Ok, I am getting a lot of questions about my Tyler Perry fascination, so I will attempt to explain it a bit. (For the full breakdown you’ll have to wait for my one person show, “Tyler Perry’s Eliza Skinner Loves Tyler Perry”.) If you don’t care you can skip to the end — I left you a picture of a pony in a hat.
As I have said before — I love TPers in a totally non-ironic way, which white people especially refuse to believe. Here is why:
Tyler Perry is a genius businessman. He was once homeless. Now, this is his house–
Or at least it was. Now he’s trying to sell it because he plans on buying himself an ISLAND for his 40th birthday this month. That is not a joke, it is just what Tyler Perry is actually planning to do. How? He built his own audience, rather than courting the mainstream. And he put his name on everything, including the plays that he was touring for years before you ever heard of him. So by the time he started making movies his name was already a valuable brand — even more so now. I have heard people say that it seems arrogant that he slaps his name all over everything, but I have never heard anyone say that about Ford or Disney, and either way Tyler Perry can’t hear them complaining because he is showering in twenty dollar bills inside THIS HOUSE.
He owns his own film company, produces two hit TV show (that honestly, I’m not into, but whatevs) and STILL has time to command Starfleet Academy. Shut up if you say you don’t want his life, because you are a liar.
Tyler Perry is a genius writer. One of the basic tenants of comedy or high drama is heightening — raising stakes. The bad guys are RIDICULOUSLY evil — 10 minutes into Diary of a Mad Black Woman Steve Harris drags his wife out of their home as she sobs, so he can fuck his nasty new girlfriend. The women always start out as such doormats that their breaking points are incredibly heightened — they put up with so much shit it takes WILDLY extreme things to finally change them. Or they are crackheads. Or they are Madea–
Madea: “Take your medicine! You know you crazy when you don’t take your pills.”
Joe: “No”
Madea: (Takes gun out of her purse and shoots the ceiling) “Take your goddamn pills!”
Joe: (Shits his pants and runs away.)
Heightening.
Plus Tyler Perry knows how to dance back and forth between comedy and drama. He draws in his audience with comedy then he switches to drama once they are listening. Then, before it gets too heavy he starts to joke again. But it is all equally committed so it all lands because…
Tyler Perry is a genius actor. Come on, J.J. Abrams didn’t put any old idiot in Star Trek, right? Weren’t you raving about the amazing casting all over that movie? No? Then you didn’t see it — leave my website. And honestly, I take back my previous Madea hating — I am totally on board with Madea. He makes it work because he is so crazily committed to every role he plays. Even the totally ridiculous ones. That is exactly what I believe makes great comedy — make whatever choices you want, but commit to them fully and play them as though your characters are real people really in those situations. TyPains does it.
Pony in a hat, as promised.
Tyler Perry is awesome! How could anyone not admire a person who went from being homeless to becoming an entertainment powerhouse?
My wife and I became huge fans after seeing Diary of a Mad Black Woman a couple years ago. We intend to see one of his plays the next time one comes to town.
Ok… Ok… You win…
I’ll give Tyler Perry a try. I won’t fight it any more. You’ve worn me down, and I know better than to keep denying the inevitable.
I just have one question: When I finally have the chance to sit and watch one of his movies, which do you reccomend I try out first?
I’d say “Why Did I Get Married?” is the best place to start — even the NY Times loved it. “Diary Of A Mad Black Woman” is also great, but you might need to already be on board to enjoy it fully. WDIGM? is also a good choice because Madea is not in it, so it’s a little easier to watch without feeling ridiculous.
You are very funny.
So anyways… You know how I stumbled across this journal entry? I typed “What’s the deal with Tyler Perry putting his name” (and nothing more) into Google. I don’t remember what prompted the search.
I have considered and (with embarrassment) admit that I have racist fibers in my being. I even took Harvard’s Project Implicit® Skin-tone IAT (Implicit Association Test) about a year and-a-half ago, and was told that my “data suggest a moderate automatic preference for Light Skin compared to Dark Skin.” So I’ve considered that my racist tendencies led me to make that Google inquiry. And I’ve considered that others have included their given names in the brand names of their products (though few come to mind).
So, if I were able to achieve a score of complete neutrality of preference between light and dark skin tones, would I still be annoyed as hell by advertising for Tyler Perry’s films with his name possessively preceding the titles? I can’t know. Perhaps, in the future, scientists will invent a means of switching off the neural pathways that dictate my skin tone preferences.
I’d like to think I’d still be annoyed.
FYI: Project Implicit® is good science and good fun. What could be better? I learned about it in Malcolm Gladwell’s book, “Blink.“
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/
That looks more like a horse in a hat, rather than a pony.
Also, Sugarfish? Clicking a button a half second faster when you see a face like yours isn’t racism. To quote their website, “Using the IAT as the basis for making significant decisions about self or others could lead to undesired and unjustified consequences.”
If you’re a racist you should know it by now. Would you offer your seat to a black lady on the subway? Do you cross the street when you see a black man of your age and similar status walking towards you? (Do you want to?)
If you’re really bothered by your beliefs, keep in mind that ideas activated more frequently quickly become activated at lower thresholds. I see nothing racist about being annoyed by shameless self-promotion, or even trying to find out why someone who’s obviously insanely well off (did you see that house?!) would need to continue to do it. But you worry about it. Don’t. Just stop typing random racist searches into google, even if they lead you to great websites like this one, if you’re bothered by your test results.