Tyler Perry is a tall, handsome guy who became a star playing a
foul-mouthed grandma with a gun. The character Madea made Perry one of
the biggest names in black entertainment. And he's on a roll: He's
written, directed and starred in half a dozen hit movies mostly focused
on women.
Perry's films have pulled in more than $400 million in the past few years. His next, Why Did I Get Married Too?, will be released in April, and he was an executive producer on the Oscar-winning movie Precious. Perry is now touring the country with a stage play featuring Madea. Perry relies on his black female fans, and he's finding new ways to tell more serious stories.
Perry clearly gets an enormous kick out of his signature character, a rowdy old hell-raiser who thumps kids when they're sassy. Perry admits his work is not exactly highbrow.
"I'm often criticized because the movies are so predictable and so simple," Perry says. But he thinks people forget that he's trying to reach both young and old audiences. "My fan base is so broad, so I tell a simple story on purpose," he says.
Perry's stories rely on a blend of faith and humor to appeal to the largely female Christian audience who has transformed this former high school dropout into one of the entertainment world's most formidable new figures. But the criticism he's received has been harsh.
Filmmaker Spike Lee used racially loaded words to describe Perry's TV shows: "coonery and buffoonery." Melvin Peters, a professor of African-American literature at Eastern Michigan University, says Lee has a point.
"Black women slapping a man upside the head, telling jokes about the crackhead woman character ... You're on perilous ground when you present these things as humorous," Peters says. "What crack has done to the African-American community and women in particular -- these are troubling things."
But Perry says he is passionate about telling women's stories. It's always been the basis of his artistic drive, as well as the source of his financial success. Still, Perry's approach to women's stories has recently diversified.
The movie Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire could not be more different from Perry's previous projects. It's artsy, disturbing and -- new for Perry? -- critically acclaimed. Perry identified with the main character -- an obese, illiterate teenage girl, abused by her mother.
"My mother was my protector growing up, because I was in a house like the one in Precious," Perry says. "She would take me everywhere with her to protect me. So I went to hair salons, and I went to the Lane Bryant, and as a little boy I soaked up everything. So a lot of times when I'm writing, I'm thinking about those women and those experiences."
Source: WBUR.org
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