Tyler Perry's Stories

Part of the process toward adopting interracially was that I was forced to take a look at the many ways I live in a lily-white world.  I realized that I don't watch African American TV shows, movies or read African American books.  I noticed that toys in the store featured predominately white characters, and couldn't even find an African American baby doll in any department store in town.

Some of this was no surprise.  I read a book for a chick-lit club written by Toni Morrison, and realized that while there is a large level of commonality between humans, there is a definite difference between African American culture as well as North versus South culture.  I had bought a baby doll a couple years ago to send to Haiti and couldn't find an African American doll then either.

So, I decided to undertake learning a bit about African American culture by watching some of Tyler Perry's movies and TV shows.  One of the things that I really appreciate about his stories is the story lines feature Christianity in an authentic manner.  Rarely does an episode or movie slide by without a reference to prayer, Jesus and living a Christian life.  This doesn't mean the characters are perfect.  Many have deep flaws, often times brought out through sinful behavior.  But religion is not something to be made fun of, rather it is something to be embraced and celebrated.

Now, Perry is criticized for using caricatures of African Americans in his work.  And, he does.  But, his characters are typically lovable, even if flawed; realistic, even if tragic; and multi-dimensional, even if a bit stereotypical. 

But one thing Perry is not doing is making every African American male a drug dealer and every African American woman a single mother.  Certainly these are characters in some of the shows, but the vast majority of characters are parents, family members, and hard working individuals.