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Why Tyler Perry Earns the Title of Hollywood’s Last Auteur

March 21, 2019 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Tyler Perry, the producer, writer, director and star, is the critical elephant in the room as Hollywood elites discuss diversity. With Tyler Perry’s A Madea Family Funeral, which had opened on March 1 for a $27M weekend and has amassed $60M in three weeks, his auteur career is far from finished – but the industry continues to bury him in an un-remarked grave.

Consider the sheer numbers of his output. Perry, 49, who also owns his own Atlanta-based studio, has produced 15 films with Lionsgate since 2005, starting with the 103-minute crowd-pleaser Diary of a Mad Black Woman. He has directed 21 features, written 15 and played the lead in 12.

The disconnect between audiences receptive to Perry’s mouthy cross-dressing matriarch who tells it like she sees it and his critical assessment is stark. His Rotten Tomatoes score for that first 2005 Madea outing was 16 percent rotten from 114 reviewers and, among audience members, 86 percent liked it.

“Perry doesn’t have any delusions of artistry, and potentially, at least, that’s refreshing,” said Stephanie Zacharek, who was then at Salon and now at Time. “But any points he earns for lack of pretense are immediately gobbled up by his lack of subtlety.”

Chiming in, the New York Post‘s Lou Lumenick was more succinct: “stay clear of this mess.”

Messy? Yes. But a profitable mess.

Since Madea’s feature debut, movies that Perry directed have grossed nearly a $1B nationally – with hardly a ripple in the global box office. He ranks 49 in the list of top-grossing directors at the domestic box office, and 92 in the top grossing domestic screenwriters. The average take of his sprawling comedies is $45M.

In 2011, Forbes Magazine ranked Perry the highest paid man in entertainment. Wow.

Over a decade ago, Diary of a Mad Black Woman, earned a cool $50.6 M despite opening eighth in theaters. In 2016, Boo! A Madea Halloween opened at number 2 and went on to gross $73M.

Reviews for the latter were a snark-fest, including this backhanded compliment from Jesse Hassenger at the AV Club: “Madea remains a distinctive, weirdly compelling character. Maybe someday Perry will make a good comedy for her.”

Perry has never won an Oscar but he did pick up a 2018 Razzie for worst actress in Boo 2! A Madea Halloween. He won some respite in 2019 from the group for his small role as Colin Powell in Academy darling Adam Mckay’s Vice, for which he earned the Redeemer Award.

So, he’s redeemed when he appears very low on the cast list in a white Oscar film – but not when he’s the lead in his own wacky yet popular movies. And, not only has he created a space where he can control his output by wearing many hats, he’s cast a number of African American leads when there were few opportunities available in mainstream films.

Starting with Perry’s first Madea outing, Kimberly Elise had a starring role with her own plot arc. He has cast a string of leading ladies including Angela Bassett, Gabrielle Union, Jurnee Smollett, Brandy, Viola Davis, Tasha Smith, Thandie Newton, Alfre Woodard, Mary J. Blige, Taraji P. Henson and Jill Scott, among many others. He built movies that were not only inclusive but empowering, creating opportunities and showcases for actresses that would go on to win Oscars.

Among actors, potential future 007 Idris Elba was a Perry star, as well as Blair Underwood, Louis Gossett Jr, Shemar Moore, Malik Yoba and Michael J. White.

From a storytelling standpoint, Perry’s movies seesaw from comedy to tragedy, cross-dressing farce to PG-13 romance and from melodramatic to evangelical. They’re not subtle. They shouldn’t work but the audiences that continue to attend Perry’s films and talk back to the screen in a communal call-and-response are beyond the sphere of the critics.

It’s easy to pick Perry’s films apart – but what holds them together? That’s something the industry needs to assimilate because Perry has planted his flag on a profitable shore of popular culture.

Hollywood is only belatedly, reluctantly recognizing the diversity of its audience — and only if it conforms to their preexisting notion of what defines Culture.

However, to quote Madea, “Mama don’t play.” Will Perry conform? Hell no! With this level of consistent success, the guy is doing something right in a major way. With a 16 score on RT, somebody’s missing the point – and it’s not Perry.

Filed Under: Movies & TV Tagged With: auteur, DGA, Diversity, Hollywood, Madea, Movies, Tyler Perry

Reality Bite for Steven Spielberg: Netflix Isn’t the Enemy, It’s Elitism

March 17, 2019 By Thelma Leave a Comment

Steven Spielberg’s post-Oscars aggressive mobilization demanding a four-week theatrical qualifying run for a movie to be eligible for Best Picture – with his sights on Netflix – really aggravates me. And not only because I think that the streamer’s Roma is a more authentic film than Spielberg has made in the past decade.

This has been a flashpoint and continuing source of heated discussion — and tweeting — ever since Spielberg, a governor of the Academy’s directors branch, expressed his controversial intention to lobby to revise Oscars eligibility rules at the upcoming Board of Governors meeting.

After winning three Oscars for Roma, Netflix tweeted: “We love cinema. Here are some things we also love: -Access for people who can’t always afford, or live in towns without, theaters -Letting everyone, everywhere enjoy releases at the same time -Giving filmmakers more ways to share art These things are not mutually exclusive.”

Netflix doesn’t need me to defend them. They have the righteous Director Ava DuVernay, who’s also used social media to voice her view @ava: “One of the things I value about Netflix is that it distributes black work far/wide. 190 countries will get WHEN THEY SEE US. Here’s a promo for South Africa. I’ve had just one film distributed wide internationally. Not SELMA. Not WRINKLE. It was 13TH. By Netflix. That matters. https://t.co/lpn1FFSfgG”

That does matter, Ava. Moreover, it’s significant that the industry’s embedded leaders may not be getting the message. I’m mad because when Spielberg and his cronies get their boxers in a twist and mobilize within their cloistered industry they choose self-interest and self-preservation.

Why should I be surprised?

News to the three-time Oscar winner Spielberg: there is nothing sacred about a theatrical release. It’s the stories and their connection to contemporary audiences that must be nurtured. That’s where the juice is. And that’s where the potential is to make positive change.

I would really love it if these powerful Hollywood kingmakers took all their clout, Academy cred, mentorship capability and ridiculous bags of money – and channeled that energy into the most crucial issue facing their industry today: inclusion.

I’m not asking these film folks to write checks to the Democratic Party. They already do that.

Just, please, don’t squander your outrage by planting your flag on this issue of theatrical releases.

Or, as The Black List founder Franklin Leonard tweeted: “It isn’t even about Netflix, though they’re the most visible and least sympathetic target. It’s about every other film and filmmaker who will struggle to get access to the resources necessary to make a film but not get those allowing for a four week exclusive theatrical release.”

Thank you, Mr. Leonard. This is the key point. Access to the means of movie production is the central struggle of this moment.

These viewpoints in support of a new economic model lead to my central question: has Spielberg taken as aggressive a stand defending gender parity or diversity as his outspoken rebuke to Netflix? Has he worked with other honchos to, for example, amass a $100M development pool to support full budgets of new films directed by those filmmakers previously disenfranchised?

This isn’t charity. This is industry survival in a global economy. And, as the pump of cultural product that Hollywood is, this is about preserving and enhancing our position as a world power in the field of ideas at a moment when we are losing face on the international stage.

And I’m not asking Spielberg or his posse to do it as a reflection of personal magnanimity. Slough off the ego, roll up the sleeves and make change because it will cost you nothing other than money. Certainly you haven’t spent those massive movie profits simply on In –N-Out burgers.

Mr. Spielberg, if you want to save movies, I suggest you step out of your creative comfort zone and relinquish control.

This won’t be easy. He’s no longer a Young Turk but an elder statesman. And his inclination, as reflected in his prestige Oscar-bait period films, is to lionize the white savior over the oppressed minority. For example, in Schindler’s List, now celebrating its 25th Anniversary, Liam Neeson saves the Jews as the fact-based title character who rescues his factory workers from the maw of the Nazis. Ditto Amistad, Saving Private Ryan and Lincoln.

What none of these dramatic serious stories does, with the exception of The Color Purple, is relinquish the central narrative arc to the so-called victims: Jews, blacks or women.

I don’t expect Spielberg the artist, whose 1975 film Jaws signaled the rise of the blockbuster and the decline of the 1970s groovy grainy films of his fellows like Sidney Lumet’s contemporaneous Dog Day Afternoon, to easily shift his focus. He has been in the industry sweet spot, often numero uno, for nearly half a century. But this is my plea.

We don’t need a savior tilting at the windmills of the past, like a silent-movie star raging in a squeaky voice at the rise of talkies. We need financing. We need mentorship and budgets.

We don’t even need big budgets.

Last year’s Oscar-winner Moonlight by Barry Jenkins had a $4M production budget. Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird was $10M. Debra Granik’s Winter’s Bone the movie that launched Jennifer Lawrence’s career, was $2M.

What would the Athena Film Festival or the Memphis Film Prize or the Full Frame Documentary Film Festival be able to accomplish with $100M to award to women of all kinds and artists of color?

That would be a game-changer, Mr. Spielberg. And maybe it’s time for us, your audience, to save you from yourself.

(This column first appeared in RealClearLife.com}

Filed Under: Movies & TV Tagged With: Ava DuVernay, Diversity, Film, Inclusion, Netflix, Opinion, Oscars, Steven Spielberg

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