TACTICAL
Sitting in my humid apartment with my creaky air conditioner
going on full blast, I rue the decision to not upgrade and purchase a newer,
more powerful unit!! I like it warm but
the staleness of the air, its moist and clingy, feels unsettling to my skin. My legs feel like an old, used piece of
transparent tape, fringed with dust particles and lint from a long stay in the
dark nether regions of a kitchen drawer.
When I imagine my face, it is waxy from the oil that is being secreted
from my pores, filmy and sticky, and I wonder if I am going to raise up and get
myself a bath.
I had to go to work this morning so KT was left to her own
devices until Nebraska and her teenager came to take her out for the
afternoon. Since I was unfamiliar with
the area I made my way out earlier than I needed to be, but that is part of my modus operandi, thinking that it is
better to give myself plenty of leeway to find my way around than it is to
skirt my way, anticipating that I am going to go right there when I could not even conceive of where the office was
in my mind.
WHY TYLER PERRY SUCKS
There may be some chippy language as well as broad and harsh
generalizations, but I think I can keep everything in context.
KT was watching “Meet The Browns” on the telly and since I
plan on shuttering the cable when she leaves, I let her watch “whatever” and do
not try to commandeer the remote. But my
goodness gracious, the plot and the lines said by the characters… I mean, they
KNEW that the words that were coming out of their mouths were utterly inane!! You mean to tell me that no one thought that
there needed to be a re-write, or to suggest that they make some of the
scenarios more plausible??
Before anyone get on me for being a cat who hates on the
work of African-American entertainers, let me first say that when Tyler Perry
first broke out on the “chitlin’ circuit”, doing his stage plays at the black
theaters in the south, I was down for him.
He did seem to have a different story trying to come out of him and I
felt that as he evolved and became more familiar with writing and directing,
that the story would improve. Then, he
began to enjoy mainstream and some critical success. At first, I was a little surprised, but soon
his grassroots and word-of-mouth support became phenomena unto itself. Meanwhile, the growth in his storytelling
skills flatlined and the characters showed less depth than “Flat Ruthie”! So I got off his bandwagon when I returned to
the Motor and have remained so ever since.
As far as what other ethnic groups take pride in, regarding
how their lives are portrayed in movies and on television, that is THEM. The lines that I heard uttered in this movie
were worse than ANYTHING that I heard in high school!! And what is worse, even if you solve for
urban patois and African-American dialect, the script is awful. Eliza Skinner in her skit, “Every white character ina Tyler Perry movie”, is not merely a spoof of the two-dimensional roles that
white actors play in the script, but I think adequately shows the development
of EVERY character in the production!!
When the stage production of his work was touring, it was
acceptable because he gave a limited audience what they wanted to see. But, for this crap to have gained traction as
a form of mass-media entertainment..? I
am so like PUL-LEEZE!!
Though there were so many tropes played out in the film, the
one that made me throw up in my throat a little was the plot thread that
concerned the son of whoever it was that Lynn Whitfield was supposed to be, the
oldest who was a basketball star. Now
there are so many non-linear storylines in the movie that I fear my eyes
getting stuck inside of their sockets because I am rolling them so much, but
the way he goes from this supposed high school basketball star to the NBA bore
so little resemblance to ANYTHING in real life that I was like, “F*ck you,
Tyler Perry, f*ck you and the horse you rode the f*ck in on!!” And that was when the light went on in my
head.
See, it was not just the bad dialogue and mail-it-in acting
that was the problem. It was that the
plot thread of the basketball star son, made sense… only if you were a
woman!! There is absolutely NO WAY that
a man who has had any exposure to the sports landscape, and I mean ANY sport,
would have written that drivel. There was
NOTHING realistic in that storyline and THAT is why Tyler Perry writes and
creates crap.
It is not that the dialogue is forced and the situations
implausible. But he writes simply as he
imagines things to be, much like a child does when they are asked to re-tell a
story or an experience that they had. He
does not KNOW, say in the way that a Sorkin or Mamet knows what a character
would say. He does not know in the way
that a Hudlin brother or Singleton would know what a character would say. What he does know is the same thing that a
modestly talented female English student at a public high school would write and turn
into the Lit or Composition teacher to get that “B” on their paper or story!! That is right, Tyler Perry writes stories at the level of a 17-year old girl!!
And THAT is why I find his productions laughable, his plots ludicrous,
and his characters asinine. They are
less than the stereotypes that were portrayed when white actors wore blackface,
because more realism was demanded in their portrayal of African-Americans than
we expect of our entertainers today.
F*ck Tyler Perry. And
if you want to debate him with me, go f*ck yourself. (I guess this is
another one of those “drink your drink” and smile subjects for me in polite
conversation!!)
3 comments:
I love your posts. Always passionate and real.
I'm not a fan of TP either. There. I said it.
xo
i think the success of the tyler perry enterprise rests entirely on the fact that he entertains an audience based on comfortable stereotypes....once he challenges them and does something serious and provocative and stops making fun of black folk in a way that mixed audiences find funny and starts making EVERYONE equally uncomfortable with his work, he will have progressed. i liken him to the band ministry. their first couple of albums were studio controlled schlock, but once Al Jourgensen got creative control, they blew up and were a MUCH better band with a completely different sound (which prolly alienated the 12 people that liked them before the album 'the land of rape and honey'came out').
i hope tyler perry can do the same thing and grow enough as an artist to be able to use his 15 minutes to make some powerful films that really challenge how we view ourselves and how we think we are viewed by the eyes of those in different cultures- he is also acting in a serious drama which is set in the motor which i kinda want to see once we can get it on netflix.
i hope your work goes well- i think it will be good for your 'mental upkeep' to keep challenging yourself and your disability like this, proud that you are willing to take the dual challenge of work + school!
xxalainaxx
I like Tyler Perry. I think he appeals to certain folks who don't see themselves anywhere else. Like him or not he appeals to a whole bunch of folks who are not interested in dissecting for intellectual content. having made films...and one that got an award at Sundance, film making is a tricky thing. He has found his niche and stays in his lane. He took a stab at serious works and Black folks didn't like it. I suspect he will indeed grow into all kinds of film making.
Good luck on the job.
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