Candy in the Wilderness: The Hagar Narrative as a Subtext in Tyler Perry’s “Madea Goes to Jail”

The biblical Hagar narrative inhabits a clearly defined space as a critical story within African American, and most specifically womanist, theology. Founding womanist theologian Delores Williams spends a great deal of time unpacking the Hagar narrative in her pivotal work Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk. She writes, “The African American community has taken Hagar’s story unto itself. Hagar has ‘spoken’ to generation after generation of black women because her story has been validated as true by suffering black people” (33). Shifting gears from black theology to black cinema – specifically, the films of Tyler Perry – I am interested in exploring the Hagar motif as it appears in one of Perry’s cinematic productions, Madea Goes to Jail. Perry critics and supporters alike widely acknowledge that his primary audience is comprised of black, church-going women. Keeping this primary audience in mind, I believe Perry – either consciously or subconsciously – imbues Madea Goes to Jail with nuances of the Hagar story as manifested in the relationships between Josh (Abram), Linda (Sarai) and Candy, the prostitute (Hagar).

Nyasha Junior, an assistant professor of Old Testament at the Howard University School of Divinity, asserts that “popular media forms may be considered biblical in that they include veiled or explicit references to biblical texts, characters, and images” (27). Junior suggests that artistic use of biblical themes in this way allows for the assumption on behalf of those consuming the media content that the content reflects biblical values. As such, I propose that the presence of a Hagar subtext in Madea Goes to Jail speaks to Perry’s audience members as a variation on an empowering biblical theme, reflecting the triumph of a Hagar-esque character in a contemporary setting. Although Candy’s narrative includes reference to a personal spiritual transformation toward the end of her time in jail, her happy ending features Perry’s classic motif of salvation and a fresh start in the company of a good man, rather than in the arms of the Lord.

Madea Goes to Jail – Perry’s highest-grossing film, adapted from one of his most popular stage plays – tells the story of Josh Hardaway, an assistant district attorney; his relationship with his fiancé, fellow attorney Linda Holmes; and a relationship disruption in the form of Candace “Candy” Washington, a prostitute who is a childhood friend of Josh’s and a client of Linda’s. Of immediate note is the fact that Josh and Linda are equally yoked in this story – a rarity among couples in Perry’s cinematic works. Both are intelligent, well-educated,

successful and financially sound, and both seem to be on track for career advancements within the district attorney’s office. Unlike Linda, however, who appears to hail from an upper-class environment, Josh refers throughout the film to his upbringing in a dangerous and unstable neighborhood. This disparity in their backgrounds does not seem to be an issue for the couple until Candy appears on the scene and her friendship with Josh is rekindled. The audience first encounters Candy as a minor character in the courtroom where she has been arrested for prostitution. Josh, her court-appointed attorney, quickly recognizes Candy as his childhood friend and college acquaintance, necessitating his fiancé, Linda, to take over her case. The equal footing and camaraderie between Josh and Linda is heavily underscored in this scene, as the two swap cases and favors as easily as if they were trading baseball cards. Much like, as Williams notes, “Hagar’s well-being was determined by Sarai” (17), Candy’s well-being is in Linda’s hands once Linda assumes responsibility for Candy’s prosecution.

When Josh attempts to reconnect with Candy and offer her help despite her protests, Linda and the couple’s friend and colleague, Tanya, staunchly criticize him. Tanya chastises Josh for his feelings of guilt, stating, “I made it out of the ghetto, too, but I don’t apologize for it. These people will never let you forget, and as long as you let them do that, you will always feel a sense of obligation to them.” Linda echoes Tanya’s sentiment, arguing that Candy and Josh’s other childhood companions “were afforded the same opportunities you were. You did something and they didn’t.” In an ensuing argument back at Josh’s apartment, Josh decries this oversimplification, telling Linda, “You’ve always had things handed to you. You’ve always been like Daddy’s little princess.” Although Josh agrees at the end of this argument not to help Candy any further, he soon comes to her aid after she flees from an abusive pimp. Linda is enraged at the sight of Candy asleep on Josh’s couch (although Josh is clearly not trying to hide anything from Linda), and she tells Josh he has “some decisions to make” before storming out.

At this point in the film, Candy’s story has not yet dovetailed with the Hagar narrative. Sarai encouraged Abram to sleep with Hagar in the hopes that she might bear him a son; Linda, on the other hand, is outraged by the very notion that Josh would offer help to this hooker, much less foster a friendship with her. Soon, though, the narratives collide. Much like Sarai’s harsh dealings with Hagar incite Hagar to run away, Linda’s harsh dealings with Josh about Candy drive Candy away, back into the dangerous and hostile “wilderness” of the streets where she is soon arrested once more for engaging in prostitution. Later in the Genesis narrative, Sarah insists that Abraham cast out Hagar and Ishmael to ensure that Isaac’s inheritance is not compromised, much to Abraham’s distress. This neatly mirrors Linda’s insistence, rooted in jealousy and insecurity about Josh’s motives and fidelity

, that Candy be removed as a threat and cast into jail. The contemporary version of the story, however, positions woman, not man, as the one with the power to eliminate the competition. In the biblical setting, Abraham sends Hagar and Ishmael away at his wife’s behest, but Josh is rendered powerless against Linda’s actions in the modern telling. He has traded Candy’s case away and is fully deprived of agency. Even though another colleague, Chuck, attempts to intercede on Candy’s behalf, telling Linda, “This woman has done nothing to you…he’s not in love with her, he loves you,” Linda remains unswayed. She has padded Candy’s file with charges from a closed case in an attempt to levy more severe sentencing, and she is successful, earning Candy a prison sentence of 17 years. Candy has been effectively exiled.

Linda is a clear allegorical counterpart to Sarah, but her story also contains overtones of the biblical Jezebel. Here we encounter an interesting dual-interpretation of the jezebel theme within Tyler Perry movies. Examining contemporary depictions of the jezebel character within black cinema, the jezebel is identified by African American media studies scholars Bishetta D. Merritt and Melbourne S. Cummings as “the innately promiscuous, seductive, bad Black ‘gal’” (190). In contemporary films, this modern jezebel often manifests as “the Black prostitute in either minor speaking roles as informants or in background images of police station squad rooms and extras populating street corners” (Merritt and Cummings, 190). According to these descriptors, Candy, not Linda, closely fits the jezebel template. However, in accordance with Scripture, Linda’s actions align with those of Jezebel.

Like Jezebel conspiring against Naboth in 1 Kings 21, Linda bears false witness against another for the sake of personal gain. In Linda’s case, she significantly pads the evidence against Candy, exaggerating the severity of her charges to warrant harsher sentencing. Much like Jezebel lies and guarantees Naboth’s death so that her husband, King Ahab, can take possession of Naboth’s vineyard, Linda ensures through her deceitful dealings that Candy will spend almost two decades of her life behind bars – and, conveniently, out of Josh’s life. Although Linda does not meet the same gruesome end as Jezebel – thrown from a window by her own servants and eaten by dogs – she does experience both the untimely demise of her career and the certainty that she herself will now spend time behind bars. Chuck, though not Linda’s servant, is a friend and colleague who metaphorically “throws her to the wolves” when he confesses Linda’s wrongdoings to Josh. As a prosecutor, Linda will be at risk for personal harm once she is sent to prison with inmates she helped to convict. She may, in a figurative sense, find herself eaten alive.

Candy, on the other hand, enjoys both newfound freedom and the promise of a future with Josh as a byproduct of Linda’s misdeeds. In some ways, Candy embodies the subtle persona of a new-styled jezebel, who is “willing and able to gain revenge against corrupt officials, drug dealers, and violent criminals” (Merritt and Cummings, 191). She does not act directly as an agent of vengeance and violence, but her ability to outwit and escape from Donna’s pimp, and her unwitting participation in Linda’s scheme, both contribute to the overthrow of corruption. If not for Josh and Chuck’s close proximity to Candy’s case, Linda most likely would have continued to maintain her 89% conviction rate on the backs of people who were more innocent than she portrayed them to be.

In addition, worthy of note in the film is the fact that Josh and Linda are engaged and planning a wedding, but not yet married. This scenario perfectly mirrors that of the three major characters in Perry’s 2012 film Good Deeds, which tells the story of a well-to-do businessman who abandons his predictable, elegant life (and fiancé) for a more real and exciting life with the cleaning woman in his office building – a single mother on the verge of destitution. In both films, the male leads are fast approaching their wedding days, but the nuptials are called off before the men enter in to the covenant of marriage. I believe Perry wishes both to emphasize that the working class women in these narratives are not home wreckers – a notion that would most certainly impact their likability – and to avoid any depictions of “good” men deserting their roles within the nuclear family. Divorce, for Perry’s couples, appears to be reserved for the “bad” and the battered. Preserving the sanctity of marriage for these two unlikely couples seems key.

Indeed, marriage appears to be the happy ending in store for Josh and Candy. Even before Josh dramatically breaks off his engagement to Linda at the altar, he is depicted as assuming the savior role for Candy. When Candy finally allows Josh to visit her in prison, she speaks to him of her spiritual awakening and says, “If you love the Lord, everything’s going to work out for good for you. [I know] I believe that’s true…‘cause I’ve gotta believe in something.” Without hesitation, Josh steps into the role of savor, stating, “You can believe in me.” At this point, Candy forgives Josh for their checkered history, and another Perry motif – forgiveness as a gateway to personal transformation – is fulfilled. Although Williams celebrates Hagar’s willingness to trust her fate to God (239), she is also hesitant to extol Hagar as an exemplar of female liberation:

Womanist theology would be reticent to designate either Hagar or the Virgin Mary as models of liberated human beings since both women are always powerless and never able to take care of their own business or set their own agenda for their lives. Throughout most of the biblical story about her, Hagar was a slave. And when she was freed, she was freed into poverty and what looked like an impossible life-situation. (Williams 182)

When Candy is freed, she is freed into prosperity and what looks to be a restorative life-situation. However, like Williams’s imagining of Hagar, who was at the mercy of divine powers to save her from the effects of human agents, Candy has thus far been unable to handle her business or set a meaningful agenda for her own life. In light of Josh’s promises to “get you outta here…get you home…help you kick that crap and get you off the streets…” it appears that Candy, like Hagar, will assume the persona of a rescued damsel in distress rather than a liberated, empowered woman. Both characters may serve to inspire the women who encounter them as proof of possible redemption from isolation and suffering, but women who encounter either of these narratives are unlikely to infer, based on the endings, that transformative redemption is possible to achieve on one’s own.

Good Deeds. Dir. Tyler Perry. Perf. Tyler Perry, Thandie Newton, Gabrielle Union. Lionsgate, 2012. DVD.

Junior, Nyasha. “Tyler Perry Reads Scripture.” Womanist and Black Feminist Responses to Tyler Perry’s Productions. Ed. LeRhonda S. Manigault-Bryant, Tamura A. Lomax and Carol B. Duncan. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2014. 27-40. Print.

Madea Goes to Jail. Dir. Tyler Perry. Perf. Derek Luke, Keisha Knight Pulliam, Ion Overman, Viola Davis, Tyler Perry. Lionsgate, 2009. DVD.

Merritt, Bishetta D. and Melbourne S. Cummings. “T
he African American Woman on Film.” Interpreting Tyler Perry: Perspectives on Race, Class, Gender, and Sexuality. Ed. Jamel Santa Cruze Bell and Ronald L. Jackson II. New York: Routledge, 2014. 187-195. Print.

Williams, Delores S. Sisters in the Wilderness: The Challenge of Womanist God-Talk. New York: Orbis Books, 1993. Print.