There has been a lot of commentary on producer, director, actor and playwright, Tyler Perry’s portrayal of black women in his movies and series over the years.
As a person who grew up enjoying Tyler Perry’s depiction of his starring character, Madea, in several of his movies, when I began really understanding and critiquing his work, I had to have a conversation with myself. It is no secret that black women have been on the receiving end of pain and struggle for centuries. However, as decades roll by, women have taken up different roles in society and have cemented themselves as more than just those who must suffer for everything. In almost all his work, Tyler Perry burdens black women with one problem after another.
If a black woman isn’t struggling to find love because she is too successful, she is divorced and loses her spouse to a light-skinned woman, after helping build the man into the successful person that he is. If the high successful woman does manage to find love, it’s never with her equal, instead, she finds herself having to lower her standards. Now, I understand that Tyler is writing from his own experience, but come on, research goes into scriptwriting and it’s not difficult to create positive and light-hearted depictions of black women.
Case in point: South African actress and producer, Connie Ferguson, has been married to husband, Shona, for almost two decades. They are creatives who own their own production company and are responsible for some of the most-watched series on South African screens. Not once have we ever heard of a scandal between the two, and Connie married her equal.
My breaking point was his movie, Acrimony, after which I felt like I couldn’t watch any more of his work. There are so many ways in which the movie could have ended – a happy ending, being one. The same way that art depicts life, I believe it is the duty of artists and creatives to share positive displays of black love and to influence it.
Abenathi Gqomo
