The Black man stirring Hollywood

By Nigel Nassar
If you are a film enthusiast, whether cinema-going or the type that hires your videos and sits home over the weekend, you have heard of or seen Madea.

And why not, she has appeared in about six films including Diary of a Mad Black Woman, Madea’s Family Reunion, Meet the Browns, Madea Goes to Jail, I Can Do Bad All By Myself and most recently, Madea’s Big Happy Family, which is currently showing at Cineplex Cinema.

You could not have missed her. The controversial African American fictional character Mabel “Madea” Simmons is tall, over weight, energetic and somewhat old. She is indeed a ‘mad black woman.’ She is always threatening people with her gun, but on the whole not getting in trouble with the police because she is their nightmare.

Away from her brusque outlook, which carries with it an inherent comic relief, Madea is usually used to teach a lesson — a somewhat hardtalk approach to things, which is however, shrouded in love; tough love.

But perhaps bigger than Madea, the character we are not sure wheather to love or hate, is her creator, who is also the man who portrays her on screen — Tyler Perry. Named the highest paid man in entertainment by Forbes Magazine last month (for earning $130m between May 2010 and May 2011), the African-American film star, director, playwright, screenwriter, producer, author, entrepreneur and songwriter has become something of a whirlwind phenomenon the world over.

Right from his debut film Diary of a Mad Black Woman, which introduced him with a bang, all the way to 2010’s Why Did I get Married Too?, the world has watched and waited with bated breath for the next one.

And it is not hard to see why. We love Tyler Perr y movies because we walk away with something. Even away from the Madea role, Tyler is k nown for tough love and the instillation of sense. All the others have family written all over them — abusive relationships, absentee parents, delinquent children, importance of prayer, etc.

And while at it, he seeks values like forgiveness, dignity, self-worth, name it. His entertainment is not just for the sake of it.

Perr y always makes a home run in tackling some really pertinent family issues that get you thinking, ultimately making you to realign your values and priorities. Have you seen his Why Did I Get Married? movies? These will get you asking yourself some really serious questions.

They will make you cry, then go back home and make some amends. How about Daddy ’s Little Girls, For Coloured Girls? There is always something to carry home with you from a Tyler Perry movie.

Perry has done even more. He has given employment to a number of African Americans (and indeed Africans) in the US, both in front of and behind the camera. His movies, by nature of their themes, will most likely have a predominantly black cast. Do you still wonder why the man is a phenomenon?

But that is not the only reason we love to watch Tyler Perry’s movies. Like Nigerian movies, Perry’s movies are usually about themes many of us can relate to. He brings to life those aspects of black culture that the media misses out.

But as one critic wrote a week after Perry’s Why Did I get Married Too? grossed a whopping $30m at the US box office coming second after the Hollywood blockbuster Clash of The Titans: “Perry aims his low-budget comedy-dramas directly at the African- American audience, which has rewarded him by making those movies box-office hits, even in the face of a big Hollywood product.

But, to say he makes “black films” really undersells the universality of his work.” He adds that in general, Perry’s pictures also seem more rooted and real than most Hollywood films because he uses themes others can’t or won’t.

Who is Tyler Perry
African-American film icon Tyler Perry was born Emmitt Perry, Jr. on September 13, 1969 in New Orleans, Louisiana, to Willie Maxine Perry and Emmitt Perry Sr. He had three siblings. As a child, Perry once attempted suicide in an effort to escape his father’s beatings.

At 16, he had his first name legally changed from Emmitt to Tyler in an effort to distance himself from his father. In contrast to his father, his mother took him to church every week, where he sensed a certain refuge and contentment. Today, Perry identifies as a devout Christian.

Years later, after seeing the film Precious, he was moved to relate for the first time accounts of being molested by a friend’s mother at age 10. While Perry did not complete high school, he earned a General Educational (an equivalent of American high school-level academic skills).

In his early 20s, watching an Oprah Winfrey talk show, Perry heard someone describe the sometimes therapeutic effect that the act of writing can have, enabling one to work out one’s problems. This comment inspired him to apply himself to a career in writing. He soon started writing a series of letters to himself, which became the basis for the musical, I Know I’ve Been Changed.

Last month, Forbes Magazine named Tyler Perry the highest paid man in entertainment. He beat big-names like producer Jerry Bruckheimer of the Pirates of the Caribbean fame, director Steven Spielberg, musician Elton John and British reality show judge Simon Cowell.

Perry made most of this money from five films he has made over the past two years like Madea’ s Big Happy Family, Why Did I Get Married Too? and For Colored Girls; and two television series: Meet the Browns and House of Payne.
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