So what do you do with an actor/director/producer know-it-all that tries to rail against the stereotypical "mammie" image that shot him to super-stardom and questioned his sexuality? For Tyler Perry you make a quiet self-serving film that although puts to work good under-utilized black actors, fails to resonate any type of strong story line that has not been told in some form or fashion already.
In all honesty, I can't make a fair conclusion without seeing Tyler Perry's new film, "Good Deeds" which opens February 24 next year. However, when it comes to Perry, one can almost guess what the experience would be like from watching his past films. From the looks of it, Perry plays a rich business executive who suddenly finds his life mundane. He then comes across a struggling mother (played by Thandie Newton) and her daughter and decides to offer help. I suppose in this journey, the audience will find how Tyler's character finds his true self, stops being a people pleaser, blah, blah, blah. Also starring Phylicia Rashad, Gabrielle Union, Brian White, and a few other notables; this film doesn't really motivate me to run down the theater as soon as it comes out. Now don't get me wrong, I can appreciate him trying to deviate from his typical storytelling (see Madea Gets Her Back Waxed), but I can't help to feel that this film is a move to hush notions of his possible homosexuality. Otherwise, this movie seems like it would be just another drab piece of an otherwise blase' collection from the Lionsgate/Tyler Perry Studios partnership. No I don't have anything against Tyler Perry. In fact, I believe that he is a shining beacon in our community in some ways. Without overtly demonizing his heritage, he puts black actors in mostly positive roles and provide an outlet in an otherwise very white-washed Hollywood landscape. However, his misconstrued vision on what the male/female relationship is (which I believe, he probably never participated in such in his life) or the dynamics of what it's like to be black in this new generation unnerves me to say the least. Constantly playing upon this idea that black men are abusive brutes/captain-save-a-ho and black women are weak victims or broken bullies seem to be the focal point of most of his work. I will rejoice the day that Perry can put out a film that just happens to have black people in it rather being this contrived/irresponsible showing of what he thinks the black experience is like. Judge for yourselves.
