Tyler Perry's Down-Low Hysteria

[davidinalameda]

I was rooting for Tyler Perry. I wanted him to win. To prove all of his critics wrong. To finally achieve the respect from Hollywood that has eluded him for his entire career — the respect that seems to only be an afterthought publicly for Perry in the midst of his multimillion-dollar entertainment empire, legions of devoted fans, and media mogul status, but privately must be as important to him as it is to those who defend his desire to be considered a legitimate filmmaker.

I wanted to love For Colored Girls, and I wanted a new generation of women and men who may not have experienced the power of Ntozake Shange’s original work to cry, feel, dance, sing, and marvel at the beauty of her words and the experiences of so many incredible black women as they leaped from the page to the screen in Perry’s adaptation.

This did not happen. Instead what Perry gave us was a version of Shange’s For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf that is barely recognizable. If it were not for Shange’s poetry interwoven into the typical Perry melodrama randomly assigned to his gifted actors, this film could have been any number of Perry’s previous efforts minus the mature and often intense subject matter.

http://www.advocate.com/Arts_and_Entertainment/Commentary/Tyler_Perrys_Down_Low_Hysteria/

[TygrBright]

1. The (African American) Film Critic from WaPo's review was titled...

"For Critics Who Have Considered Suicide/When Assigned to a Tyler Perry Film"

I'm sorry Perry booted this one so badly. It's such a beautiful book and a wonderful play.

regretfully,
Bright

[davidinalameda]

2. I've watched a few of his movies on TV

horrible

he follows the same formula every time

[joeybee12]

3. Sorry, this guy is essentially talentless...another person Orpah

has to answer to her Maker for promoting.

[Skittles]

6. I don't think he is talentless

I've seen a few of his movies and they are very well-directed and paced and he gets terrific performances out of people...but, I didn't understand his role playing a female and this review raises some troubling points

[joeybee12]

9. I think his movies are dreadful...simply dreadful...n/t

[ruggerson]

4. That's a very interesting read

thanks.

[davidinalameda]

5. my pleasure

:toast:

[TexasObserver]

7. There is a term blacks use for blacks who do what Tyler Perry does.

It is a pejorative I would never use, but have heard blacks use it to refer to some of Perry's work, to Flava Flav, and to the activities of the minstrel show characters in Bamboozled.

I'll take Spike Lee, or the Hughes brothers, or John Singleton.

[Evasporque]

8. Is Madea in it?

I love her.