Salon.com > Tyler Perry http://www.salon.com Tue, 02 Jul 2013 22:57:44 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Lolo Jones compares Trayvon Martin witness to Tyler Perry’s Madea http://www.salon.com/2013/06/28/lolo_jones_compares_trayvon_martin_witness_to_tyler_perrys_madea/ http://www.salon.com/2013/06/28/lolo_jones_compares_trayvon_martin_witness_to_tyler_perrys_madea/#comments Fri, 28 Jun 2013 17:58:00 +0000 http://www.railrode.net/?p=13340077 Olympic track athlete Lolo Jones has found herself at the center of controversy again, this time for comparing Rachel Jeantel, the 19-year old star witness in the Trayvon Martin case, to Tyler Perry's black matriarch character, "Madea."

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Many found the remark offensive. But Jones, who has apologized for her ill-conceived attempts at humor before, has not yet responded to her critics, at least on Twitter:

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Instead, she issued the following statement via Twitter:

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/06/28/lolo_jones_compares_trayvon_martin_witness_to_tyler_perrys_madea/feed/ 8 The war on Christmas movies http://www.salon.com/2012/12/08/the_war_on_christmas_movies/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/08/the_war_on_christmas_movies/#comments Sat, 08 Dec 2012 17:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13118863 So is there really a “war on Christmas” being waged by pinko, lefty, pro-choice, sexually bewildered heathens, as Bill O’Reilly proclaims around this time every year? Well, I don’t know about that, but there’s definitely a war on Christmas movies in that nobody seems capable of making good ones and the list of unwatchably crappy ones grows longer every year. Admittedly, it’s hard for any movie of any kind to be more painful than Tim Allen’s “Santa Clause” series. (There are three of them. Three!) But then, you probably haven’t seen either the 1977 remake of “It’s a Wonderful Life” starring Marlo Thomas or whatever the “Christmas Carol” knockoff from the '90s was called in which Vanessa Williams played Ebony Scrooge.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/08/the_war_on_christmas_movies/feed/ 43 How should we talk about blackface? http://www.salon.com/2012/11/17/how_should_we_talk_about_blackface/ http://www.salon.com/2012/11/17/how_should_we_talk_about_blackface/#comments Sat, 17 Nov 2012 21:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13101461 WHEN RIDING THE BUS to the University of Texas campus a few years back, I became suddenly conscious of the fact that the cover of the book in my hands depicted a stark white fist clutching a hammer against a black background. And the title: The Wages of Whiteness. It was enough to raise a few eyebrows. At the time, I was delving through the available literature on blackface minstrelsy, as part of my exams for the Ph.D. program in American Studies. Looking back on this brief bit of extreme self-consciousness, I think my gut feeling was right, because — at best — the topic of minstrelsy in America is a discomfiting one, not typically broached in public.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/11/17/how_should_we_talk_about_blackface/feed/ 2 Tyler Perry donates van to woman with cerebral palsy http://www.salon.com/2012/10/03/tyler_perry_donates_van_to_woman_with_cerebral_palsy/ http://www.salon.com/2012/10/03/tyler_perry_donates_van_to_woman_with_cerebral_palsy/#comments Wed, 03 Oct 2012 13:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13028957 DECATUR, Ga. (AP) -- Filmmaker Tyler Perry is donating a new vehicle to a Georgia woman with cerebral palsy after her specially-equipped van was stolen outside Atlanta.

Perry tells Atlanta station WSB-TV he decided to give Alicia Day a brand new van after he saw a news report about the theft this week.

Authorities say Day's 2000 Chrysler Town and Country van was stolen from her Decatur driveway sometime Sunday night.

Day, who uses a wheelchair, told WSB she prides herself on being independent and works part-time as a greeter at Home Depot. Her mother relied on the van to take Day to work and to doctor appointments.

Day said "my mouth just dropped to the floor" when she learned Perry would give her a new van.

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Information from: WSB-TV

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/10/03/tyler_perry_donates_van_to_woman_with_cerebral_palsy/feed/ 1 “South Park” eviscerates Tyler Perry and his fans http://www.salon.com/2011/05/05/south_park_tyler_perry/ http://www.salon.com/2011/05/05/south_park_tyler_perry/#comments Thu, 05 May 2011 13:24:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/tv/feature/2011/05/05/south_park_tyler_perry Tyler Perry is something of a divisive figure. We've already seen Spike Lee decimate Perry in the pair's ongoing feud, and it's a well-documented fact that audiences of Tyler's extremely popular Madea series don't give a crap what Spike Lee thinks of the "coonery buffoonery."

 Last night, "South Park" gave Perry a long-awaited noogie when he showed up to accept at the school's comedy awards show. (Called "The Kathy Griffin Awards" -- how I wish those really existed.)

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/05/05/south_park_tyler_perry/feed/ 7 Tyler Perry vs. Spike Lee: Let’s bring the Jews into this! http://www.salon.com/2011/04/20/tyler_perry_spike_lee_madea/ http://www.salon.com/2011/04/20/tyler_perry_spike_lee_madea/#comments Wed, 20 Apr 2011 20:06:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/feature/2011/04/20/tyler_perry_spike_lee_madea Tyler Perry may be very good at making a $400 million franchise off his Madea character, but he is terrible at defending his work from critics. Spike Lee has been after Perry for years now, calling his work "coonery buffoonery" and claiming that his characters invoke racial stereotypes to get laughs. (Wikipedia describes Tyler's Madea character as an "overweight, older woman who uses the Mammy archetype.") The character of Madea also has a catchphrase of "Halleluyer praise da lot!" Obviously, this is going to rub some African-Americans the wrong way.

Obviously, any franchise packed with racially charged material is going to get some negative feedback. Spike Lee himself has often been condemned for portraying African-Americans in a negative light, although his criticism of Perry seems more in line with Lee's own movie from 2000 about modern-day minstrel shows, "Bamboozled." Both men, however, attack controversial racial and social issues from within the perspective of the African-American community.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/04/20/tyler_perry_spike_lee_madea/feed/ 48 “For Colored Girls”: Tyler Perry’s misunderstood genius http://www.salon.com/2010/11/04/defense_of_tyler_perry/ http://www.salon.com/2010/11/04/defense_of_tyler_perry/#comments Thu, 04 Nov 2010 15:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/film_salon/2010/11/04/defense_of_tyler_perry Tyler Perry, whose new movie opens today, is an American original who fought his way to significance from the margins. Once homeless and nearly penniless, he's now a pop cultural force whose movies have earned over $400 million even though critics treat them with condescension or contempt when they bother to watch them at all. He remains an outsider -- not just because he's black, conservative, deeply (often sanctimoniously) religious and because of the persistent rumors about his sexuality (including rumors that he's suing "Boondocks" creator Aaron Magruder for claiming that he is gay), but because he makes truly personal and often deeply strange films, and releases a new one every six months.

Reviewing Perry's first solo outing as a screenwriter-producer for New York Press, I called "Diary of a Mad Black Woman" "a jumbled wreck of a movie, alternately prosaic and loony," but added, "the source material is so rich and in-your-face sincere that it works anyway." Here we are half a decade on: new movie, same verdict, times 100. Most of Perry's movies are whiplash-inducing experiences, alternately clumsy and powerful, pandering and bold, crude and beautiful. Perry's 10th film in five years, "For Colored Girls" -- an adaptation of Ntozake Shange's dramatic prose poem "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf" -- is his most problematic work. It's also his most ambitious.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/11/04/defense_of_tyler_perry/feed/ 25 Tyler Perry’s good mission, lousy movies http://www.salon.com/2010/04/02/much_ado_about_tyler_perry/ http://www.salon.com/2010/04/02/much_ado_about_tyler_perry/#comments Fri, 02 Apr 2010 02:17:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/film_salon/2010/04/01/much_ado_about_tyler_perry In the black community, you don't have to seek out Tyler Perry movies; they come to you. I watched the original "Why Did I Get Married?" over at my mother's house one night when I visited for dinner, after she and my sister (avid cinephiles) anxiously popped in the DVD before I could even object. A few months later, on a bachelor/bachelorette wedding outing, the bride-to-be introduced the movie -- about four African-American couples struggling with their relationships over one disastrous weekend -- by announcing, "This is everything that should not happen on this trip."

But as ubiquitous as Tyler Perry movies are, they are equally as contentious. And as "Why Did I Get Married Too?" (which did not screen prior to its release) opens this Friday -- most likely met with big box office and lukewarm reviews -- I am bracing myself for the inevitable debates to come about Tyler Perry, the man and the work.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/04/02/much_ado_about_tyler_perry/feed/ 13 “Precious” mettle http://www.salon.com/2009/11/05/precious/ http://www.salon.com/2009/11/05/precious/#comments Thu, 05 Nov 2009 01:04:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/review/2009/11/04/precious How much bad stuff can possibly happen to one protagonist? In that contest, Precious -- the Harlem teenager at the heart of "Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire" -- ranks right up there with any Thomas Hardy heroine. Sixteen-year-old Clareece "Precious" Jones, played by newcomer Gabourey Sidibe, is pregnant with her second child -- she gave birth to the first, a girl with Down syndrome, at age 12. The father of both children is her own father, who has been sexually abusing her since she was a toddler. Her mother, Mary (Mo'Nique), resents her, considering her a rival for her man's sexual attention, and abuses her physically, sexually, verbally and emotionally. She also tries to keep Precious -- who is obese and unable to read -- out of school, asserting that she's stupid and will never amount to anything.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2009/11/05/precious/feed/ 65 “Meet the Browns” http://www.salon.com/2008/03/21/browns/ http://www.salon.com/2008/03/21/browns/#comments Fri, 21 Mar 2008 20:34:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/review/2008/03/21/browns By now every critic knows that liking or not liking a Tyler Perry film is beside the point: Perry's hugely successful comedy-dramas, which deal with the importance of maintaining strong family connections, of having faith in God, and of persevering in the face of life's hardships, don't need us to weigh their flaws or their virtues. (That must be why they're not screened for critics in the first place.) Perry's movies, like a force of nature, simply are. And while they are, of course, aimed at a black audience, there's no reason white audiences couldn't potentially enjoy them too: It's simply that white audiences don't bother to go.

The absence of white ticket buyers doesn't make a whit of difference at the box office: The last picture made by playwright turned filmmaker Perry, 2007's "Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married," spent three weeks in the top 10, grossing almost $50 million in that period. In a movie culture where even big-budget blockbusters (or maybe especially big-budget blockbusters) cycle through our multiplexes with increasing speed, the fact that Perry's movies can stick around in the top 10 for more than a week or even two is a hopeful sign: It suggests that not every picture has to be here today, gone tomorrow. Maybe there is room for audiences to find their way to a movie even when it's not the thing this or that big studio is pushing in a given week.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2008/03/21/browns/feed/ 11 The funny thing about black men in dresses http://www.salon.com/2008/03/21/dresses/ http://www.salon.com/2008/03/21/dresses/#comments Fri, 21 Mar 2008 11:30:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/feature/2008/03/21/dresses Some of the most memorable women in black entertainment have been played by men. This drag tradition with roots in minstrelsy harks back to '70s TV star Flip Wilson's sassy Geraldine character, and most recently has hoisted chitlin auteur Tyler Perry's Mabel Simmons, aka Madea, to superstardom. The sharp-tongued matriarch that Perry has portrayed in six hugely popular movies and a long-running TV show makes a cameo appearance in his new film, "Meet the Browns."

Madea, the seemingly inimitable Aretha Franklin of faux femmes, has yet to inspire knockoffs, but similar drag acts continue to pop up -- the corpulent Rasputia of Eddie Murphy's "Norbit," Keenan Thompson's Virginiaca on "Saturday Night Live," and Martin Lawrence's repeat performance as Big Momma in "Big Momma's House 2," among others. By now, Hollywood drugstores may be running low on plus-size pantyhose.

Perry's core audience began with middle-aged black women, introduced to Madea by the outrageous traveling theatrical shows that made her name. These faithful admirers, and the millions who have caught on since, still can't get enough of the character, but others don't like it hot. Some prominent black men in the entertainment business contend that there's nothing funny about a manly grandma: They say the surefire laugh-garnering power of slipping a macho Negro into chiffon doesn't represent anything but an effeminizing, racist spectacle.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2008/03/21/dresses/feed/ 45 The Tyler Perry juggernaut http://www.salon.com/2008/03/21/video_tylerperry/ http://www.salon.com/2008/03/21/video_tylerperry/#comments Fri, 21 Mar 2008 09:43:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/beyond_the_multiplex//2008/03/21/video_tylerperry In this week's Beyond the Multiplex/IFC video, Matt Singer and I take a look at the complicated -- and amazing -- story of Tyler Perry, the writer, director and star of box-office smashes like "Madea's Family Reunion," "Why Did I Get Married?" and the new "Meet the Browns."

Perry began writing plays as a teenager in New Orleans, and spent many years writing and directing touring productions aimed at African-American audiences. He emerges from a venerable tradition in black theater, one based in moralistic, often religious melodramas aimed at a wide popular audience -- and also one that remains almost invisible to white Americans.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2008/03/21/video_tylerperry/feed/ 6 Obama: Don’t pander to homophobes http://www.salon.com/2007/10/26/obama_13/ http://www.salon.com/2007/10/26/obama_13/#comments Fri, 26 Oct 2007 14:15:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/opinion//feature/2007/10/26/obama Sen. Barack Obama's decision to tour South Carolina with gospel entertainer Donnie McClurkin, a self-proclaimed "former homosexual" who believes it is his mission to turn gays straight, suggests that Obama can't live without the support of the homophobic contingent of the black community and the black church in particular. But African-American politicians have already proved that black support is not contingent on homophobia. Few people remember that in 2004, the only presidential candidate besides Dennis Kucinich to support gay marriage was the Rev. Al Sharpton -- both a mainstream black leader and a minister. Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and Obama have all spoken out in favor of gay rights and against black homophobia. So does including McClurkin on his "Embrace the Change" tour signal a retreat on Obama's part? Can tacking on an appearance by the openly gay Rev. Andy Sidden make up for McClurkin? (And wouldn't you love to be backstage on this tour?)

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2007/10/26/obama_13/feed/ 61 The new Amos ‘n’ Andy? http://www.salon.com/2006/02/23/perry_7/ http://www.salon.com/2006/02/23/perry_7/#comments Thu, 23 Feb 2006 12:00:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/feature/2006/02/23/perry Blacks and whites don't always understand each other. But in Hollywood, everyone's favorite color is green. So movie executives of all races took notice last February when a movie called "Diary of a Mad Black Woman" hit No. 1 at the box office -- despite no bankable stars, scant mainstream press attention and reviews that were almost laughably bad.

"Downright awful," "an absolute mess" and "one of the worst pictures in ages," critics wailed. Salon's Stephanie Zacharek called it "the sort of movie that's so bad, you just wish it would go away." Roger Ebert was offended by the movie's star, a "Big Momma's House"-style granny named Madea, who smokes reefer, keeps a pistol in her purse and slices up furniture with a chain saw. This "Grandma from Hell," as Ebert called her, was played in drag by the film's 6-foot-5 writer-producer-mastermind, Tyler Perry. "All blame returns to Perry," Ebert wrote. "What was he thinking?"

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2006/02/23/perry_7/feed/ 27 “Diary of a Mad Black Woman” http://www.salon.com/2005/02/25/diary_5/ http://www.salon.com/2005/02/25/diary_5/#comments Fri, 25 Feb 2005 21:00:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/review/2005/02/25/diary "Diary of a Mad Black Woman" is a movie whose existence, and whose significance in our social and political culture, you can't ignore. It's also the sort of movie that's so bad, you just wish it would go away.

"Diary" was written by Tyler Perry, the enormously successful playwright -- you could almost call him a playwright-entrepreneur -- who attracts a large African-American audience with his plays about relationships and emotional growth layered with broad religious overtones. In "Diary," Kimberly Elise plays Helen, who for 19 years has been a good, dutiful wife to rich, successful lawyer Charles (Steve Harris). But he treats her cruelly, and even throws her out of the home they share so he can install his mistress and two illegitimate kids.

Helen flees to the house of her grandmother, Madea (Perry himself, in "Nutty Professor"-style drag), a gun-totin', tough-talkin' granny nobody dares to mess with. Helen rebuilds her life, exacts revenge on her husband and, ultimately, learns the importance of forgiveness. There's also a lively church scene in which the lame walk, and an ex-junkie shows up, cleaned up and wearing a pretty dress, to sing the praises of the Almighty in the aisles.

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