On at least some level, these cultural differences account for the stark differential between Tyler Perry’s Audience Scores and Critics’ Scores. Most of the critics writing for mainstream American magazines, newspapers, and review sites are white. Perry’s films play to predominantly African-American audiences. It’s as if a Tyler Perry film gets screened on two different planets: one with a population of 100 critics, and the other with a population of 100,000 reviewers. In fact, there doesn’t appear to be any statistical relationship between Critics Scores and Audience Scores in the Tyler Perry filmography. That differential has not narrowed as Perry has gained commercial success and mainstream recognition.
Here we see data from Rotten Tomatoes showing Perry’s “Critics’ Score” (aggregated from reviews in mainstream publications) and “Audience Score” (aggregated from reviews and ratings by thousands of Rotten Tomatoes users).
He’s a paradox of sorts: adored by a sizable fan base, but loathed by those whose opinions are supposed to count for a lot: major movie critics, the ostensible “influencers” of pop culture.Ī sampling from the first six years of Perry’s filmography reveals a stark contrast between popular appeal and critical reception. Today Forbes ranks Tyler Perry the 12th most powerful celebrity in the world, with an annual income exceeding $70 million and a prolific output in film and television projects.īut for all his box office gold, Perry can’t seem to please the press. He also branched out into higher-brow fare, such as his adaptation of the Tony-nominated play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf. Over the next decade, he continued to churn out hits in the Madea franchise. That “tall, lantern-jawed, balloon-breasted” woman, however “remotely plausible,” made Tyler Perry a star. This person is not remotely plausible her dialogue is so offensively vulgar that it's impossible to believe that the intelligent, sweet, soft-spoken Helen doesn't seem to notice.” “Grandma Madea, who is built along the lines of a linebacker, is a tall, lantern-jawed, smooth-skinned, balloon-breasted gargoyle with a bad wig, who likes to wave a loaded gun and shoot test rounds into the ceiling. Even today, it holds a score of 15% on aggregated-review site Rotten Tomatoes - despite an audience rating of 88%. It beat out Million Dollar Baby, Hitch, The Aviator, Sideways, and other recognizable titles. Diary of a Mad Black Woman, a film by an obscure director named Tyler Perry, opened at #1 that weekend. One of the biggest surprises crinkled its way through the fax machine on the morning of February 26, 2005. But on any given Saturday, a surprise could pop up on the charts.
Ninety percent of the time, which movies cracked the top ten was predictable. In sorting through the numbers, one gained an appreciation for the business of filmmaking. Harrowing as the experience was, it was educational. It was like living a really bad James Bond movie. Then he picked up the phone, connected to voicemail, affected his best Tom Brokaw voice, and recorded the report as an outgoing message to the entire company and its A-list clients. Through a haze of hangover and sleep deprivation, he put those numbers into a spreadsheet. There, he awaited a top-secret fax (yes, a fax) with a dump of raw data: box office reports for all the major movies released that Friday. Every other Saturday, the author dragged himself into the building before 6am. A typical workday started at 7, ended around 9, and paid eight bucks an hour.īut of all the trials the job demanded, one was particularly onerous: the weekend box office report. It involved answering two dozen phone calls a minute, shuffling nonfat soy lattes into meetings, dodging flying office supplies, and swerving through traffic to get scripts to studios. Everything smelled of money, power, and $2000 shoes.īeing an assistant was considerably less glamorous. Agents hammered out multimillion-dollar deals with studio execs in corner offices. The building was spectacular, the suits were sharp, and movie stars graced the halls. The year was 2005, and the author worked as an assistant at a Hollywood talent agency. This author remembers the first time he discovered Tyler Perry. Credit: “Siskel & Ebert At the Movies,” Disney-ABC Domestic Television.