It’s Time For Tyler Perry To Leave Black Women Alone

(Original print, May 2018)

Tyler Perry, actor, producer, screenwriter, director, play-write, philanthropist, and all around bad-ass, has been serving up hot, tear-jerking dramas for the last two decades. In 2005, Perry’s Diary of A Mad Black Woman hit the big screen — a film literally chronicling a mad black woman as she escapes the clutches of an even madder black man. As the abusive, wealthy, philandering, color-stuck husband meets his crippled karma, the reformed mad black woman leaps helplessly into the arms of a broke guy with a braided hat. It wasn’t the classic fairytale love story ending, but it was our version of a happily ever after.

Despite the underlying theme that black girls don’t get to have it all, a common implication to be discussed at a later point, the girls loved this big screen adaptation of Tyler’s classic stage play. Just about as much as they loved Tyler’s 2006 follow up, Madea’s Family Reunion. Double the drama, double the quivering lip, double the old black lady quotables. Not to underwhelm, but Tyler gave us the rich abuser, the broke good guy, the abandoned kid, the toxic mama, and twerking cousins at a family reunion all in one film. In the end, the traumatized older sister got to borrow the wedding of the traumatized younger sister, complete with guests, cake and ceiling angels, and we all cheered…