Source: Lionsgate
When my father feels strongly about something, good or bad, you’ll hear his opinions about that thing for years, even decades to come. And he felt very strongly about a particular scene in Tyler Perry’s film, Madea’s Family Reunion.
For those of you who have seen the movie, it’s the part where Joe, (Madea’s older brother, also played by Tyler Perry) sees a young girl, his relative, walking past in a rolled up shirt and short shorts. Not only does he oogle her body, commenting on it to the rest of the men at the table; he takes it a step further, calling the girl over to him to ask her to bend over into a barrel to retrieve cool drink at the bottom of it. Clearly, it’s a ploy to get the young lady to bend down and expose her behind to her elderly family members. Joe isn’t the only man who requests a beverage, two others do the same.
If you don’t remember it, you can watch it here.
The entire scene is supposed to serve as comic relief. We’re supposed to find Joe lusting after his own niece to be funny. You know, on some, even seasoned old men will be boys type of humor. And his behavior is just supposed to be shrugged off. Shake your head and keep on moving.
But doesn’t just shaking our head and walking away kind of excuse the behavior? Even worse, doesn’t laughing at this type of behavior cosign it even further?
That was a rhetorical question, but let me help you out, yes it does. There’s really, very little funny about sexual harassment, particularly when the perpetrator of it isn’t held to task for his or her actions, as is the case for the Tyler Perry characters. The scene is even more interesting, considering Perry’s own history with sexual assault. Sill, the prevalence of men preying on young women, even women in their own families, is so commonplace, we don’t even recognize how dysfunctional it really is.
It’s not just Tyler Perry.
It’s quite a bit of us.
Just today, I found this meme on Facebook.
Source: Facebook
Thankfully, the person who posted it, noted that while the initial creation of the meme was for humor, we have to stop looking at our “creepy uncles” as punchlines.
People laugh at this, but this is real and your uncle is a pedophile. #NOMORESILENCE #EXPOSE
And that’s the truth.
There are very real, life-altering, lifelong lasting effects of being assaulted, violated and raped by family members. And these secrets are so often swept under the rug, particularly in the Black community. And while humor can often aide in discussing real issues, that’s not what’s happening here.
