Tyler Perry should be credited with the resurgence of Black cinema in this era

Might catch this one. Not buying their "friendship" but I'll give it a chance. Not thrilled about the fat poor black mom though

 

thats your criteria..you really think will smith doesn't have respect by his peers in hip hop? you think tupac, biggie, jayz and kanye wouldnt think will smith has skills as an MC?? really??

 

Do you listen to hip hop? All those dudes use to clown the Fresh Prince

 

Will Smith has and always will be a G-rated rapper. He will be remembered for that as well as his work on film. His rap matched the times for young kids of that time. His formula was to relate to the kids in issues like family, friends and good times. He wasn't taking anything away from other rappers and he didn't want to be hardcore. The Fat Boys were G-rated, too. The name of the game was for them and the listener to have fun.

 

[YOUTUBE]wQjDSlVyGiU[/YOUTUBE]

 

This article sums it up well IMO, including the solution offered.


Tyler Perry’s Madea Minstrel Show

By Rawiya KameirDecember 13th 20135:45 am
followMore Stories by Rawiya Kameir

The exploitation of historically exaggerated black caricatures is a fundamental feature of Tyler Perry’s work. The Madea films thrive on an ugly mix of minstrelsy and moralism.

Tyler Perry represents the essence of the unanswerable chicken-and-egg question: can something be good because it’s popular or does its popularity demand that it be good in the first place?
In a matter of just a few years, Perry has written, directed, and acted his way to stratospheric success on par with the most major of major Hollywood stars. His films regularly kill at the box office, so much so that in 2011—a year in which he released two films, a play, and multiple television projects—Forbes named him the highest-paid man in entertainment, having earned $130 million in a 12-month span. And it didn’t end then. This weekend’s A Madea Christmas is projected to bring in $25 million the first weekend and gross $68 million by the end of its run.

But for all his box office triumphs, Perry is a critical pariah. Art-wise, the critiques of Perry are plain and practically indisputable: his visual choices are boring at best, characters are comically flat, plots are so predictable they border on insulting, and even the most commendable performances are drowned by limp screenwriting. To have seen one Madea film is to have seen them all.

What’s uglier, however, is his standard, go-to combo of minstrelsy and moralism. As has been widely noted, the exploitation of historically exaggerated black caricatures is a fundamental feature of Perry’s work: Mabel “Madea” Simmons, the temperamental, bumbling matriarch at the helm of a large Atlanta family whose members misbehave full-time in more than 15 of Perry’s plays and films, embodies the minstrel show-like use of negative stereotype associated with black people for the purpose of entertaining; she is buffoonish, lazy, and greedy, to ostensibly comical effect. His treatment of the black men and women who belong to Madea’s narrow world further perpetuates the worst of cartoonish tropes about African-Americans: men are inherently predatory, abusive, and good-for-nothing; women are immoral, manipulative, and bound to miserable fates.
Plus, the melodrama belies the heavy moralizing that guides each Madea film. Perry's religious fervor is known and characters’ piety is used as a simplistic marker through which to evaluate their essential good-ness. Redemption is only possible through the church and is reserved largely for the working class, who consistently save the day in the face of victimization from the rich. Take, for instance, Diary of a Mad Black Woman, in which a woman who marries into wealth is saved from the fallout of her breakup with a rich, abusive husband by returning to her blue-collar roots and accepting the love of a simple, decent, churchgoing bus driver.
Much of the Madea franchise is an implacable indictment of the wealthy and the non-religious, two qualities presented as inextricably linked to one another. The protagonist of Madea Goes To Jail, a young prosecutor who has worked hard to escape humble beginnings, discovers that his cruel, bourgeois wife-to-be has put a handful of innocent women in prison; the prostitute he ends up saving, with whom he shares a working class background, turns out to be the righteous partner he deserves. Perry’s reliance on these sorts of basic plot devices to relay broad-stroked implications about race, class, and gender are what define his work.
He is the ultimate auteur, unable to remove himself far enough to allow external threads to color his work. He and his convictions, not black culture or black anything, frame his stories. Moreover, Madea is played by Perry himself in drag, recalling a trope about black male actors inevitably having to wear dresses to mitigate the threat they represent.



While Perry’s work is frustrating, the real culprit, is a societal condition that accepts a singular perspective as representative of the so-called, but nonexistent, black monolith.
Some of Perry’s harshest critics defer to respectability politics, a framework within which it is (falsely) believed that behaving “respectably” will earn black people white respect and therefore bring racism tumbling down. Perry does the opposite, creating worlds in which white people are disposable, interchangeable, and not the assumed focal point. In the Madea films, race is a factor because it is central to the characters’ identities, not the audience’s.
“[A] black writer is someone who can simplify what is endemic to him or her as a human being—race—and blow it up to cartoon proportions, thereby making the coon situation ‘clear’ to a white audience," writes Hilton Als of being a black writer in a white publishing world, a sentiment that applies to the way stories about black people are told in Hollywood, much of which was recently detailed by Shani Hilton.

That Perry’s work is considered to be a defining voice of black culture and black life is more dangerous than the existence of his work alone. By virtue of their success, Perry’s films discount possibility that other black narratives are plausible. But squarely placing the blame on Perry is unfair and counterproductive; the answer lies not in silencing one black voice but in empowering more of them.

 

Powerful article fam

 

Loki dropping dimes again

 

The writer finds it more easy to criticize than to find a solution. There needs to be diversity. Words like hers don't pay the salary of a Black actor.

 

Here we go again...the black intelligentsia basically afraid of what the white folks think. There hasn't been one article or critique or observation from any white or nonblack people declaring anything about tyler perry other than he's not a good filmmaker..other than that no non black person has designated him "the voice of black culture and black life" in any way shape or form. THATS THE RAP OF THE BLACK INTELLIGENTSIA so they can tear him down for being so popular yet so bad at the same time..lol

The characters that perry puts on the screen (big or small) are just poorer versions of characters we seen before and cheered and laughed at:
Mabel “Madea” Simmons, the temperamental, bumbling matriarch at the helm of a large Atlanta family whose members misbehave full-time in more than 15 of Perry’s plays and films, embodies the minstrel show-like use of negative stereotype associated with black people for the purpose of entertaining; she is buffoonish, lazy, and greedy, to ostensibly comical effect.
as was Flip Wilsons, Geraldine, Jamie Foxx's Wanda, and Martin Lawrence's Mama Payne and Shenanae and well as Big Momma. Yet there is no sociological breakdown of how negative and stereotypical those characters were when you really looked at them. And Martin and Jamie wasn't that long ago and Lawrence made a very lucrative trilogy playing a stereotypical character. I'm sure the author of the article laughed and enjoyed them as much as anyone.

His treatment of the black men and women who belong to Madea’s narrow world further perpetuates the worst of cartoonish tropes about African-Americans: men are inherently predatory, abusive, and good-for-nothing; women are immoral, manipulative, and bound to miserable fates.
The one thing I've observed about Perry films and stories is that he tries to strike a balance between good and evil characters to a 1 to 1 ratio. If there's a drug dealer then theres an honest hardworking man. If theres a harpy bitchy woman theres a decent woman. What I find critics do is to skip over the good people and head straight to the bad people then inflate them to represent all the characters but theyre not done they then circle back to the good characters and mock them for thier for goodness so theres no winning there either.

Plus, the melodrama belies the heavy moralizing that guides each Madea film. Perry's religious fervor is known and characters’ piety is used as a simplistic marker through which to evaluate their essential good-ness. Redemption is only possible through the church and is reserved largely for the working class, who consistently save the day in the face of victimization from the rich.
and this is the part that REALLY annoys the perry critics..the religion and preachyness of the stories. Which shouldn't really be surprising at all since his stories and plays are aimed at a religious demographic what the BI is really shocked at is how big and extensive that demographic is. They didn't pay any attention to all those megachurches with 5-10-20 THOUSAND members all looking for someone who reflects theyre beliefs and views..tyler perry paid attention. She calls him an auteur who puts himself and views in much of his work but then so does spike lee..but guess who gets the pass.

Moreover, Madea is played by Perry himself in drag, recalling a trope about black male actors inevitably having to wear dresses to mitigate the threat they represent.
Is this an urban legend or something?? Before Flip Wilson how many black male actors wore dresses in films and tv shows? Before black actors gained any real prominence in the 60s with Poitier and Cosby a few others, black male actors weren't given any great roles before that. They were all side kicks and subservient which makes putting them in a dress for purposes of mitigating their "threat" pointless. How is Amos and Andy and Stepin Fetchit a threat how about Buckwheat? And before Poitier there was Woody Strode when did he wear a dress?

And drag is featured in entertainment in many different peoples and cultures. The idea that its some kind of conspiracy to emasculate black men is again a fear of the BI. Who STILL laughed at wanda and mama payne and big mama cuz they sure as heck wasn't writing scathing articles on how these characters where damaging the black community.

While Perry’s work is frustrating, the real culprit, is a societal condition that accepts a singular perspective as representative of the so-called, but nonexistent, black monolith.
this statement here is again all in the BI's imagination and fears projected onto perry.

By virtue of their success, Perry’s films discount possibility that other black narratives are plausible.
no it doesn't again or are we just skipping over all the other black directors that have been putting out work over the last 10 years? All perry's success shows is that broad religious based comedy(even when its poorly done) is apparently a license to print money.

If youre going to say that perry is responsible for all that negative shit then expand it to a group the do the same for any positives he does.

reading that article reminded me of all the statements Sgt Waters made about CJ Memphis in A Soldiers Story. His driving force was what he thought white people would think and so is theirs.

 

Actually per below the Author of the article is arguing the exact opposite of what you say here..

"Some of Perry’s harshest critics defer to respectability politics, a framework within which it is (falsely) believed that behaving “respectably” will earn black people white respect and therefore bring racism tumbling down. Perry does the opposite, creating worlds in which white people are disposable, interchangeable, and not the assumed focal point. In the Madea films, race is a factor because it is central to the characters’ identities, not the audience’s.
“[A] black writer is someone who can simplify what is endemic to him or her as a human being—race—and blow it up to cartoon proportions, thereby making the coon situation ‘clear’ to a white audience," writes Hilton Als of being a black writer in a white publishing world, a sentiment that applies to the way stories about black people are told in Hollywood, much of which was recently detailed by Shani Hilton. "

 

I think that the fuss over Tyler Perry is because of his story. It is a tragic one and with God's blessing, he rose above the pain and succeeded before the age of 40. And he is black, single, and in full control. He isn't the first to write, produce, direct or act in his productions. Plays and films for the church going audiences have been around for decades before he came onto the scene and he won't be the last. "To whom, much is given; from whom much is expected."
Tyler Perry is going to give to his audience all that his creative and moral mind can think up. This concludes my observation of Tyler Perry.

 

I meant the whole tone of the article comes off as one giant "he's embarrassing us in front of the white folk" piece. Its insulting particularly the second to last line:
By virtue of their success, Perry’s films discount possibility that other black narratives are plausible.

thats pure bullshit and you know it. I mean check the repeated usage of weasel words and buzz lines..

The exploitation of historically exaggerated black caricatures

go-to combo of minstrelsy and moralism

she (Madea) is buffoonish, lazy, and greedy

Perry’s plays and films, embodies the minstrel show-like use of negative stereotype associated with black people

perpetuates the worst of cartoonish tropes about African-Americans

men are inherently predatory, abusive, and good-for-nothing; women are immoral, manipulative, and bound to miserable fates.

He and his convictions, not black culture or black anything, frame his stories.

Clearly his fan base doesn't see any of this and these discriptions aren't used by nonblack reviewers so who has the biggest problem here? This is written by someone who's afraid of what others might think of them. this owns the premise that the one can fuck it up for us all mindfuck that only minorities buy into and white people insulate themselves from. And then she ties it up in a charge that no non black person has ever made and only bourgie blacks keep positing:
That Perry’s work is considered to be a defining voice of black culture and black life is more dangerous than the existence of his work alone.
which is an insult to the works of all the other black filmmakers out there and sets up a us vs them dynamic within the black community.

 

The author did not say he was the 'only' defining voice, just 'a' defining voice, isn't that the same thing you are saying with the title of this thread? I disagree with your characterization of weasel words, many, including myself and others here, agree with the author and how she sees his work. I also disagree that White people don't concern themselves with negative stereotypes/imagery numerous Italian organizations rebel against the 'mafia' stereotypes, even boycotted the Columbus day parades when the cast of the Sopranos was asked to be in it. Numerous Irish groups protested the portrayal of small town Ireland and its people in the film "Laws of Attraction" when it was released, just two of many examples out there.

 

I said he had impact on black cinema not black life. I agree that his work leaves alot to be desired for people of discerning tastes but he tells stories that connect with an audience and that audience rewards him for it and the industry took notice and as a result you've seen an uptick of black films particularly comedies and romcoms in the last few years..just like when spike came out with his particular brand of black cast social commentary films you saw an uptick of that in the following years.

As far as you all agreeing with her characterization..okay and?? There are literally millions of people who don't see what you see and like his work and characters and they vote with theyre pocketbook is their favorable opinion of his work any LESS valid than yours?

And youre right there are ethnic whites who are sensitive about their image and portrayal but heres a question..have you as a non italian and non irish person ever saw Jersey Shore some film about the irish and thought.yep thats how italians and irish really are.. or did just not give a fuck?

If you already hated italians or irish would seeing positive images of them change your mind or would not matter one iota because you fucking hate the irish or Italians no matter how positive theyre image is? And if youre in a gate keeper position your going to fuck them over every chance you get because you can not because of what you saw on a show, magazine or comicbook.

 

I see some truth in what you are saying here, I just think you are discounting the impact that multiple stereotyping images/portrayals can have when forming that hatred to begin with.

 

there are cultural issues if you want them to be. I'll wager the many of the same people who support perry films also support spike lee films and tim story films and f gary gray films..etc. It doesn't have to be either/or.

The british were using the irish as slave labor and they were the in fact the first n-words in america before the African slave trade developed and the italians as immigrants were seen as competition by the irish and both looked down upon by the wasps in this country. Hell the irish and blacks didn't have too many issues between them initially until the push for jobs and social stature took precedence then the irish became "white" but in all those cases the hate and conflict precedes the attack on image.

 

In your opinion, where does the hate come from if not from negative images and stereotyping, especially when a person has led an insular life and not had any direct experiences to form an opinion? Take the Irish for example I was surprised to see they were depicted as Monkeys or Apes right along with Black people right during the time when Irish immigrants were coming to the US.

http://www.victoriana.com/history/irish-political-cartoons.html


An Irishman depicted as a monkey

Such negative English attitudes towards the Gaelic Irish and their culture date as far back as the reign of Henry II of England. In 1155 Pope Adrian IV issued the papal bull called Laudabiliter, that gave Henry permission to conquer Ireland as a means of strengthening the Papacy's control over the Irish Church.[10] Pope Adrian called the Irish a "rude and barbarous" nation. He likewise called the Irish a "barbarous nation" with "filthy practises.

Now Pope Adrian, never set foot in Ireland, yet had developed such prejudices.

 

that gave Henry permission to conquer Ireland as a means of strengthening the Papacy's control over the Irish Church.
theres your answer.. the want for power and control over a people precedes the distortion of their image.

but lets bring it back to the over reach in claiming perry's work is socially detrimental to the black community

 

Can't wait to see his response, good point Loki.
This shit doesn't happen in a vacuum. People are incredibly easy to manipulate. Just ten years ago here in NY being Muslim with Arabic features made one the center of a lot of hate. Five years prior to that no one ever gave two thoughts about Arabic looking people. They sold newspapers and drove cabs. That's all we thought about them, now everyone is potential terrorist based on the actions of barely a dozen people.
Negative imaging campaigns work whether you want to believe it or not.