Roger Ebert: Hater or Just Doing His Job?
By Scott Smith in Arts & Entertainment on Mar 2, 2005 4:22PM
Poor Roger Ebert. After finally weathering the hailstorm of controversy over Million Dollar Baby (though he’s as guilty as anyone else for keeping that fire burning), he manages to step in it again with his negative review of last weekend’s number one box office draw, Diary of a Mad Black Woman. **
Ebert revisits his review in today’s Sun-Times after he “received more e-mails than about any review I have ever written” and was criticized in the intellectual and cultural salon that are the Yahoo message boards. The target of Ebert’s ire is the introduction of the “not remotely plausible” Grandma Madea character that, in his view, is singularly responsible for the movie going “spectacularly wrong.” Though he gave the film only one star, Ebert singles out Kimberly Elise’s performance for particular praise and calls the film a “touching story.” But his text was all but lost beneath that single star and inflammatory headlines like “Grandma destroys 'Mad Black Woman'”.
Cue the critics of the critic. Though not the only person to offer a negative review of the film, many accused Ebert of not understanding the symbolism of resiliency in the Madea character and threw in a whispered chorus of racism for good measure. Elise and Diary producer Reuben Cannon informed Ebert (during a conversation at Ebony’s 60th anniversary party) that the film intended to mix tones and genres in capturing the spirit of the Tyler Perry play on which Diary is based. In today’s piece, Ebert notes that Bollywood films mix tone and genre with great success (indeed last month’s Bride and Prejudice opened to mostly positive reviews from American critics) but Diary did not.
Chicagoist's dime-store analysis and an explanation for what the hell is going on in that opening paragraph after the jump.
Image: suntimes.rogerebert.com
When watching a film, Ebert often asks himself, “What is this film trying to accomplish and does it succeed?” He obviously felt that Diary was trying to tell the story of a woman’s life after a destructive marriage and the Madea character prevented that story from being told, hence the negative review.
Though Diary undoubtedly “worked” onstage, creative material cannot be “ported” over to a different medium without accounting for the change. Audiences will accept certain characters or plot twists in books or plays that would never work on a 30 foot tall screen.
Finally, Ebert’s Caucasian persuasion is used here as a cheap rhetorical device to discredit his views. Does he have to be Indian to review Bollywood films or from Brooklyn to review Ed Burns movies? No. With all cultural works, context is important. But the need for films that feature people of color in front and behind the camera should not mean that critics or viewers—Black, White, Latino, Asian, whatever—give a free pass to films that don’t accurately portray that experience or are just plan bad.
** Chicagoist apologizes for the hack-y mixed metaphors but we’re having a busy morning so we’re going for speed rather than the Pulitzer here.