Zendaya says all her leads will be Black Women when she becomes a director

King

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Comment makes no fukking sense. Tyler Perry's audience demographics are typically 80-90% Black, minimum 60% even for his most popular flicks. And outside of his Black-ish world (which is certainly targeted at White people as much as Black) Kenya Barris hasn't been a major gatekeeper and what he has done has been fairly split between black and white audiences.
How does it make no sense? Because you said it ?

They’re both on the same spectrum and appeal to whiteness, both directly and indirecty.

Kenya Barris has always played respectability politics, prime black neoliberal content. Elitism and hubris are woven into every piece of major content he has ever created. His work is intended to show a nuanced talented tenth version of aspirational blackness meant to impress and “educate” white audiences. Tyler Perry built his entire career off mammy stereotypes, basically modern day minstrels, to assert narrow those same narrow beliefs that reinforce classism and aspirational blackness.

And no, black movies aren’t for black people because they primarily only exist insofar as they fit into the narrow confines set by these two men. Whether you personally believe it or not, they are gatekeepers.

And the amount of black audiences is non-factor considering that black people are mainly limited to these filmmakers and this specific messaging by mainstream media.

Have you considered the fact that black people watch these films of them being stereotyped, typecasted, and denigrated because we’re so limited in terms of access to depictions of ourselves in mainstream film to begin with?

But I get how you liberals love to leave out context and a critical understanding of things.
 

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It's a sad truth but at least they're trying to change the mold. Hidden Figures, The Help (cringe mentioning it), The Woman King, and Wakanda Forever.

Black female leads always do better commercially in TV shows - The Watchmen, How To Get Away With Murder, Insecure, The Equalizer, to a degree Sleepy Hollow and Empire

Yep.
Gotta put it in show form black women support eachother more than any group but only in shows is where it really translates.
Movies are one and done hot for a week but shows get the Group going.
 

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@KingADOS , at some point in any useful discussion you have to stop just insisting shyt is true solely because you said it and give SOME sort of evidence for your position. Has this theory of yours that Perry and Barris control the entire planet's output of Black media and are directing it to the benefit of White liberals been pushed by anyone else? With receipts? Or is it a product of your mind alone?

If you had claimed that White gatekeepers are narrowing which Black stories can be told you'd have some credibility. But you took the typical TLR route of shytting on the most prominent Black person within range and it doesn't make sense.



How does it make no sense? Because you said it ?

They’re both on the same spectrum and appeal to whiteness, both directly and indirecty.

Claiming that Tyler Perry "appeals to whiteness" is ridiculous. The demographics of his audiences are literally 80-90% black for most of his films. White people are a fraction of his moviegoers, which is hard as hell to pull off in a country that is 70% White. That's not true for Spike Lee joints, it ain't true for Peele, Singleton, Coogler, or any other blockbuster Black filmmaker, it ain't true for Barris either for that matter. It's hard to hell to pull off a series of high-profit films that are predominantly appealing only to Black audiences, but Tyler Perry has done it. It doesn't matter what you do or do not like his characters, personally I've never watched a single one of his films cause it's not my style. But claiming that he makes his films for a liberal white audience is fukking ridiculous.

Indeed "Boo!" did prove to have some crossover appeal, according to Lionsgate's own exit polling, which showed that 60% of “Boo!” audiences on opening weekend were black and the other 40% comprised of a mix of everything else, implying that while black audiences still make up the majority of Perry's fans, there's been a shift, as past "Madea" films drew audiences that were made up of around 80 to 90% black ticket buyers






And the amount of black audiences is non-factor considering that black people are mainly limited to these filmmakers and this specific messaging by mainstream media.

For a movie to have a 90% Black audience in a country where the White population outnumbers the Black population by more than 5 to 1, the movie has to appeal to Black audiences FIFTY TIMES more than it appeals to White audiences. About 10 million people paid for tickets to "Diary of a Mad Black Woman". 90% of the audience being Black means that the # of tickets sold to Black audiences was damn near 1/4 of the Black population (of course the numbers are juiced by all the folk who watched it multiple times), whereas less than 10% of the audience was white, so less than 0.5% of the White population watched that shyt. You can't explain disparities like that with "Black folk have limited options". That movie was made to appeal to a certain type of Black audience and not no type of White audience. That's not debateable.




Have you considered the fact that black people watch these films of them being stereotyped, typecasted, and denigrated because we’re so limited in terms of access to depictions of ourselves in mainstream film to begin with?

But I get how you liberals love to leave out context and a critical understanding of things.

This critique makes no sense, liberals can't stand Tyler Perry movies breh, they ain't made for them. :mjlol:

No one has ever been forced to watch a Tyler Perry film. The lack of Black depictions in media is a real issue, but Tyler Perry never became the only option out there. His movies appeal to a very particular "type", which is not you or I or any "liberal white" person out there. More receipts:



When we think of a Tyler Perry fan, who is the person that typically comes to mind? Usually, we may imagine this:
  • Middle Aged or Elderly Black person (50+)
  • Born and raised in the South
  • Black [Baptist] Christian
  • Traditional / Conservative viewpoints
Now, what is the image we think of when it comes to a Tyler Perry “anti-fan” so to speak? It may be something like
  • Young Black Person under the age of 40
  • Regional background varies
  • Academic / Attended a 4-year college
  • Moderate to Liberal viewpoints, regardless of religious upbringing
This may not be the case of everyone else — but as for me and my social media timeline — I could see a clear distinction between those who raved about the movie and those who wish they didn’t bother watching it at all.



Which is doubled-down on by conservative Black film critic Armond White, who attacks White liberals for "not getting" Tyler Perry movies.


Most critics don't get Tyler Perry basically because most critics are whites who are not only clueless about Perry's African-American culture, but unsympathetic to his particular expression. Why Did I Get Married? is typical of Perry's Christian-based, black middle-class viewpoint....

Liberal critics seem put-off by Perrys fundamentalist morality and by his populist approach to drama'even though Perry's message of love and social unity is what white romantic comedies desperately desire (except for hipster romances like Before Sunset). Nothing in Knocked Up is as meaningful as Perry's spectacle of men who must restrain their anger physically or his politically incorrect fashion show of women proudly, luxuriously wearing furs as signs of pleasure and achievement.




Tyler Perry became a big deal because they appealed to a certain type of (socially) conservative Black audience, mostly older and mostly women. Blaming liberals for Perry doesn't make a lick of sense. You're completely blinded to reality by your agenda.



And no, black movies aren’t for black people because they primarily only exist insofar as they fit into the narrow confines set by these two men. Whether you personally believe it or not, they are gatekeepers.

I just can't take anyone seriously who claims that Tyler Perry and Kenya Barris are the two people in America with total control over which Black projects get made. :russ:
 
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Yep.
Gotta put it in show form black women support each other more than any group but only in shows is where it really translates.
Movies are one and done hot for a week but shows get the Group going.

I think it's also just the audience. Pretty much anywhere you go men are the main audience for movies, while women have a far greater share of television. Despite how "modern" we are, men still are simply able to get out of the house more than women are.

Perhaps that will change as movie theaters die. Or perhaps the fact that women have to multitask at home more often than men do will still driving them towards shorter-episode content and mean that women will always do better in shows than in movies. I know from personal experience, my baby's naps only last so long.
 

King

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@KingADOS , at some point in any useful discussion you have to stop just insisting shyt is true solely because you said it and give SOME sort of evidence for your position. Has this theory of yours that Perry and Barris control the entire planet's output of Black media and are directing it to the benefit of White liberals been pushed by anyone else? With receipts? Or is it a product of your mind alone?

If you had claimed that White gatekeepers are narrowing which Black stories can be told you'd have some credibility. But you took the typical TLR route of shytting on the most prominent Black person within range and it doesn't make sense.
I just can't take anyone seriously who claims that Tyler Perry and Kenya Barris are the two people in America with total control over which Black projects get made. :russ:
Did I say that those two directors "control the entire planet's output of Black media?" No. I qualified that statement by pointed them out as major gatekeepers within the black film industry that DO have immense control within that industry. Both utilizing tropes, themes, casting and stereotypes that appeals to white liberals, i.e. whiteness - the cultural hegemony. As I previously stated they are on two sides of the same spectrum.

And if I wasn't clear enough, especially with Tyler Perry not only has be built his entire career off modern day minstrel shows portraying himself as a mammy character. All the while weaving in black conservatism that appeals to whiteness, i.e. the cultural hegemony.

This in itself, proves that black stories are intentionally narrowed to appeal to whiteness. Perry and Barris built their entire careers off of making white people feel comfortable. If not directly through overt racial stereotyping and mammy caricatures, indirectly through "educational" or rather "relatable" depictions of blackness are relatable to white liberals.

And since your entire response is riddled with random opinion pieces from around the internet, I'll do the same.
And yet, as a clear gatekeeper with a show titled Black Excellence, Barris has to recognize that the optics of a light-skinned family (save for maybe Benson, who appears much darker in comparison) representing such is certainly enough to raise a few eyebrows here and a few side-eyes there.
#blackAF The show has already gotten a lot of online criticism from black viewers for it’s white-ish casting, but I think the bigger problem is the overall concept — or rather, the lack of one. The title raises expectations of one thing, but the show’s humor offers something else entirely: blackness based on stereotypes put in place by white people.
Believe it or not, this is the head of a multimillion-dollar film and TV empire that has revolutionised black entertainment in the US - and his name is Tyler Perry.
Tyler Perry’s films create cultural capital that has the ability to construct a belief system about typical African American behavior...
Tyler Perry has become one of the biggest names in entertainment as a leading figure in black film, theatre, production and direction.
Categorizing her (Madea) as a sub-human creature allows the audience to laugh at her absurdity. Madea’s behavior is seen neither as inappropriate female, nor male behavior. She is the essence of what a stereotype is: an idea constructed to look away from the truth.
Tyler Perry and the Weight of Misrepresentation


Claiming that Tyler Perry "appeals to whiteness" is ridiculous. The demographics of his audiences are literally 80-90% black for most of his films. White people are a fraction of his moviegoers, which is hard as hell to pull off in a country that is 70% White. That's not true for Spike Lee joints, it ain't true for Peele, Singleton, Coogler, or any other blockbuster Black filmmaker, it ain't true for Barris either for that matter. It's hard to hell to pull off a series of high-profit films that are predominantly appealing only to Black audiences, but Tyler Perry has done it. It doesn't matter what you do or do not like his characters, personally I've never watched a single one of his films cause it's not my style. But claiming that he makes his films for a liberal white audience is fukking ridiculous.

Indeed "Boo!" did prove to have some crossover appeal, according to Lionsgate's own exit polling, which showed that 60% of “Boo!” audiences on opening weekend were black and the other 40% comprised of a mix of everything else, implying that while black audiences still make up the majority of Perry's fans, there's been a shift, as past "Madea" films drew audiences that were made up of around 80 to 90% black ticket buyers
And again, Tyler Perry still appeals to white supremacy within his safe narrow stereotypical depictions of black people. While I may retract on a technicality that these films are solely for white liberals, who also practice white supremacy and are fans of his films, as not to get trapped into your strawman argument on how black conservatives make up his primary audience. It's still very clear from Tyler's own words that he has a "white audience problem" that he'd like to fix, thereby targeting them even more.

In the context of the larger point this changes nothing as Tyler and Kenya are two sides of the same spectrum that limits black film. I'll say it once more.
Black stories are intentionally narrowed to appeal to whiteness. Perry and Barris built their entire careers off of making white people feel comfortable. If not directly through overt racial stereotyping and mammy caricatures that may have found an audience with black conservatives and white liberals alike. Or rather, indirectly through "educational" or rather "relatable" depictions of blackness are directly relatable to white liberals.
 
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