Tyler Perry and the Multifaceted Black Audience
We will not come to an agreement about his work, and that is perfectly fine.
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I haven’t watched a Tyler Perry film in years.
That isn’t to sound bourgeois, it’s just the truth. I remember enjoying the Madea stage plays and movies with my family members, making jokes and quoting the comical characters with my friends. There was definitely a time when I found his films enjoyable.
But eventually, I just got tired of it.
It felt like I was seeing the same plot repeatedly. There’s always a struggling God-fearing Black lady, usually with a lot of emotional pain due to abuse. There’s always some decent looking guy who is the cause of this pain, there’s always some old all-knowing matriarch who helps guide the story, and — of course — the notorious bad wigs.
On January 17th, in partnership with Netflix, Tyler Perry released his new film A Fall from Grace. The story follows public defender Jasmine Bryant as she uncovers what really happened to her client Grace Waters, a woman who is facing life in prison after allegedly murdering her husband Shannon.
Thus far, there have only been 12 reviews on Rotten Tomatoes — 8 rotten against 4 fresh — giving the film a 33% rating. Conversely, the IMDb rating falls at a 6 out of 10 from 144 reviews. The one to two-star reviews range from scathing to downright hilarious:
“This is basically if an intern at the Hallmark channel was forced to write a law and order episode… In 5 days.”
“ The whole thing was written so badly and has numerous holes in the story, characters seeming dimwitted and lacking common sense. An unrealistic and unremarkable attempt at a compelling drama”.
The following is from someone who rated the movie a 9 out of 10 but still had their own discrepancies about the way it was produced:
