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It was all good just three months ago.
Most of Tyler Perry’s critics had made up with the filmmaker in October to join in on the celebration of the multimillionaire’s movie studio, making him the first Black person to own and operate a studio lot.
In the past Tyler has been a source of critique, especially in regards to his portrayals of Black women, which are undoubtedly sometimes flat and one-dimensional. On the other hand, many feel that Tyler is a master of keying into his audience and defers to relatable stories found in Black communities.
But all of those old feelings came rushing back Friday morning when Perry tweeted out the trailer for his latest film, A Fall From Grace. The film is the first in a series of production deals Tyler inked with the streaming giant Netflix back in
The film which premieres on November 17, stars Crystal Fox with Phylicia Rashad, Mechad Brooks, Bresha Webb, Cicely Tyson, and Perry. It navigates through a murder mystery where Fox, who plays the title role, is a downtrodden, heartbroken Black woman who may or may not have murdered her young husband, (Brooks) who preyed on her vulnerability to steal her identity.
Twitter instantly reverted back to their split over the filmmaker, arguing between two schools of thought: Perry’s reliance on negative tropes regarding Black women, and the dismissive nature of “woke Blacks” who come to cancel everything.
The timing of the trailer was even more exhausting as the week was spent battling anti-Blackness spewed from the mouths of Black men towards Blue Ivy, Ari Lennox and Teyana Taylor.
Tyler addressed some of the criticism he’s faced during the grand opening of his studio lot last year.
“For every critic that said how horrible my films were, and typically they weren’t black, I got thousands of letters from people telling me how much the work was literally changing their lives,” he said. “Had I focused on the criticism, I wouldn’t own this studio today. I could not have gotten here without Madea.”
Clearly it’s not an easy topic to debate, but Twitter did it’s best for most of Friday afternoon.
