Posted at Visual Inquiry, the research blog for visual studies at the Annenberg School at Penn. Many thanks to Mark Anthony Neal for linking to this post.
Watching a Tyler Perry movie is a strange and ecstatic experience. Perry’s desire for shenanigans, inanity and heightened emotions always makes for an entertaining evening. But his films are in a strange in-between space: between melodrama and traditional drama, between alternative cinema and Hollywood style, and between black authenticity and pure elitism. Through it all, what vexes film scholars, especially critics, is how style, content, auteurism and culture clash and miss each other in Tyler Perry’s films. Understanding Perry now is crucial, especially as he embarks into new cinematic territory, most notably in next year’s adaptation of Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf.
Are Tyler Perry’s movies “bad,” and, whether yes or no, why should we care?
The Color Purple has become such a cultural reference point that it is difficult to remember that this Pulitzer prize-winning novel adaptation was the object of heated controversy.
The film was directed by Steven Spielberg and based on the novel by Alice Walker. Letters were written to Ms. Walker and company threatening to boycott the film on account of its negative depiction of black men, the not-so-subtle lesbian relationship of Shug and Miss Celie, and the questions circulated by cultural watchdogs – “Can Hollywood justly tell a black woman’s story?”
No one talks about these things anymore. Maybe…if you talk to an older relative and ask did they go see The Color Purple when it debuted in 1985.
Despite all the controversy, The Color Purpleain’t going nowhere. The novel is now part of the contemporary American canon read widely in schools and universities. The movie, like any solid work of art, has remained a part of our cultural conversation and feeds a culture hungry for revisionist works of art…
“What the hell is going on with them moon pies?” I asked myself during the film.
Did you know that Mobile, Alabama started Mardi Gras? Yes… Alabama. It started there in 1703, 15 years before New Orleans.
There are two Mardi Gras in Mobile: one is the all Black Mobile Area Mardi Gras Association (MAMGA) and the other is the all White Mobile Carnival Association (MCA), each with their own King and Queen. The Order of Myths, a film by Margaret Brown, documents the celebrations and covers a broad scope of topics: the history of Mardi Gras in Mobile, the persistence of institutionalized racism and sexism, and the progress of African-Americans.
The style of this film is fast, almost too fast; there is no lingering on one thought, fact, or action. Often I would try and absorb a scene only to be rushed to another fact, another thought, or another action. I wanted to throw the remote at the television and shout: “Wait…
What happens when a white couple gives birth to a black child? Skin, a drama directed by Anthony Fabian, answers this question by exploring the conflict between familial belonging and societal racism. Amidst the backdrop of Apartheid-era South Africa, Sandra Laing (whose life the film is based on), becomes almost celebrity in her father’s legal battle to have her classified as white, despite her brown skin and kinky hair. Later, when Sandra runs away from home to marry a black man, her father banishes her from the family.
Sophie Okonedo gives a fine performance as the meek, strong-willed Sandra, and Sam Neill explodes onscreen as Abraham, a man obsessed with proving his daughter’s whiteness, and his paternity. The film is a clever examination of the fallibility of racial classification, as each character struggles to love, exist, or in Abraham’s case, accept his own daughter, under the…
I’m not sure if there’s been a film in my generation that has been the object of so much mixed emotion, and perhaps vitriol, drawing a line in the sand along gender lines. Almost all of the guys that I know have talked about Precious at arm’s length. Some of us have even said “I’m not ready to see that film.” Yet my female friends have almost unanimously said “I got to go see it,” etc.
The movie’s been out for a few weeks now. Granted, I’ve been busy but I know I could have seen it sooner. There was almost an instant retreat when I saw the extra large darkskinned black women featured prominently on film—a rarity for contemporary film. And this is unfortunate as the darkskinned black woman is a part of all of us, so why the hesitation? I suppose it’s because the big-boned black women aren’t framed in a flattering way and this is a part of a larger narrative. Remember growing up we’d…
By Aymar Jean Christian
