McGruder Goes in Hard on Tyler Perry? Not Really
by Mark Anthony Neal
For more than a decade, Aaron McGruder has offered vibrant social commentary, perfectly pitched for contemporary urban culture. McGruder has functioned in the tradition of 20-century satirists such as cartoonist Ollie Harrington and Langston Hughes, who via his character of Jesse B. Semple, offered critical, though often offbeat, observations about everyday black life. McGruder’s criticism, has hit more often than it has missed—and the denseness that marked many of his Boondocks strips has been lost in the animated television series. Nevertheless McGruder’s critiques of Black Entertainment Television (BET), Bill Cosby, Whitney Houston, R. Kelly and Condoleeza Rice, as well as his challenges to romanticized views of Black life and culture, be it the Civil Rights Movement, Barack Obama’s election, or so-called Gangsta rap (see Gangstalicious and Thugnificent) have resonated for many Black audiences.
Given McGruder’s penchant for putting a mirror up to Blackness, it was only a matter of time before his critical scope would be targeted on Hollywood mogul Tyler Perry. With “Pause” (originally broadcast June 20, 2010), McGruder seemingly goes in hard on Perry, whose films, gospel plays and television shows have been regularly derided for their Aspartame quality with regards to contemporary Black culture. Some have simply called Perry, “the devil.”
In many regards Perry—whose most visible brand is his cross-dressing alter-ego Madea—is an easy target, even more so in McGruder’s hands via his thinly veiled character of Winston Jerome, who is depicted as the leader of an “homoerotic evangelical cult” hell bent on taking over Hollywood and defeating his primary adversary, gangster rapper-turned-family friendly filmmaker O’Shea Jackson (Ice Cube). The citing of Ice Cube in the episode is prescient, given the recent debut of Jackson’s own TBS sitcom Are We There Yet?.
McGruder’s Winston Jerome is in town to cast his new play, Ma Dukes Gets a Man, which Robert Freeman, chooses to audition for, to the obvious dismay of his grandchildren. Filled with laugh-out-loud moments—Robert meets actor Kadeem Hardison (voiced by Hardison himself) at the audition and Jerome recalls Jesus inspiring him to make movies for Black women featuring the most beautiful shirtless Black men in the world—there is virulent homophobia that runs throughout the episode. Indeed the episode’s title “Pause” is in reference to Riley’s utterings of “pause” whenever he needed to inform Robert that he said something that demanded a “no homo” retort.
As Perry is a man who has essentially built a career and empire on his cross-dressing alter ego, McGruder sloppily links Perry’s performance of Madea to rumors of his homosexuality. McGruder’s depiction of Winston Jerome as effeminate is demeaning and homophobic, in the suggestion that homosexuality is tethered to gender (i.e. gay men really want to be women or lesbians really want to be men). In that there is a rich comedic and literary tradition of cross-dressing by black men and women, there is nothing remarkable about Perry’s performance. What marks Perry’s performance as notable, is that his intent is quite different from earlier performances of cross-dressing—Flip Wilson, Moms Mabley, Grace Jones, to name just a few, which often employed gender bending to offer comment on middle class mores of respectability. In comparison, Perry deploys Aunt Madea to actually buttress those mores—Madea is little more than black patriarchy in drag, a doppelganger for the all the wannabe prosperity (pimps) preachers.
But even at his sloppiest, McGruder shrewdly highlights how Perry’s performance of Aunt Madea can never really pivot on notions of homosexuality; if Madea, a man in drag, were to ever be coupled with a man in one of Perry’s movies—as McGruder proposes with the fictional Ma Dukes Gets an Man—the narrative would be utterly rejected by Perry’s core audience, much the way Robert rejects Winston Jerome's sexual advances (his pants at his ankles). In the end we are left with a brilliantly funny episode, that offers little with regards to meaningful cultural criticism.
To go hard at Tyler Perry, is not to present him as some freak—as suggested in the camp nod to The Rocky Horror Picture Show midway through the episode—that is marginal to the mainstream of Black America. The reality is Perry’s success and influence is buttressed by a nation of millions, who buy upscale cars, beach-front time shares, worship in mega-churches and dutifully believe in heterosexual desire (at the very least the performance of it) or, perhaps most importantly, aspire to those things.
Tyler Perry doesn't occur in a vacuum--he is not driving demand for his product, but responding to an (always) already existing demand. Until we deal with the sources of the desire for Perry's product or accept that Perry's work is innocuous in the larger scope of things, demonizing him or the next "Tyler Perry" is a fruitless endgame.
Perhaps that might explain, why this is the last season of The Boondocks. To go hard at Perry is to go hard at us—and in that regard, McGruder didn’t even live up to his own reputation.
by Mark Anthony Neal
For more than a decade, Aaron McGruder has offered vibrant social commentary, perfectly pitched for contemporary urban culture. McGruder has functioned in the tradition of 20-century satirists such as cartoonist Ollie Harrington and Langston Hughes, who via his character of Jesse B. Semple, offered critical, though often offbeat, observations about everyday black life. McGruder’s criticism, has hit more often than it has missed—and the denseness that marked many of his Boondocks strips has been lost in the animated television series. Nevertheless McGruder’s critiques of Black Entertainment Television (BET), Bill Cosby, Whitney Houston, R. Kelly and Condoleeza Rice, as well as his challenges to romanticized views of Black life and culture, be it the Civil Rights Movement, Barack Obama’s election, or so-called Gangsta rap (see Gangstalicious and Thugnificent) have resonated for many Black audiences.
Given McGruder’s penchant for putting a mirror up to Blackness, it was only a matter of time before his critical scope would be targeted on Hollywood mogul Tyler Perry. With “Pause” (originally broadcast June 20, 2010), McGruder seemingly goes in hard on Perry, whose films, gospel plays and television shows have been regularly derided for their Aspartame quality with regards to contemporary Black culture. Some have simply called Perry, “the devil.”
In many regards Perry—whose most visible brand is his cross-dressing alter-ego Madea—is an easy target, even more so in McGruder’s hands via his thinly veiled character of Winston Jerome, who is depicted as the leader of an “homoerotic evangelical cult” hell bent on taking over Hollywood and defeating his primary adversary, gangster rapper-turned-family friendly filmmaker O’Shea Jackson (Ice Cube). The citing of Ice Cube in the episode is prescient, given the recent debut of Jackson’s own TBS sitcom Are We There Yet?.
McGruder’s Winston Jerome is in town to cast his new play, Ma Dukes Gets a Man, which Robert Freeman, chooses to audition for, to the obvious dismay of his grandchildren. Filled with laugh-out-loud moments—Robert meets actor Kadeem Hardison (voiced by Hardison himself) at the audition and Jerome recalls Jesus inspiring him to make movies for Black women featuring the most beautiful shirtless Black men in the world—there is virulent homophobia that runs throughout the episode. Indeed the episode’s title “Pause” is in reference to Riley’s utterings of “pause” whenever he needed to inform Robert that he said something that demanded a “no homo” retort.
As Perry is a man who has essentially built a career and empire on his cross-dressing alter ego, McGruder sloppily links Perry’s performance of Madea to rumors of his homosexuality. McGruder’s depiction of Winston Jerome as effeminate is demeaning and homophobic, in the suggestion that homosexuality is tethered to gender (i.e. gay men really want to be women or lesbians really want to be men). In that there is a rich comedic and literary tradition of cross-dressing by black men and women, there is nothing remarkable about Perry’s performance. What marks Perry’s performance as notable, is that his intent is quite different from earlier performances of cross-dressing—Flip Wilson, Moms Mabley, Grace Jones, to name just a few, which often employed gender bending to offer comment on middle class mores of respectability. In comparison, Perry deploys Aunt Madea to actually buttress those mores—Madea is little more than black patriarchy in drag, a doppelganger for the all the wannabe prosperity (pimps) preachers.
But even at his sloppiest, McGruder shrewdly highlights how Perry’s performance of Aunt Madea can never really pivot on notions of homosexuality; if Madea, a man in drag, were to ever be coupled with a man in one of Perry’s movies—as McGruder proposes with the fictional Ma Dukes Gets an Man—the narrative would be utterly rejected by Perry’s core audience, much the way Robert rejects Winston Jerome's sexual advances (his pants at his ankles). In the end we are left with a brilliantly funny episode, that offers little with regards to meaningful cultural criticism.
To go hard at Tyler Perry, is not to present him as some freak—as suggested in the camp nod to The Rocky Horror Picture Show midway through the episode—that is marginal to the mainstream of Black America. The reality is Perry’s success and influence is buttressed by a nation of millions, who buy upscale cars, beach-front time shares, worship in mega-churches and dutifully believe in heterosexual desire (at the very least the performance of it) or, perhaps most importantly, aspire to those things.
Tyler Perry doesn't occur in a vacuum--he is not driving demand for his product, but responding to an (always) already existing demand. Until we deal with the sources of the desire for Perry's product or accept that Perry's work is innocuous in the larger scope of things, demonizing him or the next "Tyler Perry" is a fruitless endgame.
Perhaps that might explain, why this is the last season of The Boondocks. To go hard at Perry is to go hard at us—and in that regard, McGruder didn’t even live up to his own reputation.
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