Madea

Early years

Mabel "Madea" Simmons was born in Greensburg, Louisiana, on April 26, 1935. (Madea was 68 in the first play, I Can Do Bad All by Myself, as well as Madea's Class Reunion. Her ages in the other plays are unknown because they take place between these two plays, and there's no continuity offered. In Madea Goes to Jail, Madea was around 75). In "I Can Do Bad All by Myself," she reveals that sometime in her adult life she lived in Cleveland, Ohio, but later returned to Atlanta.

Madea was brought up in poverty and grew up living in shacks with her immediate family. Madea has stated that although her family didn't have much, they had love.

According to Family Reunion, Madea's mother, "Big Mabel" Murphy, was a hooker during Madea's childhood and wasn't at all religious. As a result, Madea grew up with little knowledge of Christianity (as an elderly woman, Madea has a tendency to misquote the Bible).

She attended Booker T. Washington High School, where she served as a cheerleader. When Madea was 16, her parents moved her and the rest of her immediate family to Atlanta, Georgia, in a shotgun house. It was reported in Madea's book, Don't Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings, that Madea's mother and father wouldn't allow her to go out at all until she turned 17 or 18.

In the films, it has been revealed that Madea used to be a stripper, and her stagenames were Magnitude and Delicious. There was also heavy implication that she was a prostitute as well.

Criminal background

Madea has a lifelong criminal record that began at age 9 with a charge of petty theft. It is also reported that Madea was charged with her first felony at this age, and her crimes began progressing to illegal gambling at age 18, which later evolved into check fraud, identity theft, insurance fraud (presumably related to her nine deceased husbands), assault, and attempted murder, vehicle theft (mostly Lexus vehicles, the first vehicle she ever stole being a 1992 Lexus LS400), smashing into other vehicles on roads (as she did to 1 Toyota Camry Hybrid, 1 Honda Civic, and 4 Lexus IS's with her Cadillac, and the Cadillac CTS with her daughter's Chevrolet Uplander), and forklifting vehicles out of parking spaces (usually for taking spaces that she wants to park at, as she did to many Camrys and Scions, as well as a Pontiac Solstice that she ruined in Madea Goes to Jail). Throughout the series, she is a repeat offender.

In Diary of a Mad Black Woman alone, Madea and her granddaughter Helen McCarter were both charged with "criminal trespassing, reckless endangerment, criminal possession of a handgun, assault with a deadly weapon, [driving on a] suspended license, expired registration, reckless driving, and a broken taillight", which placed Madea on house arrest, while her granddaughter was bailed for $5,000.

In Family Reunion, she violated the terms of house arrest by taking off her house arrest bracelet but was given the opportunity to avoid jail by becoming a foster mother.

In Meet the Browns, Madea didn't pay for her gas, which leads her into a high-speed car chase with law enforcement officials.

In Goes to Jail, Madea was about to get sent to jail, but was reluctantly released by Judge Mablean after learning the arresting officers did not read the Miranda rights warning when she was arrested (as the officers claimed that Madea was fighting with them), so she finally admits that her license was suspended indefinitely (implying that her license was suspended when she was 30 years old) and also gets ordered to anger management counseling, making it the very last opportunity for her to avoid jail. She, however, began driving as soon as Cora neglected her daughterly duties. Madea's brother Joe (also played by Perry) refers to her as a "po-po ho", meaning someone who is a professional at evading law enforcement.

Hard side and language use

Scurrilous and saucy in remarks and behavior, Madea is full of comical sass and vulgar, abusive language. She also has many catch phrases, such as "You crazy as hell," and "I outta punch you in da face!" In addition, she uses Ebonics and other various urban expressions. Madea also intentionally adds a mispronounced "t" sound to many of her words, such as "Africant Americant", "cooking and cleanting" and "living for da Lort [Lord]."

Madea is mostly noted for her outrageous overreactions and thuggish toughness over which she has shown no shame. For example, the character has four general methods of attack:

1. Destruction of property, such as demolishing others' household appliances with a chainsaw
2. Weapon violence, such as stabbing others with a lit cigarette
3. Physical violence, such as strangling and pounding others with her bare hands and elbows
4. Intimidation through outrageous browbeating tactics and threats, such as firing off her pistol, which she keeps handy with her in her purse at all times

In regards to her gun use, Madea just shoots around targets, using intimidation as opposed to ever actually killing or injuring anyone. As another form of intimidation, Madea frequently boasts of having killed in the past. As an example, she once claimed to have murdered Jimmy Hoffa over him insulting her. She also claimed to have shot Tupac Shakur while arguing over a parking space; although she claims not to have killed him in the shooting.

Soft side

In spite of her outrageous and shocking behaviors, Madea is consultative, protective, loving, and motherly at heart. This is heavily evidenced in Gets a Job, in which Madea provides life lessons, guidance, and direction to all the residents and staff members of a nursing home. Moreover, on numerous occasions, Madea has accepted family members who were without a place to stay into her home on her own accord. These family members have included her granddaughter Helen (Diary of a Mad Black Woman film), granddaughter Vianne (I Can Do Bad All by Myself), her great niece Vanessa and her two kids (Madea's Family Reunion), and ex-convict Bobby Mitchell (I Can Do Bad All by Myself).

Quite often, Madea has offered direction and guidance to those who were being abused within their romantic relationships. Though much of this direction and guidance tends to come in the form of extreme warmongering, Madea's heart is always in the right place.

Madea also instructs troubled individuals about the mistakes they've made in their life choices and leads them down the path of forgiveness and improvement. While in prison in the film Madea Goes to Jail, Madea attends an anger management church meeting under duress. During the meeting, Madea ends up lecturing all the women to stop playing victims, stop whining, and start taking actions to improving their lives.

Madea is mentally strong and offers nurturing advice to struggling individuals whom she cares for.

Pet peeves

Madea has a series of pet peeves: disrespectful youth, Gum popping, rude people; lazy people; adulterous people; and "people who are just plain stupid." She is also a firm critic of men that sag their pants, believing that it looks cheap and sloppy.

Madea's family

(Note: There are a few discrepancies and plot holes in Madea's family tree as between the regular films and the stage-plays)

Madea's mother

In the book Don't Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings, Madea gives details on her mother, "Big Mable" Murphy, who was described as "unusually large". "Big Mable" is characterized as being very gentle, mild-mannered, kind and peaceful woman, with a long and very dangerous fuse. In Family Reunion, Madea revealed that "Big Mabel" was a hooker during Madea's childhood and not at all religious.

Siblings

Madea's brothers
According to Don't Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings, Madea has several brothers. Two of them are Frederick (revealed in the book)and Joe.

Madea's sister
In Family Reunion, it was revealed that Madea has an older sister named Irene Andrews, who has a son named Sonny and a daughter named Sheila. The film begins with everyone leaving Irene's funeral. Madea was shown as not caring much for her sister; in fact, not only does Madea claim she's happy Irene's died, but she has also said Irene probably died on purpose to get out of repaying Madea a $20 loan. In Madea Goes to Jail, Madea helps out Sonny by letting him stay at her home rent-free.

Madea's parenting, husbands, and children

In Madea Goes to Jail, it was revealed that Madea supported her children by stripping, pole dancing, and professional wrestling, among other things.

Madea has buried nine husbands, among them Jimmy and Johnny. Madea claims to have shot some of them and poisoned others of them with her sweet potato pie. After each husband died, they were buried quickly and Madea collected their life insurance checks. Each time it's happened, Madea has stated "I'm tryin' to get to the insurance company by five, and the casino by nine!"

First husband: Johnny Simmons
Madea's first husband, the father of Michelle and William, was Johnny Simmons (deceased). Madea implies that she was glad when he died and that their marriage wasn't good. Johnny's niece Vickie appears in Family Reunion; she is the mother of four sons.

Daughter: Cora Simmons
Madea's daughter, Cora Simmons, is her most recognized and only child to appear in most of the plays and movies. Cora is 50 in Diary of a Mad Black Woman. She was born in 1953 when Madea was 18. Cora is a devout Christian and is often in the company of her father Leroy Brown.

Tina and Lisa only appear in Family Reunion, but are the only granddaughters to be mentioned all the time.

Cora thought that Johnny was her father until Class Reunion, in which Madea reminded Cora that she [Cora] was the product of a one-night stand with Leroy Brown during their prom in 1953. This suggests that Madea is 62 years old in her first appearance, as well as in Madea's Class Reunion when her parents attend their 50th class reunion. Once Cora learned the truth, she became closer to Mr. Brown, visiting his family (in Meet the Browns) and taking him to the hospital in What's Done in the Dark. Their father/daughter plotline is shown on movies in Meet the Browns, the TV series Tyler Perry's House of Payne, and its spin-off series Meet the Browns. In the movie Tyler Perry's Madea's Big Happy Family, Cora enlists the help of Maury Povich to find out if Leroy Brown is in fact her father, after a blood test proves he is not. DNA tests reveal that Leroy Brown is not the father of Cora.

In Madea's Big Happy Family there is no apparent relation between Leroy Brown and Cora other than friends.

Son: William Simmons
William is Madea's youngest and only son. Depending on the chronological order of the plays, William could be older than Cora. William is married to Myrtle. As far as the plays, Myrtle only appears in the Diary of a Mad Black Woman. She is, however, mentioned in the I Can Do Bad All by Myself play. In the plays, Myrtle is in her fifties. In the film timeline, Myrtle is in her 70s, and is placed in a retirement home. This shows a natural propensity to disregard timelines humorously, because Madea herself is only in her mid-seventies.

William and Myrtle have three children: Helen, Jackie, and Gina, all of whom have either appeared or been mentioned in one of the plays (though only Helen is mentioned in the movie). William's oldest daughter, Helen, is in her mid to late 30s during Diary of a Mad Black Woman, which makes William in his fifties.

Media & entertainment featuring Madea

Madea has appeared in several plays (some of which have been recorded for repeated viewing), fully produced films, a couple of television programs (guest appearances), one book and one animated film. The character made her first appearance in the 1999 play I Can Do Bad All by Myself, later appearing in numerous other plays by Perry, then appearing in films based on those plays.

Animated film

House of Payne (guest appearances)

In the TBS comedy-drama House of Payne episode "The Roof is On Fire", Madea was the foster mother of Nikki. She factored into the plot through a school altercation between her adopted daughter and Curtis Payne's (the series' protagonist) great-nephew Malik. Curtis takes a particular disliking to Madea, who is not in the least bit intimidated by Curtis at all. Rather conversely, Curtis became intimidated by Madea and had nightmares about her.

In the episode "The Wench Who Saved Christmas", Curtis tries to discourage everyone from having the Christmas spirit. He later fell asleep and dreamt that Madea was the ghost of Christmas past, present, and future. In this form, she tried to teach him a lesson about his killjoy behavior.

In the episode "Wife Swap", Curtis' wife Ella chastises him for taking her for granted. That night, Curtis has an extended nightmare where he is married to Madea instead of Ella.

Meet the Browns (mentioned)

On another TBS series, Meet the Browns, Madea is said to be the mother of Cora Simmons as a result of a one-night stand with the show's lead character, She is an unseen character throughout the series.

Love Thy Neighbor (guest appearance)

On January 21, 2015, Madea made a special guest appearance in the Oprah Winfrey Network comedy series, Love Thy Neighbor. The episode titled "Madea's Pressure Is Up" aired as part of the 3rd season of Love Thy Neighbor.

Book

Don't Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings: Perry wrote the book in the character's persona. The book was published on April 11, 2006.

Acclaim

Entertainment Weekly put the character on its end-of-the-decade, "best-of" list, saying, "Whether she's going to jail or just opening up a can of whupass, Tyler Perry's Madea is the profane, gun-toting granny you never had but (maybe) wish you did."

Parody and satire

Orlando Jones's April Fools prank

On April 1, 2013, Orlando Jones effected an April Fools' Day prank, informing the public via his Huffington Post account that he would be replacing Perry as Madea. Jones led the public to believe that the decision had come amid Perry's prior obligations, assisting Oprah Winfrey with her struggling OWN network. As part of the prank, Jones released a photo of himself to the public in which he was impersonating Madea. In addition, he incorporated several pretend quotes seemingly issued by Perry, both acknowledging the news and giving Jones his blessing to continue on with the character. Unaware of the prank, however, many fans responded with great outrage and criticism. As result of increasing outcries from fans, Perry informed the public on April 15, 2013, that the news was untrue. Perry was quoted as stating, "That was an April Fool’s joke that HE did. Not true. And not funny. When I’m done with Madea, she is done."

Criticism

Perry has been accused of minstrelsy and playing into black stereotypes with the Madea character, most notably by fellow black director Spike Lee. Perry's argument with Lee dates back to a 2009 interview in which Lee referred to Perry's films as "coonery buffoonery". Lee equated the Madea movies with the old-time minstrel shows which lampooned black people as dim-witted, lazy, buffoonish, superstitious and happy-go-lucky, and further stated that if a white director made a movie depicting black people in such a manner he would be ostracized.

Perry responded by stating that his films were meant as entertainment and should not be taken so seriously. Stated Perry, "I am sick of him talking about me. I am sick of him saying, 'This is a coon, this is a buffoon.' I am sick of him talking about black people going to see movies. This is what he said: 'You vote by what you see'—as if black people don't know what they want to see. I am sick of him. He talked about Whoopi, he talked about Oprah, he talked about me, he talked about Clint Eastwood. Spike needs to shut the hell up!"