I’m down with the flu, and have been booked off work. So I sat down and watched TV this afternoon and one of the movie channels on DSTV was playing one of my favourite movies,
Madea’s Big Happy Family. I always enjoy a good Tyler Perry movie. He finds a way to bring out the best in us darkies and tells universal stories about black life and we can relate to most of his content. This movie is full of characters that are engaging and entertaining, some over the top than others, but nonetheless, they work and suit Perry’s style.
Then when I turned to one of the Mzansi channels, unsure if it was Mzansi Wethu or one of the other ones and they played
The Gift, which was produced by Ferguson Films whom have produced a lot of shows for Mzansi (Rockville, iGazi, The Queen). In the last few years the Fergusons have become a force to be reckoned with in the industry. I take my hat off for their hard work. They have made a mark in the industry. But there was something that bothered me. The movie had striking similarities to that of
Madea’s Big Happy Family. First, the two sisters who live very different lives. The one sister has made it and married to a rich man, while the other one is poor and married a guy from the hood (ekasi) – this could be a coincidence, but then both of the girls who have made it seem to not want anything to do with being back home in both movies, while the one who is poorer is working hard at home but doesn’t seem to get her mother’s recognition.
Then there is what seems like a scene stolen right out of Perry’s script. The scene was the huge family dinner. In Perry’s film, Tammy (Natalie Desselle) is fed up of her mother Shirley (Loretta Devine) always favouring the other sister so she rips apart and divulges family secrets about how her big sister Kimberly (Shannon Kane) fell pregnant as a teenager and gave birth to her son Byron (Bow Wow), and he was raised as their brother. In The Gift, Thembi Seete’s character (I think her name was Bontle in the film) she gets the shock of her life when her sister (played by Tsholo Monedi) reveals a big secret that the sister fell pregnant as a teen and their mother knew this secret and concealed it, but in The Gift, Seete aborted her baby.
Now this could all be a coincidence, but it is too similar. Someone clearly stole the idea and scenes from another here. With that said,
Madea’s Big Happy Family was released in 2011 and
The Gift was released in 2014. You be the judge.