Tim is the
first clearly queer character in the Madea franchise, and Black hopes his story
may ease younger audiences’ fears about coming out. “I want them to know that
more than trying to appease your family, you got to be yourself,” says the
actor, who is gay. “You might be surprised as to what your family does when
they receive who you actually are.”
Spoilers ahead
for those who haven’t watched the film, but happily for Tim, his coming-out
falls flat when all his relatives tell him they already knew and that they were
waiting for him to gather the strength to tell them. While viewers might go
into A Madea Homecoming expecting some queer family drama, it
turns out it’s a safe space for Tim thanks to his accepting family. “I want to
feel like people like me, they can see themselves in something that’s not
always so heavy. I want to do heavy dark stuff — and I have some other stuff
later coming out that’s a little bit more of that. But it’s not always a
tragedy, you know?”
Black makes a
point. Historically speaking, queer storylines in TV and film tend to give
LGBTQ+ characters happily-never-after endings. It’s often rife with death,
breakups, or loss. Readers familiar with this pattern will know it as the “bury
your gays” trope, where shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and The
100 are famous for killing off the only LGBTQ+ characters for the sake
of the (straight) drama. In terms of queer storytelling, A Madea
Homecoming’s choice to let its gay character be gay without any sort of
repercussion or fallout is refreshing.
While
some viewers may crave more queerness in the film, the choice to not make a big
deal out of Tim’s coming- out furthers the idea that gayness does not have to
be one’s center, entire personality, or the crux of a movie or TV show.
“There’s all
kinds of stuff going on. [Just like in life] you’re not just gay,” Black says.
“You’re gay, you’re Black, you are a young person coming up in today’s times.
You’re all these things, and they all mix. You’re never just one thing. And I
think that this movie did a good job of that.”
A Madea
Homecoming also does a great job of breaking down
stereotypes when it comes to queer Black roles. Gone (for the most part) are
the days when those characters were depicted as flamboyant or whitewashed to
accommodate tropes Hollywood has perpetuated for decades. In the vein of more
progressive representation, Tim doesn’t fit the mold that he might once have
been forced into if his character were in the first Tyler Perry en femme Madea
movie (2005’s Diary of a Mad Black Woman).
“I feel like
in the past, it may have been a bit limited. If you were going to be queer and
Black, you needed to maybe be one specific way to [take up that] space,” Black
says. “And then all the guys [who checked those boxes] are all climbing over
each other for that one role.” Today, Black has a lot more opportunities
because of filmmakers like Perry who are expanding the conversation of what it
means to be queer and Black.
“I have a few
friends who are in the same category — gay Black actors who have stuff coming
out,” he says. “I’m so excited to see that they’re the head of the show. If
we’re going to see this on, you know, network television or Netflix, that’s
going to create room for more [roles of that kind]. This movie, for me, is
coming out of the perfect time to be my billboard, to say like you should put
me in your next thing and it doesn’t have to be a gay role. I want to play
everything that I’m right for the way straight people play everything that
they’re right for.”
In the
end, A Madea Homecoming is more than just Perry’s first Madea
movie with a gay main character. It’s breaking down barriers and redefining
expectations of what it means to be queer and Black while serving as a reminder
that those identities don’t define everything about a person. Now, if only Tim
would get a boyfriend in the next film.
SOURCE: ADVOCATE
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