For black men who have considered homicide after watching another Tyler Perry movie

By Courtland Milloy

Washington Post Staff Writer

Can anyone name a movie that came out recently starring a black man who wasn't a sociopath? Someone who had a terrific screen presence, like a young Paul Robeson? And he portrayed a character who was complex and fully drawn? Did he respect black women, too? 

Anybody see that movie? I didn't. But surely it's out there somewhere, right? An alternative to those Tyler Perry films portraying black men as Satan's gift to black women? But where is it? 

Maybe I didn't hear about it because of all the buzz over Perry's "For Colored Girls," which opened Friday and is based on Ntozake Shange's 1975 stage play, "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf." 

Or maybe I didn't hear about it because I was retching too loudly after seeing "For Colored Girls" - and reading so many inexplicably glowing reviews. 

"This movie is powerful," Demetria L. Lucas wrote recently in Essence, the nation's premier magazine for black women. "It is incredible. The performances in it are astonishing, but most of all, this film will leave you lifted." 

Me, I thought the movie should have been renamed: "For Black Men Who Have Considered Homicide After Watching Another Perry Movie." 


"Oscar buzz, breaking news," read the Hollywood Reporter on Friday. "Will 'For Colored Girls' blindside Tyler Perry's critics?" 

Too late. I was blindsided while watching the movie, especially when superstar Janet Jackson appeared onscreen looking like Michael Jackson with breast implants. 

"Don't laugh," says Shadow and Act, an online publication about black films and filmmakers. " 'For Colored Girls,' an Oscar contender?" 

Oscar for what? 

In the category for best infection of a black woman with a sexually transmitted disease that renders her infertile. . . . And the winner is: black man. 

For best down-low, double-dealing husband who has sex with wife while sneaking around having sex with men on the streets. . . . And the winner is: black man. 


For best portrayal of a guy who at first seems nice but turns out to be a rapist. . . . And the winner is - OMG, his third of the night - black man! 

"You may need some time alone after viewing 'For Colored Girls,' " wrote Tonya Pendleton for BlackAmericaWeb.com. "Whatever you may think of the fact that it was Tyler Perry who finally brought the award-winning 1974 Ntozake Shange stage production to the big screen, it will move you." 

So will ex-lax. 

"You will want to know that two kids get thrown out the window by their father," wrote Jane Nosonchuk for Hamptonroads.com. "The scene is well done." 

Do I hear another Oscar nomination? 

"The men in the movie are all bad guys except for the cop," Nosonchuk wrote. "They are a means to an end rather than any lead characters. Also, a back-room abortion may disturb some." 

You think? 

What an awful year for movies featuring black actors. Samuel L. Jackson in "Unthinkable." Thoughtless would be more like it. "Brooklyn's Finest" had a nice cast, with Don Cheadle and Wesley Snipes. But Richard Gere and Ethan Hawke got top billing. "Our Family Wedding" with Forrest Whitaker was okay. But how many black wedding comedies can you watch? Even preacher T.D. Jakes is coming out with his own copycat wedding movie next year. 

Surely Spike Lee and Denzel Washington could team up for a sweeping historical drama - say, a black sharecropper's son, educated in a one-room schoolhouse built by slaves in Alabama, who grows up to become one of Wall Street's most powerful CEOs. 

Smarter than Gordon Gekko and more complex. With a cameo appearance by former Merrill Lynch chief executive Stanley O'Neal. 

Maybe you saw the kind of movie I'm talking about. If not, maybe it's time to make one.




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Dr. Boyce: For Colored Girls Presents A Skewed Image Of Black Men 


By Dr. Boyce Watkins

(NewsOne)– I went to see “For Colored Girls,” the exciting new film made by the great Tyler Perry.  I love Tyler’s work, most of the time, and I’ve defended him on multiple occasions when he’s come under attack for the nature of his films.  Spike Lee is one particular Tyler Perry hater that I’ve taken issue with, primarily because I think that Tyler does more good than harm in the industry.

But as much as we love Tyler Perry, all voices must be portrayed when responding to his style of film making.  My own voice became amplified after seeing “For Colored Girls,” primarily because the film made me damn near embarrassed to be a black male.  Let’s go down the list shall we?  The black men in the film consisted of a rapist, a thief, an abuser who murdered his own kids, a pimp, and a brother on the down low.  Now, Hill Harper had the distinct honor of being the knight in shining armor, but he was the only ray of goodness in the terrible rainbow that represents the experience of the black woman in America.

I wonder what I would think if I were a non-black person watching this film to get a sense of what happens in the African American community.  Well, first I’d conclude that most black women are well-balanced, fair and emotionally giving to men who simply don’t deserve it.  I would then think that a small percentage of black men have the capacity to do good things, but that most of them will steal from you, deceive you, rape you, cheat on you and do all they can to provide irreversible and unthinkable pain to those who love them the most.  I can just hear one of the white women in the theater saying,  ”Those poor black women.  Why in the world do they remain loyal to those horrible men?”

Perhaps Tyler needs to make a sequel to his film titled, “For Colored Men.”  In the film, we would portray the millions of black men who do the right things and end up being demonized for not doing the right thing in the right way.  Perhaps we might tell the story of the man who doesn’t want to get married, but is pressured into marriage by a community that will force a man to do something that he knows he can’t do very well.  We can also tell the story about the gay black men who go to a church which tells them that if they pray hard enough, the homosexuality will leave their body like the 24-hour flu.  We can cover conversations where some black women repeatedly state that if a man doesn’t make enough money, he doesn’t deserve to have access to her (as she dates the man with a lot of money who breaks her heart).

We could also tell other stories, like that of the good men who pay extra child support to take care of children who are not their own or those who fight to  make a marriage work with a black woman who refuses to hear that she may also play a role in the breakdown of African American families.  Finally, we can tell the story of the millions of men who may not always behave exactly as women ask them to behave, but are good, caring human beings nonetheless.  The moral of the story would be that black men are human too, and that both genders are inclined to make bad choices.

I admit that I’ve seen “For Colored Girls” in the past in the form of other movies.  The films were called “Waiting to Exhale” and “The Women of Brewster Place.”  In both films, there was one story after another of why black men are responsible for the misery of black women.  Also, there was a gathering (you know, a party or something) in which the women worked through the horrors that the men in their lives had caused them.  Perhaps one day, we can get past the notion that black men have a monopoly on demonization and realize that it might be more complicated than that.  Simplistic plots to tell a complex story just don’t always work.  Tyler, as much as I respect him, can be the master of simplistic plots and characters.

I still love Tyler Perry and I still support his role as a film maker.  But with this latest project, he seems to send a message that his films are for colored girls only.  I look forward to the day where black men have a voice, for we have stories to tell too.