not so new kid on the block

It came as a bit of a shock to film followers and the industry when Tyler Perry's "Why Did I Get Married?" debuted as the number one film at the North American box office this past weekend. A tale of four couples and the trials and tribulations of being married may seem like exasperated subject matter but in its traditional approach to moralizing and reinforcing the heterosexual union, particularly in the subculture of Bible toting upper middle class black America, and Perry's built in audience of Madea fans have made him an undeniable force in the entertainment industry and thus the ascension to number one should come as no surprise. Films, television, books, theater, and everything else under the Perry umbrella have established him as one of the most powerful black figures in not only the industry but to black America in general. Film, and more specifically art, can attempt to represent a culture, but inevitably and inherently limits the experience to the reality and specificity of the lone artist's own background. Perry's films give us a consciously positive portrayal of black upwardly mobile America. His characters are lawyers, doctors, professors, etc., but there's a tension between a fantastical idea of what black America should be (see "The Cosby Show") and the effects of those portrayals of black representation in media on black audiences and non-black audiences. I'm not a workaholic professional nor do I have a sassy and matriarchal Jiminy Cricket figure in my life sorting out my love life. And that's the power of art and media is although Perry's message is commendable it can leave an audience with an equally muddled and unfair portrait of what it means to be black in America. However, something must be said for Perry's wild and propulsive success.

Ruth Furla of The New York Times takes a look at Perry's rise to media mogul mania in a revealing new profile. In the article there is mention of Tyler's five homes and justification of desiring and acquiring material possessions in the face of his piety, which contributed to his startling success. It's not that Perry shouldn't be able to enjoy or even indulge in his success but it does seem counter intuitive to his overall mission of sermonizing and cleaning up the faults and complications of black America. Is that to say that you take away the drugs, poverty, violence and other perils of evil that plague current black America and you replace it with God and the equation of religious conviction and success? How silly and sad it is to honestly believe that the stronger the religious convection the more deserving a person can be for the acquisition of nice cars and pricey homes. It's an unconscious reinforcement of a stereotype that black people are materialistic. It could also be a natural fact that America is growing with more and more upper class black people, Perry included, and this influences his work. How many other black filmmakers are making films about black people vacationing at a ski resort or reveling in their bourgeois glory? That's not a demerit or a declaration that his work is not any less significant than his contemporaries but it does make you wonder if his message is truly effective when it's so calculated and imbued with such mixed and competing ideologies.

Perry's success is a great new standard for black people, or anyone for that matter, but it's not so black and white as Perry would like us to believe. Perry is working outside of the industry and that thumbing his nose to the industry is extremely admirable, however I hope he takes that power and privilege and does something a little less polarizing with it. Jesus and Range Rovers are an uncomfortable equation if you ask me.