Mammie Dearest (The Pledge)

Ok, I’ve got a great idea for a movie. An African-American woman is trapped in a loveless marriage to a white collar Black man who beats her, has no Christian values and cheats on her with a woman lacking the same moral values. There is another man, a blue collar worker who believes Jesus Christ is his Lord and savior and is only looking for a good woman to settle down with but she can’t she him through her tear stained eyes. That is until a gun-toting, foul mouthed mammie looking cross-dressing Black man spewing Christian rhetoric dances in to point out the obvious prompting her to fall head over heels in love. Throw in some incest, sexual abuse and a bit of homophobia and we have a great movie, right? Oh wait…Tyler Perry has already done this…like about a hundred times.

There is a scene in Mr. Perry’s current film, “Why Did I Get Married Too”, where Janet Jackson’s character is going through a divorce from her husband and decides to attack his “manhood” by delivering a drag queen stripper cake to him to embarrass him in front of his co-workers. She then taunts him telling him “you want to act like a bitch, ok here’s your bitch”.
This scene is important because it points out Tyler Perry’s exploitation of his audience. He knows he can play to the homophobia of his mostly Black church audience by ridiculing gay men as outrageously feminine freaks that any “moral minded respectable heterosexual” would find an amusing and embarrassing spectacle. The same can be said of his constant use of incest and sexual abuse in his movies as any “Good Christian” can relate to the immorality and sinful behavior of these characters.

Ok so Mr. Perry knows his audience and is probably giving them what they want or at least his idea of faith-based messages (even though the message is somewhat hypocritical coming from a man who dresses in women’s clothing). But what about some positive portrayals of Black men. Even though his audience is all too willing to see them, his portrayal of Black men as incestuous, abusive, Black woman batterers or overtly feminine queens is not only insulting but rather depressing and I for one am sick of it. This man has the power to present images rarely seen onscreen whether it be TV or the movies and both are mediums he controls with his entertainment empire. On TV it’s the same thing. His African-American male characters are shucking and jiving, loud talking, overweight, ignorant ridiculously dressed buffoons. How about some encouraging stories of African-American couples and their families? Not necessarily the Huxtables but we’re not all the Evans clan from the Good Times either. Success does not necessarily breed evil as Mr. Perry’s films suggest. What about some stories featuring positive portrayals of masculine African-American gay men in sustaining relationships which don’t reinforce the homophobia of the black church?

By pandering to the lowest denominator of our culture and offering such a narrow point of view, Tyler Perry presents a disservice to the African-American community as a whole and we deserve so much more. My pledge is to no longer support his films in their current state but realistically, I don’t expect them to change.

National Treasure

If I walked into Yosemite National Park and dropped a match or if I went to Yellowstone plugged up old faithful then drove to Mount Rushmore and drew a Hitler mustache on George Washington’s face I’d be arrested right? What if I went to Graceland and blew it up? There would be lynch mobs out to get me right? So I ask you, why has an arrest warrant not been issued for Whitney Houston? By spending years in a drug induced haze smoking God knows how much crack or whatever the drug of her choice may be the woman has destroyed the golden voice considered a National Treasure by many. If you haven’t heard or seen the You Tube videos of her shows in Europe or Australia save yourself the heartache. Not only can she no longer hit the notes she doesn’t even sound like the same person.

Now you may say it’s her voice and she has the right to do with it as she pleases but I say she gave up any such rights long ago when she accepted the role of America’s sweetheart. For years Whitney cultivated this wholesome all American girl next door image. Whether true or not this was the image she sold to America and we all bought into it. An image all but destroyed from the moment she met one Bobby Brown. Speaking of Mr. Brown I’m not saying he’s completely at fault as Whitney has a mind of her own but he at least should be charged as an accessory. We should have realized something was wrong when she attempted to rewrite history with her claim of Bobby being the original king of R&B (she should have been incarcerated for that statement alone) or when Diane Sawyer showed up at her house and she made the infamous crack is whack statement. And don’t get me started on her role on that mess of a reality TV show Being Bobby Brown. For whatever reason Whitney cold-heartedly calculated to destroy her image and become the Bonnie to Bobby’s Clyde which was fine and good for gossip and tabloid fodder but then she messed with the voice and folks America, no the world is not having it.

Now she’s decided to clean herself up and she’s out there touring the world with this “new” voice which sounds suspiciously like Louis Armstrong to me. The problem is that although you can change or even clean up your image once you’ve ruined the tool which made you famous there’s nothing left for us to treasure. This newly liberated and recovering Diva, free of Bobby Brown and according to her free of drugs has arrived and people have been treated to a train wreck tour of delays, disappearances and to that voice…no thanks, I prefer my Divas demanding, selfish and outrageous but always possessing the qualities that made them Divas in the first place which in this case would be her voice. And I don’t want excuses, respiratory infections or lengthy wardrobe changes I just want the voice. If I can’t have it live in concert or with newly recorded material I’ll just listen to her classics. But consider this fair warning, if she’s not going to be charged and arrested, the next time you hear what you think is Satchmo wheezing his way through a version of I Will Always Love You, listen closely it’s probably Whitney.