Voices
weekend, beating Efron’s film by
more than $10 million.
For a man who has built his
career on creating films starring
all-black casts, one can’t help but
notice that Perry is slowly moving away from the foolproof formula that made him millions, not
to mention the devoted audience
that has stuck with him through
public attacks, so-so storylines
and less-than stellar movie reviews. Besides Perry, Romeo Miller and John Amos are the only
slightly dominant faces of color
in Madea’s Witness Protection,
which features Eugene Levy, Denise Richards and Doris Roberts.
It’s difficult to nail down why
a community who values loyalty
and is notoriously critical of how
they are portrayed in the media
would continuously support ageold racial stereotypes masked in
fat suits, drag, punchy one-liners,
over-the-top drama and a film
director who seems to have chosen crossover appeal in lieu of his
devoted audience.
But I digress. I don’t hate Tyler
Perry. In fact, I admire his business savvy, resilience to the naysayers and love of black culture
and tradition. I’m a fan of several of his films and stage plays.
CHEVONNE
HARRIS
HUFFINGTON
07.15.12
In full disclosure, I watched
Madea’s Witness Protection on
opening weekend, laughing out
loud a few times at the empty
humor while rolling my eyes at
the undertones of coonery, including Madea’s inarticulateness
and initial presumed fear of her
white houseguests.
The enchanting thing about
Perry and the core of the black
moviegoer conundrum is that although Perry has
On the
mastered the art of
few occasions
making and marketmajor black
ing black movies to
films are
black people, his
released
films are in no way
domestically,
a true portrayal of
the results
modern black culoften exceed
ture. But considering
expectations.”
the lack of options
for black moviegoers
to choose from, in a twisted, stereotypes aside kind of way, Perry’s formula of humor, heartache
and cultural clichés somehow
works, dispelling the myth and
popular hip-hop mantra, “if it
don’t make dollars, it don’t make
sense.” In the case of Tyler Perry,
it does make dollars but it
don’t always make sense.