In my first piece, I discussed my reasons for looking into Tyler Perry's films. I found that I liked them quite a bit. A few thoughts:
I've been following Perry's career since Diary of a Mad Black Woman. I had never heard of him and was just as surprised as the critical establishment that the film opened at number one.
I chalked the success up to The First Wives Club Syndrome. An underrepresented market, one that aren't regular movie-goers, seizes on a film and makes it a surprise hit. The next few years see an attempt to mimic the movie but the audience returns to its old habit of not going to theaters. Sister Act and Boyz N Tha Hood are other films like this.
Perry didn't let the iron cool and made his name a brand. Now a Tyler Perry fan can go to see a new film every few months.
From reading reviews, my impression was that critics don't understand black audiences.
Subtlety is not a valued quality in black media. It just isn't, and it makes white critics uncomfortable. That's why they can watch a high-camp spectacle of degradation like Precious and think it's an important film; they've been overwhelmed. The somber approach and Lee Daniel's pomposity guided them through their confusion to arrive at praising the film.
Take a look at, say, Prince. His work is brilliant but no one would call it subtle. Listen to "conscious hip-hop" from KRS-ONE to Arrested Development to Mos Def--it's downright didactic. Look at the writing of 70s blacksploitation films. Even the most mainstream black director, Spike Lee, is not subtle, only sometimes ambiguous.
White critics are used to Jack Nicholson raising an eyebrow, not Angela Bassett setting fire to a bathtub full of clothes. They want to see blacks in a ghetto being abused, not in a McMansion with marital problems. When melodramatic action is applied to non-exotic situations, suddenly it's over the top.
Which brings me to the next element that the critical establishment doesn't understand about black entertainment. The most persistent knock on Perry's films is the dramatic shift in tone from scene to scene. They don't seem to understand that this isn't inconsistency as much as putting on a full show.
I don't find it any more jarring than the love interest sub-plot in a action or comedy movie. And Perry doesn't let the lines cross. His comedy characters (except for the central character Madea) don't suddenly become dramatic and vice versa. Considering some of the subject matter and performances in his films, the comedy scenes are like getting air before diving back in.
For cultural comparison, I suggest watching Bollywood film from before 2004 or so, before Indian-American cross-fertilization really began. In those films, there's always several comedy scenes, many large musical numbers and every major character gets a scene in which they cry. To say that Bollywood and Perry films have inconsistent tones is like calling a Persian rug "too busy."
What I'm saying, then, is that one is too strap in and take the ride when watching these films. Judge them on what they're trying to accomplish, not on how they compare to a Lars von Trier film.
Part 3 will discuss, finally, what I like about the Tyler Perry films I've seen.
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