Clutch Magazine Article: Black Female Writer Says Some Of The Criticism Of For Colored Girls Is Really Racism & Jealousy Of Tyler Perry’s Incredible Success!!!
‘For Colored Girls’ for Black Women Only, And So What?
Didn’t we see this coming. Now that Tyler Perry’s big screen adaptation of Ntozake Shange’s “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuff” has hit theaters, confused critics are asking exactly who is ‘For Colored Girls” for—as if the title doesn’t say enuff? The most disappointing thing of all is, Tyler Perry himself, and cast members Janet Jackson, Thandie Newton, and Anika Noni Rose have stated, “For Colored Girls” is for everybody. Newton told ComingSoon.com, “It’s not just for colored girls, it’s not just for colored anybody, it’s for humanity.”
But why can’t “For Colored Girls” be just for colored girls? Isn’t that the point of it all?
I have no doubt—albeit not being born yet—that when Shange penned her original “For Colored Girls”–belting out jazzy Black feminist verses, and later dancing about the Public Theater stage in 1975—that every syllable of her prose, every pointed foot in her movement was done for colored girls. Now that this Black women’s work has been re-appropriated, remixed and re-staged for the 21st century audience—and lest we forget with the critical expectancy to yield millions—it seems that being just for the colored woman is no longer enuff.
It’s the very title in itself that makes people uncomfortable. “For Colored Girls” is too non-inclusive, too exclusive, and too pre- and – presently racial to be accepted as a venerable film in a so-called post-racial world.
We must have been kidding ourselves to think in a mythical beyond color climate; and when the First Lady of the free world is as brown as Lady in White, that a big screen effort would be said to be just for us.
Is it entirely impossible to engage in filmic spectatorship without the optical experience of looking like screen subjects? Or to even remotely identify with their experiences? This is the typical theater-going experience for Black women in America, but it seems White America isn’t so pleased with having Oscar buzzing movies not all about them—no White lead cast member in sight, even the studio itself, 34th Street Films is Black. Say what you want to say about Perry, but he’s giving the Hollywood a colored experience unseen before–he’s a complete shout-caller who doesn’t answer to any folks—colored or uncolored.
It’s saddening that the once chitlin’ circuit crowd pleaser who once had no interest in crossing over is using his “most mature work yet”– a work authentically designed for and by Black women to reach audiences, empathies, and cash unintended for. My advice to Perry and the “For Colored Girls” cast, don’t compromise the work of the film—already deemed stellar and powerful by reviews—just to reach the top box office spot.
If there is any confusion who “For Colored Girls” is for, let me be so bold to say to White America and Black men, you are welcome to the picture show, but this flick not about you.
Movieline Interview: Actress Loretta Devine Talks About For Colored Girls, Tyler Perry & White Male Film Critics.
Loretta Devine on For Colored Girls, Black Women and White Critics
The jury is out on whether or not For Colored Girls will find momentum at the box office, in the Oscar derby, or both, But for at least one-ninth of its ensemble of actresses, the film already represents a cultural success worthy of the celebrated 1975 source choreopoem by Ntozake Shange.
Loretta Devine stars as Juanita, a tough-talking, condom-dispensing nurse who counsels women against HIV/AIDS during the day and wonders where her elusive lover split to by night — or most nights anyway. It’s among the liveliest and full-blooded performances in Tyler Perry’s film, providing the higher register of a nine-part harmony also featuring extraordinary notes by Kimberly Elise, Anika Noni Rose, Thandie Newton, Phylicia Rashad and Kerry Washington. It was Devine’s first time performing Shange’s poems (she missed the opportunity as a student in the ’70s, when she said joining a local production would have meant leaving school), and she talked with Movieline recently about how she — and all of her castmates — made the most of them.
Tyler Perry wrote on his Web site that you “don’t have to be a colored girl to relate to and enjoy For Colored Girls.” What’s your take on the audience and the potential reach for this film?
Well, I was in Waiting to Exhale, and it was a success because all kinds of women came out to see it. All kinds of women are able to identify with all the issues in it because they’re very human and very universal. And I think Tyler has a big enough following that if enough people see it, then everybody’s going to want to know what this is about. It encompasses everything — every kind of relationship you could ever have is in this movie. It could have been done by an all-Spanish cast, an all-Japanese cast, you know? It’s universal.
Juanita’s thread deals with the play’s theme of self-respect in love and sex. Yet Tyler updates this to encompass safe sex and HIV/AIDS prevention. What did you think about that interweaving — upping the stakes, in a way?
Well, I was very happy that the character I played was a very positive one. She was working as a nurse at a clinic for women to better their education and their self-worth. In her personal life there were things that were unresolved — things that it seemed like a woman in her position should have resolved. But it just simply showed how in relationships and love, you can’t control how things go down. She was very passionate about the man that she was in love with, and she was trying to hold him. What’s great about this particular piece is that all the women are not old, they’re not young — the age range is from very young to my age and older. This was an older woman who was still trying to have a love life. So the audience gets a chance to go through those emotions with her. She has to express how much she needed or wanted this man in her life, even though she knew better. It took her a great deal time to get to the point where she could walk away from this relationship.
I love the character I played. I got all the most exciting stuff.
Were there any other characters you were familiar with from the play or the script that you might have had your eye on, or who you also really appreciated as an actor?
Oh, no! I love the character I played. I got all the most exciting stuff. I got a chance to do some Ntozake Shange’s most exciting poems. “Someone Almost Walked Off Wid Alla My Stuff” was one of the best poems in the entire piece for me, so I was very excited when I found I got a chance to that particular poem.
You’re also on the hook for the first poem in the movie. It’s kind of an early make-or-break point for whether For Colored Girls would work; did you sense any added pressure, either from Tyler or simply from yourself?
No; I didn’t even know that. Everyone had their own set. You’d go to the set and work on whatever you’re working on that particular day. I didn’t feel the pressure of the first poem at all. The pressure came in trying to make it look like conversational — like it isn’t necessarily a poem, that you’re relating to somebody on the other side of the door. I think I pulled that off, so by the time people finally met Frank, they knew who I was talking about.
We know what kind of legacy the play has in the three decades since it was introduced, but what kind of legacy do you think the film might have coming out of this era? How do they complement each other?
It’s been 30 years since this play came out, and nobody even thought about it [as a film] until Tyler got it done. Well, I shouldn’t say that; Tyler said Whoopi brought it to him at one point to try to do it, and there were other people who came to him about it. So the more it came back and back, he decided he had to take the challenge. Because the play is so iconic — I mean, this is a play that’s been done by girls in schools and colleges — it has a history and a legacy of its own. I think the movie will become a classic just like Waiting to Exhale is a classic, because it’s about the experiences of black women. In this country right now, we’re very interested in black people because the president is black. The first lady is black. It’s another way to know a race of people better.
You know. White men run everything. Don’t start me up.
That said, the movie critics who will help shape that legacy are predominantly white men who’ve always had it out for Tyler Perry. Isn’t that a disadvantage in the immediate term?
You know. White men run everything. Don’t start me up. [Laughs] There are people who love it. There are people who think it’s not necessary. There are going to be black men who say, “I don’t want to hear this any more.” But this is a drama, you know? This is a piece of entertainment for people to go into and come out of and have things to talk about and reflect on their own lives and say, “Oh, God, that was me in my 20s,” or, “That was a problem my girlfriend had.” Because the movie resolves itself, and it teaches you that you have to find that thing inside you — and you have to love yourself spiritually. That’s the last thing that the film tells and teaches every woman: No matter what has happened to you, you have to go inside and love yourself. We’re in a country that still embraces all kinds of cultures, and there’s racism across the board for everybody. The people who run this country are primarily white men. So what you gonna do?
Unreality Article: White Male Writer Provides His Perspective About Tyler Perry & His Fanbase.
Apr 08 2010
Lessons Learned from a White Guy Watching Tyler Perry Movies
Published by Paul Tassi at 4:15 pm under Columns,Movies
Apologies to anyone about to somehow be offended by this post, but I really don’t think anyone should be. Also, I say “black” all the time because I didn’t feel like writing out “African-American” sixty times.
I was at my local movie house in Michigan this past weekend to unfortunately witness the idiotic pile of nonsense that was Clash of the Titans. On my way into the theater, I saw a line for another movie playing next door, a line made up quite literally of 100% black people.
Being the deductive sleuth I am, I immediately said to myself, “Oh there must be another Tyler Perry movie out.” If that sounds like some sort of racial jab, it’s not, it’s the logical conclusion to draw when you see a movie that A) has patrons all of one race and B) has a line for it. Knowing that practically every Tyler Perry movie ever has won its opening weekend, I figured this must be a fair assessment.
And guess what? I was right. Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married Too was opening, and explained the homogeneous line forming for it.
It was then I decided to do an experiment. Practically every white person I know enjoys ripping on Tyler Perry movies to some degree. The seemingly obvious pandering, the cross dressing and fat suits, the constant use of “Tyler Perry” in every title. They’re pretty easy targets.
But how many white people have actually SEEN a Tyler Perry movie? Judging by that line, and others I’ve seen like it over the past ten years of similar racial makeup, I’m guessing barely any. So on Sunday, I downloaded rented two Tyler Perry flicks to see why A) white people avoid them and B) black people love them.
I decided to go with Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married, the movie whose sequel I had just seen playing at the theater, and Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All By Myself because I remember writing several posts in the past making fun of that nonsensical title.
I thought this would be hilarious exercise in “white guy doesn’t get black culture,” but what I found actually surprised me in a lot of ways.
There are a large number of white people who often view black people in stereotypes. It’s true, and you can shut the hell up if you won’t admit that exists in society today. Many associate “black culture” with rap and basketball, and not a whole lot more than that.
But being a stereotype, we forget that even though yes, there are black people who play basketball and love rap, the VAST majority of them do NOT conform to such visions, and more specifically, there is an entire segment of the population that is overlooked by practically every entertainment force out there.
Middle-aged and older black people place very, very high value on family and God, something that Tyler Perry knows and has tapped into. His movies (at least the ones I saw) are illustrations in family values and morality, and have captured an audience who prize themselves on those things above all else.
Why Did I Get Married tells the story of four couples struggling through various issues in their marriage while on a get-away in the Colorado mountains. There’s an overworking wife who doesn’t have time for her husband, a couple dealing with the death of a child, a pair with a problem with infidelity, and one emotionally abusive relationship between an asshole and his overweight wife. Similarly, I Can Do Bad All By Myself tells the story of a woman forced to take care of her dead sister’s children against her will, dealing all the while with a physically abusive boyfriend.
Yes, it’s true, all of these movies are almost ENTIRELY populated by an African-American cast (a white woman once showed up to imply a black character was about to steal something), but there is nothing exclusively “black” about them besides a few gospel songs here and there (one which includes the inexplicable “I Can Do Bad” title that STILL makes no sense).
I caught a brief glimpse of Tyler Perry’s trademark “Madea” character in the second film, which isn’t so much a caricature of anyone’s old black grandmother, she’s just a ridiculous ass person all around, and I will say she heavily confused the mood of what was supposed to be a drama in I Can Do Bad. I don’t really have the heart to watch a Madea-centric film like Madea Goes to Jail however. At that point it’s just Big Momma’s House in different locales.
Tyler Perry’s films are decently written and acted, though they can be pretty heavy handed with their life lessons. Everything is always resolved to perfection, and the movies seem more like a audio/video version of Chicken Soup for the Soul.
Yes, it’s statistically true that black woman are much more likely to be single mothers, and black fathers are more likely to be absent, but these stories really could apply to any race. It’s just that Tyler Perry uses them to target the concerned aging black population who is worried about the destruction of the traditional black family, as they are willing to sit through a rather boring, cliché movie so long as everyone’s happy, and more importantly, married in the end.
White people would never go for this. White people don’t want to watch a movie about couples working through marital strife. If they do, they want it to be something like Closer, where Clive Owen cheats on Julia Roberts with Natalie Portman as a stripper. For every boring family drama like Everybody’s Fine, there are a dozen Nicholas Sparks movies which contain not familial love, but insanely unrealistic romance love that involves kissing in the rain and almost exclusively white casts in every single movie.
With that in mind, it’s strange to complain about how Tyler Perry’s all-black movies are furthering divides among the races by giving blacks “their own” movies to go to. When you look at Hollywood as a whole, and you view the kind of roles that blacks are usually given onscreen, you will see a whole lot of sidekicks, slasher victims and Denzel Washington. So when Tyler Perry gives them a franchise to call their own, of COURSE they’re going to flock to it, and rightfully so if it’s what entertains them.
So hopefully I haven’t been too offensive in this article, and it turned out to be a lot less funny than I anticipated, but I do feel like I learned a little something, though I probably won’t be going to the theater to check out Madea’s next adventure anytime soon.
Gayblackcanada 