I haven't seen enough Tyler Perry to hate on him. But that's because I already know there's only so much of that genre I can stand. Which is to say if I was forced to watch Tyler Perry and take him seriously, I'd hate him. I make the distinction between the man and his work. If introduced I wouldn't say, you suck. But then again, comparatively speaking, he does.
This is not so much about Tyler Perry as it is a class issue, as the folks over at YBP must surely understand:
So why are so many critics hating on him? Even black people try to hold him down instead of lifting up his many accomplishments. I can see if you do not care for his sense of humor or comedy style, but why hate on the man who came from nothing and made a huge success of himself? Then again, not being a hater myself, I’ll just never understand the logic.
I will invoke the old Prince quote. You eventually get the audience you deserve. Judging from the one Tyler Perry flick I watched, his favored demographic is the working po'. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But one certainly cannot expect highbrow critics to bend over and kiss Perry's ring, simply because he's made 50 million in the film business. In fact, you can expect them to piss all over him even more because of his success and piss on his audience too.
Tyler Perry is not going to replace Colson Whitehead, Wynton Marsalis or Garth Fagin any time soon. So as long as there are Americans who prefer sophisticated literature, fine jazz and modern dance to updated versions of the old mama-on-the-couch plays, filmmakers like Perry are going to get critically dissed.
The question is whether or not in the interests of 'black images', adulation of Perry is to be a litmus test of any sort, because if it is, then YBP has got it twisted. The man's art simply doesn't stand that tall. It's entertainment - sitcom level entertainment at that, and it's not half as funny as The Simpsons. So YBP is going to have to determine the appropriate benchmarks for giving props up to Tyler Perry, then we can talk.
BTW. We've been through this kind of stuff before. Don't make me go there.
Recent Comments