Talking Back and Taking My “Amens” with Me: Tyler Perry and the Narrative Colonization of Black Women’s Stories

Abstract

I was a graduate student in Atlanta when Tyler Perry made the leap from stage plays to movies. I was only mildly familiar with, and generally not a fan of, the Madea plays, which struck me as being a throwback to the era of the Chitlin’ Circuit. Even so, I eagerly supported his first film Diary of a Mad Black Woman (2005), and enjoyed it. Perry seemed sympathetic to black women’s struggles in heterosexual relationships, the ways that men “did us wrong,” our legitimate desire for revenge, and the importance of our faith. Madea’s acerbic wit, combative posturing, and fiercely protective devotion to her family were a welcome and familiar narrative, invoking thoughts of the women in my life who absolutely “don’t take no mess.” Thus, I eagerly went to see every film, most on opening weekends. Even though I was a self-identified feminist, I drowned out the protestations of my feminist friends, dismissing them as too academic for their own good. The women in Perry’s films reminded me of women I knew. And, as an evangelical Christian and regular church attendee, I found the sermons and faith themes in his movies poignant and instructive. In short, I encountered Tyler Perry at a critical juncture in my own evolution as an academic, a black feminist scholar and critic, and an increasingly theologically liberal Christian from an evangelical background.