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

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.

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.

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

---

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

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...)

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

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).

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.

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.

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

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.

"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.)