Tyler Perry and the (Mis)Representation of Religious Morality

Abstract

The epigraph that opens this chapter demonstrates the standard apologia of Tyler Perry’s body of work. To the consternation of his detractors, who have resigned themselves to the fact that he is “critic-proof” because “liking or not liking a Tyler Perry film is beside the point,” and the assumed delight of his core audience, Perry has built his empire on a strategically formulaic blend of black bourgeois middle-classuplift ideology, Christ-centered family-friendly fare, and how-I-gotover survival stories.² Most significantly, the axis around which Perry’s genre revolves—which, giving a nod to Cedric Robinson’s reading of Blaxploitation cinema, I refer to as “churchploitation” due to its heavy reliance upon the themes, ideology, and audience that dominates black Christiandom—is the figure of the “good Christian girl.”³ This morally upright, self-sacrificing, submissive, and patently heterosexual icon of Christian virtue is not an exclusively black phenomenon, but does carry a particular signification of meaning within the context of black religious experience. That the good Christian girl is a girl is not meant to suggest immaturity. Rather, it indicates an innocence, especially in terms of sexuality, that is cultivated in childhood and is presumably retained by virtuous Christian women who are expected to remain sexually pure, that is virgins, until marriage and then to have only their husbands as sexual partners for the duration of their lives.

Perry’s plays—and his films—reach an audience many in Hollywood weren’t aware existed. He tells stories of dreamy black heroines who find their voices, features attractive and attentive Prince Charmings, highlights the beloved matriarchs who care for their families and solve problems with gentle wisdom and peace (or, in Madea’s case, wisecracking wisdom and a piece), and hilarity that includes cultural in-jokes while walking that line between merely bawdy and truly blue. Some characters are Christians whose faith has transformed their lives in normal but significant ways. Although his work isn’t high art and is occasionally problematic, he’s telling stories that aren’t often told, and he has created his own niche by tapping an untapped market. It’s a start. And for that, this black woman can’t be too mad at him.

—LaTonya Taylor, “Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Family Reunion”¹