From Madea to Media Mogul

TreaAndrea M. Russworm is associate professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. She is author of Blackness Is Burning: Civil Rights, Popular Culture, and the Problem of Recognition and coeditor of Gaming Representation: Race, Gender, and Sexuality in Video Games. Her work has been published in Cinema Journal's Teaching Media and in the books Watching While Black: Centering the Television of Black Audiences and Game On, Hollywood! Essays on the Intersection of Video Games and Cinema. Samantha N. Sheppard is the Mary Armstrong Meduski '80 Assistant Professor of cinema and media studies at Cornell University. Her work has appeared in Cinema Journal, Film Quarterly, Journal of Sports & Social Issues, and the edited collection The L.A. Rebellion. Karen M. Bowdre is an independent scholar whose work has been published in Black Camera: An International Film Journal and Cinema Journal and in the edited collection Falling in Love Again: Romantic Comedy in Contemporary Cinema.

For over a decade, Tyler Perry has been a lightning rod for both criticism and praise. To some he is most widely known for his drag performances as Madea, a self-proclaimed "mad black woman," not afraid to brandish a gun or a scalding pot of grits. But to others who watch the film industry, he is the businessman who by age thirty-six had sold more than $100 million in tickets, $30 million in videos, $20 million in merchandise, and was producing 300 projects each year viewed by 35,000 every week.Is the commercially successful African American actor, director, screenwriter, playwright, and producer "malt liquor for the masses," an "embarrassment to the race!," or is he a genius who has directed the most culturally significant American melodramas since Douglas Sirk? Are his films and television shows even melodramas, or are they conservative Christian diatribes, cheeky camp, or social satires? Do Perry's flattened narratives and character tropes irresponsibly collapse important social discourses into one-dimensional tales that affirm the notion of a "post-racial" society?In light of these debates, From Madea to Media Mogul makes the argument that Tyler Perry must be understood as a figure at the nexus of converging factors, cultural events, and historical traditions. Contributors demonstrate how a critical engagement with Perry's work and media practices highlights a need for studies to grapple with developing theories and methods on disreputable media. These essays challenge value-judgment criticisms and offer new insights on the industrial and formal qualities of Perry's work.