Tyler Perry and colored girls
Tyler Perry is King of black entertainment. He’s raking in billions and black folks are flooding the theatres in droves to see his movies. He also had a best selling book. So what is he selling? Religion, traditionalism, and a formula.
This blogger says it very well
Some ingredients for a Tyler Perry Madea film include…
1 cup one dimensional cheating and evil with it devilishly bad black man
2 cups black woman gone wrong
3 gallons Live and Let God
1 cup unappreciated hard working blue collar black man looking for a “good woman”
2 cups chil’ren acting out because they aren’t being raised in the church
2 or 3 famous black people/singersMix any three ingredients or all that shit up first and then toss Madea’s ass up in the bowl, stir and bake and serve up to the masses.
Ta da – you’ve got yourself a guaranteed to get shit reviews but make lots and lots of money film!
[snort!]
We get melodrama and coonery at the same time. And we love it.
I had to add my word to the many excellent posts in the blogosphere on the issue of Tyler Perry remaking Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf…My word is WTF? Another blogger named Thembi expressed my feelings near perfectly
Getting his hot little hands on Ntozake Shange’s 1975 play “For Colored Girls who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf,” was coup of the year for Tyler Perry. Not only will he produce and direct the upcoming film version, the King of Coonery will also write the adaptation of what may be the most important work about black female identity ever. Ask any black woman, especially the artsy/moody/self-aware type, about “For Colored Girls…” and she will respond with a wistful look and fond memories.
I’m also scared the Tyler Perry is going to fuck up our movie. To this date he has shown no shaded literary nuances in his stereotypical portrayals of traditional and formulaic black women.
But are white folks (the ones who make the decisions and control the purse strings) just trying to give us what we want? We spend tons of money on Tyler Perry. He is undoubtably what some black folks want.
What the people who decide what’s labeled as the black brand of entertainment don’t seem to understand is that some, even most, black folk aren’t all black folk. They only get dollar signs.
Don’t get me wrong. I think Tyler Perry has done wonderful things in creating his brand and hiring black actors, but I wish he’d stick to that brand and not mess with stuff that really matters to a certain sort of black woman.
It’s hard because we want to support black folk and we don’t want to be out of step with our own majority…but damn, Tyler Perry and colored girls? How can I get on board with that?
Jill Scott, Halle Berry and Angela Basset are already signed on for the film. I’m just praying that Perry does what the work deserves.
Should we patronize questionable black films just because they’re intended for us or should we boycott what we suspect is garbage? This is a persistent quandary that those of us interested in thoughtful black entertainment continue to face. Just what is a black woman to do with such a mess? When I ask myself these questions I’m reminded of Shange’s Lady in Green: “bein’ alive, bein’ a woman, and being colored is a metaphysical dilemma/ I haven’t yet conquered.”
Amen.
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Comments are closed.
about 4 months ago
“To this date he has shown no shaded literary nuances in his stereotypical portrayals of traditional and formulaic black women.”
Ditto. I think it’s fantastic he’s accomplished what he has done, and at the same time given many great black actors/actress from yesteryear and new an upcoming ones great starring roles.
But the man wouldn’t know a nuance if it was tied to an anvil and dropped on his head. (He’d get the anvil, though, but the poor nuance would slide right off).
I have friends who are big fans of his work, but for me he’s just okay. His movies have their odd moments But they’re extremely uneven and *obvious*. Strictly wait for cable for me.
about 4 months ago
It’s his television shows that I hate. The men are all buffoons and clowns, the women either good Christian women or evil whorish women. There are not in betweens. The children are all abused by at least one of their natural parents in some way or raised in a “strict” loving household. Again, no in betweens. I watched a few episodes, but my mother watches them religiously simply because they are about Black people. She says she likes them, but she sleeps through most of them.
about 4 months ago
“But the man wouldn’t know a nuance if it was tied to an anvil and dropped on his head. (He’d get the anvil, though, but the poor nuance would slide right off). ”
I am so stealing this, Vanessa.
about 4 months ago
Tyler isn’t writing the movie; Nzingha Stewart is doing so.
I have mixed feelings about TP–on one hand, his movies and plays are funny, but on the other hand, I do recognize the concerns many people raise as well as having my own (much of his writing repeats itself because he uses it as catharsis rather than art). However, the one major thing I have to disagree with his detractors over are the claims that his popularity has made Hollywood want to make copies of him and only see his sort of movies/plays as the ONLY black narrative. Why does Spike Lee not get this rep? Or John Singleton? Both of whom had their stint as the “black voice” of Hollywood.
The industry is hard, yes, but I think much of the criticism falls in the same category as seen from black writers commenting on street lit–looking to the white majority to validate their voice. TP is where he is because he hustled his ass off–the same as street lit writers. And guess what? All the black writers in the history of American literature have hustled to get their work out there. It’s the nature of the entertainment game. Now, the colored girls play has been in existence for thirty odd years–there was nothing to stop any black female writer/producer/director from hustling to obtain the funding for the rights and production costs–especially since the play apparently has a major significance to black women–in the years between then and now. Mixed feelings are valid, so is criticism, but I can’t jump on the “why Tyler Perry?/Hollywood needs to stop turning to Tyler Perry as the only black filmmaker” bandwagon. It smacks of nothing but self-serving smugness and excuses.
about 4 months ago
Actually John Singleton did. His success launched a whole series of ‘gin and juice’ movies. Spike not so much, but that would make sense. His movies were, for the most part not about gangbangers and whatnot. Black dysfunction elevates white supremacy, so movies full of black dysfunction and coonery will always win the day. It’s my understanding that Perry will indeed be adapting the screenplay and the idea of the man who created Madea having anything to do with our play is enough to make me nauseated. The man loathes black women, especially upwardly mobile ones.
about 4 months ago
Lots of black women lurve themselves some Tyler Perry. What can I say is the reason, except we are products of this culture also.
But Tyler Perry did work his ass off to get where he is…he rode in on the back of the huge popularity of the gospel play. He’s no dummy and he saw how many black women responded to that sort of message. He gave the majority of us exactly what we showed we wanted.
We’ve never spent the sort of money we spend on gospel play/Tyler Perry sort of stuff on colored girls sort of work.
So, looking at us as a monolith, it’s our own damn fault. But we are no monolith, there are voices of all types out there. There just isn’t enough of them. Money drifts toward those whose voices are the loudest.
P.S. If you write an AA niche book with religion, high drama, hot sex and touches of comedy in it…you got a niche bestseller, damn near guaranteed if it’s even halfway decent. Unlike the white Christian fiction niche which would froth, break out into a cold sweat and faint at many of our gospel books, we love some religion and sex and soap opera together.
about 4 months ago
Nope, Nzingha’s imdb says she is writing the screenplay. On the bright side, it will bring attention to this neglected (for this present generation) play–for women of all color.
about 4 months ago
Thank goodness for that.