Why does Tyler Perry have a job?

[Pendlum]

Seriously. His show House of Paine isn't funny at all. The commercials for it make me cringe. His movies are just generic crap except with a different skin color. I don't know anyone who thinks this stuff is funny or good. He must have TBS by the balls or something.

 

[D_one and done]

all true. his original claim to fame were his plays. funny enough to entertain, religious enough to get the the african american church going crowds (which apparently is a large crowd.) then he transferred the same crowds to his movies with moderate success, and later his really bad tv show.

 

[Pendlum]

I didn't know he did plays, but I assumed he did something to get there. I thought might have been stand up. It makes sense that it is religious though, to me at least. All his stuff does seem very.. kosher I guess is a good word for it.

 

[D_one and done]

hes famous for his "madea" plays where he dresses up as a old woman. hes the ernest of the AA churchgoing community.

madea goes to jail
madea's family reunion
madea's class reunion

 

[cm70874]

I actually love his plays and movies. Never seen the TBS show though. Trying to make this sound as un-racially segregated as possible, you really have to know whats going on in the black community past and present to understand alot of the jokes and puns.

I don't know if your comment was strictly meant for the tv show (if it is disregard the next statement), but I have never seen anything else like Tyler's stage plays and movies. So I wouldn't its generic. Its quite original in my opinion.

 

[D_Portelay Porquesword]

I adore Tyler Perry. He is genuine and funny. I love the live plays and his Madea character. I have not seen the tv show.

All though some of his movies are not way up there with Titanic, it fills a much needed social niche.

I like him.

 

[Pendlum]

I actually love his plays and movies. Never seen the TBS show though. Trying to make this sound as un-racially segregated as possible, you really have to know whats going on in the black community past and present to understand alot of the jokes and puns.

I don't know if your comment was strictly meant for the tv show (if it is disregard the next statement), but I have never seen anything else like Tyler's stage plays and movies. So I wouldn't its generic. Its quite original in my opinion.

Well I can't comment on his plays because I've never seen them. And if they are actually good, his talents didn't seem to transfer to the tv screen well. That may be because like you said, I don't know what is going on in the black community, or went on. I'm not black, and there aren't that many black people were I live.

 

[D_one and done]

YouTube - Madea Goes to Jail - "How old's your great-grandmother?"

 

[cm70874]

Well I can't comment on his plays because I've never seen them. And if they are actually good, his talents didn't seem to transfer to the tv screen well. That may be because like you said, I don't know what is going on in the black community, or went on. I'm not black, and there aren't that many black people were I live.

Oh crap, what I mean by black community is black entertainment. Like he does alot of jokes dealing with Whitney Houston, the movie "the color purple" shit like that. You can almost say his plays are like stand up acts with a message and a plot. rent or buy the plays, I assure you, you will love them.

 

[mista geechee]

I didn't know he did plays, but I assumed he did something to get there. I thought might have been stand up. It makes sense that it is religious though, to me at least. All his stuff does seem very.. kosher I guess is a good word for it.

yea ho got famous for his plays on teh chitlin circuit. that madea (imho) bullshit. i personally think that it portrays black grandmother's as irrational buffoons. abd "house of payne" does the same thing. and to be honest, i view him as a coon and a disgrace to the black community.

whatever happened to "family matters" or "fresh prince" or "the cosby show" ? the shows that had african americans playing positive leading roles

 

[Pendlum]

Oh crap, what I mean by black community is black entertainment. Like he does alot of jokes dealing with Whitney Houston, the movie "the color purple" shit like that. You can almost say his plays are like stand up acts with a message and a plot. rent or buy the plays, I assure you, you will love them.

I might sometime. I've never been much for plays, but I'd like to believe that there is a reason he managed to get a sitcom. :tongue:

 

[D_one and done]

yea ho got famous for his plays on teh chitlin circuit. that madea (imho) bullshit. i personally think that it portrays black grandmother's as irrational buffoons. abd "house of payne" does the same thing. and to be honest, i view him as a coon and a disgrace to the black community.

whatever happened to "family matters" or "fresh prince" or "the cosby show" ? the shows that had african americans playing positive leading roles

jeez, everyboy cant be a polished white role model. at least the stories have positive morals. he isnt portraying anything but his own personal experiences with his grandmother, which is who he based the character on, an apparently a large group of people related to that. madea is no more a portrayal of all black grandmothers than laguna beach is a portrayal of all white young adults.

 

[mista geechee]

jeez, everyboy cant be a polished white role model. at least the stories have positive morals. he isnt portraying anything but his own personal experiences with his grandmother, which is who he based the character on, an apparently a large group of people related to that. madea is no more a portrayal of all black grandmothers than laguna beach is a portrayal of all white young adults.

im not saying he has to be a polished white role model . im just saying that , in my opinion, he exploits alot of the black community's for entertainment purposes

 

[HyperHulk]

I find his Madea character to be hysterical but that's about it. The rest is just melodrama to the extreme. I'd be thrilled if he just built a whole thing around Madea without going for the serious stuff.

 

[cm70874]

yea ho got famous for his plays on teh chitlin circuit. that madea (imho) bullshit. i personally think that it portrays black grandmother's as irrational buffoons. abd "house of payne" does the same thing. and to be honest, i view him as a coon and a disgrace to the black community.

whatever happened to "family matters" or "fresh prince" or "the cosby show" ? the shows that had african americans playing positive leading roles

Well if he did that, wouldn't it fall into the "GERNERIC" category, which is the purpose of this thread?

 

[marleyisalegend]

I find his Madea character to be hysterical but that's about it. The rest is just melodrama to the extreme. I'd be thrilled if he just built a whole thing around Madea without going for the serious stuff.

if i wrote a movie about my family you'd call it melodramatic and, for the entire half hour say "that's unreal, that's unrealistic, that never happens" etc... this is simply the law of averages. there's MILLIONS of afflictions one can face (health, violence, death of a loved one, etc...) when you've got a big family (those exist too) you've, by numbers, more chances of seeing dramatic situations. (the joy of one having a baby is proceeded by a drug-overdose of another family member, etc..)

for instance, here's one movie i could make about my family (all of this is 100% true):


opening scene, my cousin alisha's mother, high on drugs, tries to burn alisha and her sisters alive in their apartment. her mom didn't want them and decided "hey, maybe i can burn em all"

the body of the movie could be alisha growing up, being shifted from one foster home where the head of the home was using the kids to sell drugs, to another foster home, to my grandma (BIG drama trying to keep 5 sisters in the foster system in the same place, siblings often end up separated). while alisha and her sisters are being raised by gramma, their mom starts prostituting and continues to abuse drugs til she contracts aids and dies from related complications.

for comedic value, a 3 year old me is at brookfield zoo and i get my watermelon-sized head stuck in a gate trying to crawl into one of the displays.

fast-forward towards the end. saturday may 25th my sister's wedding. all the bickering and drama is put on hold to celebrate my sister getting married. the dj plays cameo and we did the electric slide. the entire day was full of people laughing and telling stories. i literally ran to the bar as soon as it opened and made a few inebriated funnies.

the next day, sunday, cousin alisha is found murdered because of a drug dealer she was involved with. this can segue to the triumph-over-tragedy scene because alisha's sister alexia, by age 19 has buried a mom from aids, a sister who was murdered, grew up feeling unloved and abandoned by her drug-addict father but recently graduated high-school with honors.

drama ensues after alisha's death because alisha would've wanted her kids to stay together but there is bickering over who gets the kids. one person who is currently keeping her 5 month old actually called alisha's sisters taunting/teasing them because she got to keep the youngest one. at my most recent family gathering, alicia's funeral, we gathered after the service at someone's house and ate and laughed a lot.

sound unrealistic?? this isn't the half of it. i haven't gotten to my hilariously stereotypically country cousins from georgia "lawd yall got yall some nice dishes up in here!! let me get the numba to yo cellulite phone". yes, my cousin jackie asked about me celluLITE, not celluLAR phone, though i may have simply misunderstood her cuz her slow drawl is painful (but funny) to my chicago-born self. there's my gramma who's kept the family together by opening up her home (she's never owned a house with less than 5 bedrooms). there's the deacon in my church who was married with 5 kids and was caught having an affair with someone else in the church. just like in the movies, his wife was your average let-herself-go soccer mom and the mistress was pretty, thin, and blonde. or the hilarious dynamic of my dad being cheap and my mom spending money on drease's wedding like money grows on trees (at one point she took his credit card and wouldn't give it back lol), or how one of alisha's sisters tried to eat a plant when they were sleepwalking.

if anyone else is as bored as i am, i'm sure they wouldn't mind sharing similar real-life stories that would easily turn into the humorous scenes, victory-over-adversity storylines, and dramatic turning points (a fight, a tragedy) that make-up tyler perry's franchise.

im not saying he has to be a polished white role model . im just saying that , in my opinion, he exploits alot of the black community's for entertainment purposes

i couldn't disagree more (if i understand the context you speak of as "exploiting"). i think the EXACT opposite. MANY problems in the black community (or any for that matter) exist because we go to church smiling and clapping when, soon as we get out, there are extra-marital affairs going on that we only whisper about. as quick as we are to shout that someboy is racist or our president is incompetent, we turn silent when the person doing wrong shares our bloodline. we don't talk about the uncle we think may be molesting a relative, we don't talk about the drug addicts or try to get them proper help, and many couples stay together though it's whispered (but never discussed) that they're both having affairs and quite discontent with one another. showing up at church sunday morning with a smile on my face is a practice i've perfected, acting like nothing's wrong.

tyler perry OPENS DOORS with his movies by creating a comfortable setting that can possibly lead to real-life discussions when we get home from the movie. i'm sure there are people who, after watching his movie, felt more comfortable discussing certain issues. if we're gonna turn a blind eye to our ills, we need somebody to put them on display. at the same time, he certainly captures positive aspects of black family life. the matriarch grandma who keeps people together, isn't brian a lawyer?? didn't "why did i get married" showcase a bunch of intelligent, well-spoken black people?? didn't we all say "you go girl" when jill scott overcame her weight issues and brought home a man who's a sexy-as-fuck personal trainer? i think that tyler's movies are almost dead on depictions of black family life. physical, drug and sexual abuse, the electric slide, the successes, the tragedies, the humor, this makes up not only black life but REAL life for many people, regardless of color. some of our lives make the movies seem tame.

my 22 years has been filled with an abundance of laughter, tears, tragedies, and triumphs and "never a dull moment" is entirely accurate.

to answer the OP, though i agree that the television show is FUCKING AWFUL, tyler perry has a job, lucrative production deals, and a million dollar house because he's made a franchise of accurate depictions of black family life and discusses issues that many families sweep under the rug for fear of looking bad to the neighbors or church. this makes perfect sense because many religious people operate under the idealogy that if you're suffering it's because you don't have a good relationship with god. you can even say fuck color, regardless of race, ALL families need to step letting heavy issues go unspoken of because the neighbors or church'll think "you have a drug addict in your family? god must hate you". "you're struggling with an affair? i'm better than you" "your kid has cancer? you must have did something to make god angry". religion/fear of criticism scare a lot of people into putting on a pretend show of living a perfect life, and i thank Jeebus that tyler perry isn't afraid to bring out some skeletons from the closet.
somebody has to be unashamed and realistic.

 

[B_Nick8]

marley, I'm really impressed by your post.

To the OP, however, omg I'm glad you asked this question. If I'm really horrid in this life, when I die and go to hell, I will have to spend all of eternity watching an endless loop of that fucking TV show.

 

[invisibleman]

Why does Tyler Perry have a job?
Why does Britney Spears have a job?
Why does George W. Bush have a job?
Why does 50 Cent have a job?

I haven't seen House of Payne. But I have seen many of Tyler Perry's movies and films. They are different.

I think Tyler Perry's shows can be likened to Father Knows Best. Leave It To Beaver. Bewitched. My Three Sons. Etcetera. (All these shows (except the ETCETERA part) are shows about white people's lives. Tyler's work is like that only the focus is on his perceptions...observations on current issues that affect some or all of African-American family/community.

There are shows I cannot fucking stand. Charmed. Queer As Folk. Friends.

Movies: Brokeback Mountain...I can't stand that movie.

 

[B_jacknapier]

I think house of paine is funny. havent seen his other stuff

 

[marleyisalegend]

There's absolutely nothing wrong with saying "It's a black thing."

depending on the context.