with jaded, jejune eyes. The dress I wore was a kimono inspired by our Japanese theme. It was a silk sweetheart cut gown with a small obi wrapped tightly around the waistline. There was no train but the back burst into beautiful detailing underneath the security of the obi. The spectators all watched as I walked steadily between the aisles. My poise deflected their glares of doubt. I could see the finish line ahead and as I took each step I silently prayed my feet wouldn’t fail me. We had walked a long road and I was afraid that my toes couldn’t take much more. Blistered, bloody, and bare they were concealed by the heel I wore. My father wanted to assist me down the aisle but I informed him it was a trip I must take alone. Just as I came into this unforgiving world, just as I met my groom on that chili fall evening, just as I felt when things between us seemed to have come to an end, alone.

           I knew that somewhere high up in the pew were the ones that came after me and in the stands beside me the ones that came before also observed my stride. I had made a note to myself to thank them all for being apart of the alignment that had brought us all into the room that day. The first for bringing him 1,163 miles across the country, the second for allowing him to be in a position to meet me, and all those there after for allowing him to realize he couldn’t live without me. The universe seems so small when the only person’s life you care about is your own. I often wondered if any of them spent nights in bed alone wiping tears off their dampened faces while imagining me snugly curled up within his arms. If they did then I had silently had let out a “sorry”, and if they didn’t then they never truly cared. My eyes would never run dry as I used to think of him possibly loving them more than he loved me. Society will tell you to be content in the fact that someone even loves you in the least bit, but to me that meant little to nothing. I had love for many of the men that had come into my life. However that love wasn’t what woke me up in the mornings and tucked me into bed at night. It was the love that might have caused me to release a cup from my tear ducts and not a river. It wasn’t the type of love that consumed me, nor the type of love that at times I felt as if I couldn’t live without. To me that was the only form of love worth fighting for and I had only found it within him.

           As I continued to trek a bit further I reached my family’s section. Half were there to support me and the other half simply to observe, run back, and tell. They thought love was scandal. It simply did not exist. In any situation I was being used, made a fool of, or taken for granted. As they looked at me I could still see those feelings in their stares. Tissues in their palms as if they were saving them for me once my heart inevitably broke again. All that they’d tell me was easily said and not done. My mother had once told me, “In 5 years you won’t give a damn about him.” I stared her in the eyes, expression full of certainty, and responded, “In 5 years we will be married.” Here we were. I concluded long ago that no one had to believe in us but each other. In love it never takes more than two. I looked away from them before their glowers instilled any uncertainty. I kept my glance forward with my eyes focused on the prize.

           Approaching the altar I could see my friends. Their smiles were due to a mandatory obligation for the current occasion. Once the reception began they would laugh and give heart-felt anecdotes that brought me to tears. But they hated him. I knew it all too well. Some wouldn’t even allow me to mention his name in their presence. I had once asked myself why they never supported my love for him. Was it because they were bitter? Or because they couldn’t believe that a man like him could ever love a person like me. Someone responded and told me, “they are bitter because they believe.” Maybe that was true for the half of them but I knew it wasn’t for many. Some weren’t jealous or bitter they just had lived long enough to develop a sense of what love was. They all would always tell me why I was wrong without ever getting it right themselves. All I had was his love to defend me from any and everything they said. There were the ones that spoon fed my insecurity by saying things such as, “I wonder what boys think of you when you wake up with no make up on.” There were the private investigators that would loyally report back to me with every step he’d take hoping that I would crack in their face. Then there were the ones that simply made me feel as if it was all purely my fault. I was either an “idiot” or an “enabler” which was a fancy way of saying “idiot”. Despite it all, I needed them their to witness how easily I beat the odds of their predictions. They needed to know that in my life there were such things as happy endings. They needed to know this not only for me but for themselves as well. So that they could believe they also could find someone as amazing as I had someday.  People view love as this terrible cynical emotion because they fall for terrible, cynical people. I fell for an imperfect Angel and as I made it to the center of the altar he finally stood before me.

           We said nothing allowing our eyes to communicate everything. I glanced over the grace of his body. A figure that I could trace in a deep slumber with eyes shut tight. I knew every inch of it from the stretch marks beneath his buttocks, to the pitch-black tattoo on the lower right side of his belly, all the way up to the outline of his full lips that concealed his teeth when he spoke with calming clarity.  I would often dream of it on the nights I had spent away from his presence. Every part worked to portray exactly the man was supposed to be. When other people saw him they immediately recognized his handsomeness. Conversely, when I looked it him I saw so much more. This was the person who stood by my side when I was within my darkest days. Sure he knew he was beautiful, but he wasn’t consumed within his beauty. He was humble. He was pure.

His glance broke into a smile and I soaked in its radiance. In that moment I knew I was where I was supposed to be, where he was supposed to be, where we where supposed to be. Our souls where the only two in the room that mattered and everyone else were simply there just to see if my heart had contained a brain after all. He had made many promises that he came short of keeping however this was the only one that mattered. I would tease him with dreams of marriage when we were younger. Most of the time he would give me a classic look of skepticism but sometimes he would entertain my ambition. Ultimately, he told us that we needed to have it together and at that point we did. Salaries, Degrees, and stability… The things your parents always had but you never paid much attention to. What you had to work hard for. Love and marriage was the delicious desert after an unappetizing entree. I had forced myself through the first two courses. They were thick and greasy with pain and drama with an appealing beverage to help wash it all down. I was finally ready to have my cake and ice cream with the most satisfying sprinkles. There was no debate, I knew it was going to be delicious and as I looked up into his eyes I knew that he knew it too.

The pastor began to speak but I could not hear a word he said. For the first time in my life a shed a tear because I was happy. Happiness was an ending that I had expelled to the fairy tale books on the shelves of public libraries and the closets of toddlers. It was a fantasy I allowed my friends and family to conjure out of my psyche and imprison within their bitterness. It was a candy that I adored as a child but couldn’t stand to consume as an adult. I once had believed that God had put it in him, all of it, and if I wanted to get it back I had to fight as hard as I could. Yet somewhere in it all my fighting I realized that our happiness lies within ourselves. Throughout life it is easy to lose that happiness. As we mature our happiness becomes as vulnerable as our innocence. It is easy to lose it to the lies lovers tell, the friends you can never trust, the family that stopped caring, and the society that is unforgiving. When you rediscover your happiness has been within you all along then that is when everything falls perfectly into place. You block out all of the doubt in yourself, the insecurities and feeling that you’ll never be good enough. You disregard anyone else who ever loved him because you know that no one ever loved more than you did and no one ever will. You ignore the negative advice given to you by friends and family that know nothing about anything you are going through. Life suddenly becomes worth living and mocks the inevitable face of death. I dared not wipe my tears away because for the first time in my life… I deserved them.

Change

Change is something that is universally accepted as an essential part of life. The world has gone through several changes throughout its existence to form the world in which we live today. Change is more than the pennies and nickels found tucked between our couches and sprawled out over the floor of our cars. Some changes are distinct and obvious others are barely even noticeable. I personally feel as though the ladder is the most important type of change. America didn’t become the country it is today over night. You don’t begin building a house one day and wake up it the next. I like to think of change very similarly to the way that we grow. We go from very small babies to full grown adults in a process that is in no way noticeable to the naked eye. It is so stunning to the point that many even want to deny it although we all know it to be true. This is what tends to annoy me about the fact of change. People want to accept that they have changed when it is convenient to them but want to deny it when it paints them in a negative light. I don’t think that we should look at change as negative in any way because when someone changes for the worse they can take control of that situation by learning from it.

The subject of change weighs so heavily on my mind right now because I think that I’ve finally noticed how important it is. If you cannot see the way in which you have changed yourself then how can you ever grow or learn as an individual? Change doesn’t make you a different person. “Change” simply means that your actions and priorities may have become different from what they once were. Sometimes change may cause you to feel as if you have lost the person you once were but that isn’t always the case.  There are many influences in this world that simply cause us to get lost or bored with what truly matters to us. Sometimes life itself can be as destructive as a drug depending on who you associate yourself with or what you prefer to spend your time doing.

When I first arrived at Florida State University I knew I wanted to be a writer more than anything in the world. In high school I would constantly spend my time writing about a wide variety of things. It never felt like work to me and it never tired me. I enjoyed being creative and constructing narratives that people could relate to. However, once I finished the writing portion of my degree that excitement seemed to fade as worldly influences crept into my life. Once I had a filter that protected me from being too caught up. I have always been a smart person but intelligence doesn’t always protect you from influence. By the time I had graduated it was as if I just wanted to get out. I had seemingly lost my passion. When I arrived back in Orlando I was swept into living a life that I had always feared. I fell to dreaded routine of working, paying bills, and working some more with no means to save any money at all. Before too long I realized that I wasn’t even living my own life anymore. I was living the life of someone else. I wasn’t writing anymore nor was I paying any attention to sociological studies or theories as I once had. It was as if I had went to school for absolutely nothing. It was a… change. One that had taken me far too long to realize. However, as with all change, it was very necessary. I have had the first hand experience of the live I never want to live. If I had never gone through it I don’t think I would have ever truly appreciated how much I wanted to be scholar. A scholar that is not only a critically acclaimed writer but also a sociologist that has constructed breakthrough research concerning the lgbt issues that currently exist in the world. I had dreams and hopes that seemed to fizzle into the late nights of alcohol and the early mornings of answering phones within a call center building. I was on the fast track obtaining my Bachelor’s in only 3 years at the age of 21 and when I returned it all seemed to come to a halt. I knew my life was physically changing but I failed to notice the psychological and emotional changes that came along with it. Now I have to recondition myself to learn to love the things I once have and it is so awfully silly that I say that because simply writing this is making me feel so damn good already. I feel as if this is what I am supposed to be doing. Had I never noticed or accepted that I had changed then I never would have been able to discover this happiness once again.

All in all, change is going to happen. It is inevitable. Change is not always going to be bad nor is it always going to be good. The past two years of my life I slowly changed into a person that I never thought I would become. Even though I am in a place I don’t necessarily want to be now, I thank God for it because I know I will never let this happen to me again. Soon I will be back in Grad School and employed with a job that will allow me to save and rise within my career field. :)