Can Tyler Perry’s ‘For Colored Girls’ Resurrect BAM?

November 12, 2009
As I said, the video material on Tyler Perry’s involvement with Shange’s project For Colored girls… was an interesting conversation. However, it lacked a comprehensive and astute analysis of the political/economy of the situation concerning the Black Arts Movement.  First, the BAM was not and has never been a universal movement in the black community.  The BAM postured itself loudly. But its bark was more substantive than its bite. It cajoled itself into believing it represented a cohesive approach to black liberation utilizing the creative processes of its adherents.  The majority of black people in America’s urban and rural enclave did not seek “liberation” from white America but rather, civil rights and economic opportunity in American. They were not in favor of destroying the American capitalistic system and replacing it with a facetious proto-Afrikanic/ Black Nationalist power structure.  These were the fantastical dreams of recent college grads that had nowhere to go in the American system during a period of racist hiring policies with the grudging exceptions of universities and colleges. Falling back on a “protest” model of separation and racial pride they generated a “window of opportunity” for themselves in the so-called BAM. Where money poured into organizations and theaters and as a result of fiscal and welfare minded corruption the fat cats of the movement eventually faced leaner days. Witness the near disappearance of many black theaters not supported by their own communities. Even the famed Harlem’s Apollo Theater is no longer the center of the black entertainment world since passing from the hands of white to black producers.
There were two major camps in this debacle. The right wing, constructed of Black Nationalist which included Islamist, Organic/traditionalist Africanist and the left wing, mainly composed of Dialectical Materialist.  However, both camps were pitiably dependent on the “dole” from the dominant white American society.  The right wing on outright fiscal support. The left on small merchants (who sold trinkets in bazaars etc) and local welfare for its patrons.  Though as separate factions they constantly and universally concerned themselves with the issues of self-suffiency. They however never quite made this concern and platform a reality for their intellectual or economical functions. 
Then the major ethnic changes in demographic changes with the advent of Muslims and Africans to the USA highlighted in stark relief, the basic antagonisms between fantasy and reality. These emigrants do not relate to American Blacks who they perceive as wasting their opportunities in the richest nation on the planet.
The awful truth of all these movements was the painful reality that they could never collectively sell the black Bourgeoisie on their programs. This middle class like all historical economic movements were more interested in parity within the existing societal structures.  So in real meaning, the BAM failed to mobilize the masses in any meaningful manner.  They represented a rather mediocre and brief period of existence before limping off the stage as show that bombed.
Tyler Perry implemented a business model for his projects.  He developed an unimpeachable integrity in his dealings with performing artist—they were paid and paid well—-never shafted like the black ego maniacal producers of 501 c organizations, who are notoriously impossible to deal with in a sane manner. 
Tyler Perry whether folk want to admit it not (and to him it probably really doesn’t matter) is a successful artist, impresario and business man. He has built an independent business in the existing capitalistic system based upon a profound understanding of the needs, desires and aspirations of his petty bourgeois (working class) audiences. In contrast, the BAM has floundered on the inane antics of its own myopic paranoia, histrionics and racial phantasmagoria.
While at the same time I must deplore the homophobic remarks (by black women) about Perry being “closeted”—comments I think deplorable and if you weren’t in there with him, libelous.  With respect to Shange’s project. His filming it makes this woman more money than she ever could imagine and ensconces her work in a worldwide venue. That no black non-profit producer could ever match—so there!
—Owa

Comment by Owa from NYC — November 12, 2009 @ 11:26 am

The black arts movement took itself down through internal squabbling and unrealistic assessments of itself. Tyler Perry has proven more successful than the entire BAM. What the general black American audience enjoys is considered stereotypical by various shades of esthetes inside and outside the black community. Our styles of music, dance and song lyrics, when first introduced to a larger audience, were always rejected, ridiculed and condemned by those within and without our ethnicity. Even the early basketball observers swore than blacks could never be even competent at basketball because of our long limbs and protruding buttocks. Tyler does what he does well whether or not you like what he does. I suspect that Perry is headed into greater and greater ventures that may prove more satisfying to his critics, none of whom have achieved anything comparable to his achievements. He is independent, a state which the BAM never achieved in any long sustainable way. And he’ll continue to grow and prosper as long as he avoids the outwardly political in his work. Some whites are permitted to be political, but blacks are immediately censored should they outwardly become political. But what is true about our world today, the entire world that is, is that we are closing in on our self-extinction as a species due to our reckless treatment of the earth, our over population and our greed. As our human condition worsens the political take precedent in everything in our lives and in our arts. Just wait!

OyamO

Comment by Oyamo Oyamo from Univ. of Michigan, Ann Arbor — November 13, 2009 @ 1:00 pm

OyamO, finally.we agree on something

Comment by Owa from NYC — November 13, 2009 @ 8:57 pm

It depends on who is in it, it has to our greatest black actresses, like Angela Bassett and so on, but if Halle Berry is in it, for get it, she just doesn’t have it, the talent at all.

Comment by regina — November 30, 2009 @ 3:20 pm