In recent years I have been impressed by Bishop T.D. Jakes’ increased levels of theological nuance and broader social analysis, particularly when compared to the wider world of evangelical religious broadcasting. This is why I went to the movie theatre hoping to enjoy the Dallas preacher’s latest film Not Easily Broken.
But rather than being entertained, I felt overwhelmed by melodramatic moralizing and easily anticipated plot lines plucked from the most regressive aspects of Bishop Jakes’ highly-gendered and racialized worldview.
Like the less-sophisticated sermons and writings of Jakes’ in the 1990s, this movie was chock-full of familiar and tired personalities. There is Dave, the affable and responsible husband, played by Morris Chestnut, who served as the hard-working guy trying to hold his marriage together after a career ending knee injury dashed his “hoop dreams” (professional baseball in this case). Dave is the quintessential “Strong Black Man” who wants little more than to be appreciated and affirmed by the women in his life. Unfortunately he is married to the materialistic, emasculating career woman named Clarice (Tariji Henson from Talk to Me and Benjamin Button) whose disrespect for her husband is only rivaled by the amount of nagging she can achieve between breaths. And, of course, Clarice is the natural by-product of her intrusive and verbally abusive mother, the castrating matriarch, played by the otherwise hilarious Jenifer Lewis.
Dave is a modest contractor who wants a child and spends every free moment compassionately coaching little league baseball. Clarice is a self-absorbed and overspent real-estate agent whose life revolves around networking and a Cadillac Escalade. Dave’s voice-over narration situates him as both the likable protagonist and hyper-moralizing hero of the film. If he could just get his mother-in-law to realize that the man, like the biblical Adam, was made to provide and protect, then neither she nor her daughter would be so bitter. Rather than strong black women serving as their own heroes, they should simply allow the proverbial Adam to assume his rightful place, Dave homiletically surmises.
To be sure, if this movie would have stayed at the level of staid sermonizing and rigid gender constructs I would have gladly walked away with a Tyler Perryish indifference. But after a car-wreck debilitates Clarice, it is the insertion of her physical therapist Julie, a demure, domesticated, and responsibly devout single mother (who just happens to be as white and blonde as Cinderella) that ratchets up the racialized subtext.
Dave’s sincere appreciation and interest in her son’s love of sports situates the two on an understandable crash course of mutual attraction. Yet it is her clear sense of fiscal sobriety, family responsibility and personal humility over against the vaudevillian Sapphire-like, emasculating bitch wife Clarice à la Amos n’ Andy) and her “bitter black woman” mother (a la Moynihan’s matriarch) that renders the racially encoded message that much more tragic and disappointing.
Bishop Jakes, whether he realizes it or not, leads Clarice to redemption by juxtaposing her against a blonde, highly feminized moral exemplar. This character, who despite her borderline illicit affair with Dave, teaches this otherwise embittered black woman how to love and treat her black man. And, in the final instance, redeems both Dave, Clarice and their soon-to-be born child. It would almost seem that the moral of the story could be, “Earth has no sorrow, that a white, blonde woman can’t heal!”
Sigh…..
