TV Soap Opera Brilliance: Tyler Perry's The Haves and Have Nots

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 6/20/13 at 3:39am

Is anyone else watching this instant camp masterpiece?

Tyler Perry has always said that his fave shows growing up were Dynasty and Young and the Restless (and yet people continue to question his sexuality?) This show has ALL of that, plus religion and very subtle race relations. Being a soap fan I had to tune in, and it really does play as a retro daytime soap... Or pretty much anyone's idea of what a bad daytime soap would be like. Apparently it's gotten Oprah's channel her best ratings yet, but it's slower than even Passions--and yet it's weekly (and Passions at least knew it was a parody. However, the actress who played poor latina maid Pillar in Passions, plays virtually the same role here.)

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 6/20/13 at 3:40am

I love soaps, and I love its star Tika Sumpter who was always wasted on One Life to Live so had to tune in. Plus it has one of my childhood crushes, John Schneider from Dukes of Hazzard (and Smallville.) Both of them seem in on the joke, the rest of the cast seems clueless. But it does include that hot white (race is important here) guy from the liquid plumber ads (the guy who wants to snake the woman's drain--apparently Perry saw the ad and called him immediately.) He's naked a lot. Because he's the rich son of the rich family and a huge drug addict, so to annoy them takes his clothes off a lot. He has a black "watcher" to make sure he's sober so has to follow him to the bathroom and sleep in his bed.

In one ingenious scene, Wyatt, the white guy with the awesome body, pretends to be asleep for blackmail purposes and sets up his webcam--happily he finds a video of his handler watching his naked body and licking his lips.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 6/20/13 at 3:41am

The scene is brilliantly dissected with video clip at gay media site thebacklot. http://www.thebacklot.com/watch-bro-hunts-mo-on-new-o-show/06/2013/

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 6/20/13 at 3:42am

Sumpter plays an EVIL woman who rapes and manipulates rich men for money (her mother, Hannah, a poor black woman, played by one of the better actresses, hates her daughter and has to be a maid for the white family--and has a dreamy yet apparently dumb son she has raised as a "strong black man" who dreams of running a towtruck line, recalls how Candy, her daughter, was evil ever since she made her sick when she was in her womb.)

Perry, in a promo clip during the last episode, mentioned how every episode has a lesson. It's hard to figure out what that is, since the dialogue is often like this (this is a quote--please count to ten between each line, because that's how it's directed):

Katherine: I don't want him to be governor.
Veronica: Why not?
K: No reason.
V: There's a reason.
K: No there isn't.
V: Yes there is.
K: No.
V: Yes.
K: Nooooo.
V: Yeeees.
K: No!
V: Why not?
K: No reason.
V: Oh. But you said there was a reason?
K: I told you that you would not understand.

(Which I admit is a brilliant parody of soap opera, especially the Young and Restless/Days of Our Lives style--but I don't think it was meant to be.)

However I have so far learned some valuable lessons:

1. never order a hooker on your birthday.

2. never let your black maid or latina chef forget who's the boss.

3. never have male kids because they're just gonna end up a) dumber than dirt B) addicts or c) a closeted gay.

4. always keep sanitizer handy---you never know where a naked rich boy has been.

5. If you're gonna mortgage Momma's house so your hooker sister can get her law degree, make sure she does a volume business--and that people instantly like your one truck, as admirable as it may be, towtruck business.

6. If you have a female child she will either hate you from the time she's in your religious womb, or be dumb as Hell.

I hope this show never ends.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 6/20/13 at 3:47am

(Sorry for the many posts--for some reason it wouldn't let me complete post...)

[JerseyGirl2]

Posted: 6/20/13 at 3:49am

Do all the "bad" people get AIDS? That's Tyler's style.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 6/20/13 at 4:07am

I have a feeling it's heading that way---though I could see a deathbed saviour moment for Candace where, due to her love of Christ she will me saved. The Christian Network Broadcast's soap opera Another Life had a similar ending http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKRJv5J5leI

I admit the only Perry movie I have seen is Temptation, which makes me think that's how he punishes all female characters--a friend says his gay depictions have not been much better off.

Posted: 6/20/13 at 5:02am

Is this the Tyler Perry show with the wise-but-oh-so-sassy black lady who tells it like it is?

Updated On: 6/20/13 at 05:02 AM

[SNAFU]

Posted: 6/20/13 at 5:14am

Jesus f'fing Christ, I can't STAND Tyler Perry's Christian moralist tripe!

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 6/20/13 at 5:26am

So far no wise drag-lady is present, but I could see her coming in as the grandma in the finale. It's Perry-straight-melodrama--the main white actress, who plays the cruel, but rich matriarch just prayed to god in the last episode with Hannah, her maid. (And I've had several family members pass away from breast cancer, but I don't remember any of them finding out they had it by washing their nylons and finding blood...)

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 6/20/13 at 8:44am

I only caught it once in passing. What I found impressive was that every time I thought I'd seen the worst acting I'd ever seen in my life, someone would enter the scene and top it!

[John Adams]

Posted: 6/20/13 at 9:32am

I think there are a lot of insights to be found in Tyler Perry's projects. I think they show what it's like to be 'him'. He and Oprah are a match made in Heaven. They share very similar "fame" stories.

...and the OWN network. Look at the lineup for Tuesday of this week: http://bit.ly/11AzwUs. Primetime programming includes Perry alone - over, and over again. I don't know what Oprah is thinking, except perhaps that she can't admit failure, and has the financial resources to keep moving in the wrong direction.

With so very little to offer regarding programming, I don't know why she isn't moving towards a PPV internet model. I suspect it has to do with her ego, or total control (not being able "brand" her own name if she partnered with Netflix or Amazon).

Of course, with her money, she could buy her own server farm and start her own PPV internet entertainment company. If she partnered with Perry and his money, they could be a 21st Century Lucy and Desi. Updated On: 6/20/13 at 09:32 AM

[DottieD'Luscia]

Posted: 3/19/14 at 4:03pm

I just came across this the other night and watched a couple of episodes. I wasn't sure if the bad acting was intentional. Tyler Perry has a talk show on OWN and he featured the cast of the Haves and Have Nots. I also had no idea he was the one who afflicted some of his movie characters with AIDS to "punish" them so-to-speak. My gaydar went off immediately when I saw him hosting his show.

[strummergirl]

Posted: 3/19/14 at 5:41pm

Seeing a preview of this not too long ago and I kept on thinking, 'This is like what The Spoils of Babylon wanted to be' and I really liked The Spoils of Babylon (Wiig was ingenious and Tobey Maguire gave his most interesting performance in years).

[Jungle Red]

Posted: 3/19/14 at 7:03pm

My boyfriend and I love Tika! I loved her on One Life.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 3/19/14 at 8:45pm

I've had to drop the show after the first season. Even for the joy of how supremely unintentionally awful it is, it's just too slow :P

Strummer--I loved The Spoils. Did anyone even watch it? There was a full page advertisement in Ent Weekly, but it seemed to get zero attention.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 3/19/14 at 9:39pm

I can't wait til the premiere of season two. Mama's meltdown when he son came out was straight out of Tyler's fevered imagination of what it would be like if he ever named his truth:

"What gives you the RIGHT to be a homoSEXual????"

Bliss. So cheaply done, with dialogue that seems to be shot without the actors ever even being in the studio at the same time.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 3/19/14 at 10:45pm

That's a spot on description. I always assumed there was no way that, as credited, Perry actually writes AND directs every episode given his schedule, but honestly he probably does. The directing makes Young and the Restless' face pauses seem short, and he has this creepy way of having the characters talk to someone else in closeup, facing the camera like they're actually somewhere completely different.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 3/19/14 at 11:24pm

That's what I mean. In the rare two shot in a conversation, the camera is behind the person who is being spoken to. You can tell that it's just somebody in a wig.

Everything about the series is off. Including the title. Any NORMAL person would call the show "The Haves & Have Nots." Only the aptly-initialed TP would call it "The Haves & The Have Nots". Scrumptiously awful!

[HorseTears]

Posted: 3/20/14 at 3:32am

I'm afraid I won't be seeking this one out. I tend to agree with Spike Lee's assessment of Tyler Perry.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 3/20/14 at 4:12am

Horse did you actually read this thread? :P

[HorseTears]

Posted: 3/20/14 at 6:06am

I did. But I agreed with Spike Lee when he said that Tyler Perry engages in "coonery buffoonery" and I can't watch his stuff -- even ironically.

[DottieD'Luscia]

Posted: 3/20/14 at 6:25am

^The Haves and Have Notes is not "coonery buffoonery". It's just plain bad!

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 3/20/14 at 1:51pm

"I did. But I agreed with Spike Lee when he said that Tyler Perry engages in "coonery buffoonery" and I can't watch his stuff -- even ironically. "

Fair enough--and I think I basically said without quoting Lee, that I agreed with that (though I admit it's his gender and sexual politics that always strike me first--though they certainly are tied into that.)

[HorseTears]

Posted: 3/20/14 at 11:31pm

Don't worry, I'm not condemning you guys from up upon Mt. Self-Righteous for enjoying his so-bad-it-might-be-good work. I totally get the appeal of that kind of viewing experience. It's why I think "Sextette" is possibly the greatest film of the 20th century. Just, personally, for me I can't get past what his work represents.