The Curious Case of Tyler Perry
For better or worse......
(6.14.25) – Last weekend I watched Tyler Perry’s latest movie on Netflix: Straw, starring Taraji P. Henson, Sherri Shepherd, and Teyana Taylor. It was surprisingly a pretty decent movie; however, during the opening scenes I was bemoaning Perry’s typical over-the-top nature to his filmmaking….but I kept watching…
Photo courtesy: AMFM STUDIOS LLC (Wikipedia Creative Commons)
For the longest, I have tried to give Perry the benefit of the doubt with his films and television shows because sometimes they are good and sometimes they are awful. Perry is a great humanitarian and employs a lot of Black folks, which I can definitely get down with. Many of our beloved Black actresses have praised Perry for paying them well, when we know the film industry in general underpays our Black actresses.
I used to be an old faithful with watching Perry’s films and TV shows to give him the benefit of doubt and then his TV shows took a bad turn for me. They were too over-the-top and I walked away feeling demoralized and grimy. Think back to the TV movie (not the play) “The Have and Have Nots.” According to Wikipedia, the series ran from 2013 to 2021. I watched the early seasons, but checked out when each episode was increasingly unbelievable and he had characters doing over-the-top immoral things. Around that time, he also had “If Loving You is Wrong” and “For Better or Worse.” I have not watched the shows that he produced after that….oops, my bad, written, directed, AND produced.
Same thing with his Madea movies. The first ones were funny and then they were not so funny anymore. Like how many Madea movies do you need to see?
Thinking back. I feel like his movies that are historical or stay closer to true-to-life representations of people are decent movies. Think The Family That Preys or The Six Triple Eight.
….back to Straw….I was pleasantly surprised. That movie evoked lots of emotions from me. I cried (even though I fought it, lol). So, that means the filmmaking had to be pretty good, right?
I have read a lot of the reviews and responses from folks about Straw. I am intrigued. Some people say Perry sticks to a tired trope of telling stories about Black women’s struggles. What about our triumphs? I plan to dig in deeper with a critical analysis of Perry’s body of work.
My heart says we don’t give Perry enough credit. Stay tuned.