Tyler Perry, Zora Neale Hurston and never let 'em see you scream, part 2

Movie mogul Tyler Perry

Movie mogul Tyler Perry has finally responded to Aaron McGruder's Boondocks episode "Pause." This post continues from Part 1, which covers criticisms of Zora Neale Hurston's work by her contemporaries and similarities to criticism of Perry's work today. The director's work is not point-by-point comparable to Hurston's fiction because his approach is different and Hurston was as much anthropologist as she was playwright, poet, and novelist.

In addition, Hurston's motivations for writing in her era were drastically different from Perry's for writing today. Still Hurston was hammered for not expressing in her work the political messages of the time about racism and black progress that were associated with black intellectuals. Some of her peers accused her of continuing the tradition of the minstrel show and not coming aboard their protest bandwagon with the proper direction for black literature and art.

Perry has broken his silence on McGruder's "Pause," but not with the outrageousness of rumored drama. Straight from the A caught up with the writer/director at the Essence Music Festival in New Orleans this past weekend, and Perry told its writer that there is no truth to the rumors that he is suing McGruder over the much discussed "Pause" episode nor did he fire all his staff after he saw it. The African-American Books Examiner saw bloggers posting those rumors, but didn't believe them based on what her sources told her.

A spokesman for Perry, Ken Sunshine, told Atlanta Magazine:

"Just don't believe anything you read on the blogs. But we're always happy to speak with legitimate journalists who are interested in doing actual reporting."

I disagree with a blanket statement like that that paints blogs as uniformly unreliable news sources, but there's a kernel of truth in Sunshine's remark. Readers should not automatically believe anything posted in a blog, especially when the blogger has no links to verify the information or can't provide another credible source. Gossip blogs, however, follow a different code, and readers read them for fun. Just in case the gossip is true, they don't want to be in the dark.

After I wrote about the "Pause" commotion, someone called me with a scoop on Perry's reaction. According to that source, who I trust, Perry was livid about McGruder's satire about a powerful black movie director named Winston Jerome who produced formulaic films, ran a cult where sin paraded under the veil of love for Jesus, light skin was preferable, and indulged homosexual fantasies under cover of making movies in a dress. Jerome's most famous character was him pretending to be a woman called MaDukes. Undoubtedly McGruder's guns targeted Perry.

The source said that Perry was threatening Turner Broadcasting (TBS), saying that he would pull his hit shows from the network because it neither prevented McGruder from running the episode nor notified Perry that "Pause" would air. TBS owns Nickelodeon and also airs Perry's hit television shows Meet the Browns and House of Payne.

While my source told me this juicy news that said nothing about Perry firing anyone or filing a lawsuit against McGruder, but did say that people in Perry's studio offices were walking on eggshells and that Perry had grabbed TBS by the throat, I didn't blog it because I didn't have time to call Perry's people and try to verify the information. Plus, what  a waste of time. What PR person in his or her right mind would admit to such a ruckus?

The L.A. Times, however, reported a story very similar to that from my source on June 30, "Turner Broadcasting tries to make peace with Tyler Perry."

Turner Broadcasting is trying to avoid a house of pain with producer Tyler Perry. ... Soon after the (Boondocks "Pause") episode aired, Perry got in touch with executives at Turner including entertainment chief Steve Koonin and Phil Kent, the chief executive of Turner Broadcasting. Perry complained loudly about the episode and even threatened to rethink his relationship with the company, people familiar with the situation said. A spokesman for Perry declined to comment.

So, that news came out anyway but not by me. According to the LAT story, "Pause" has aired twice but is not scheduled to air again, and TBS anticipated the episode would cause the network headaches when it saw the script a year ago.

When my source told me the story, I said if it were true that Perry threw a hissy fit, then the native New Orleanian was making a big mistake. When somebody like McGruder runs something like the "Pause" episode about you, your best course of action is to appear calm and cool because people tend to believe the old saying that "the guilty dog howls loudest."

Folks think that the angrier you are about a nasty accusation, the more likely it is someone's hit the bullseye about you. I'm not saying that any anger from Perry in this case would not be understandable. I'm just saying that Perry is wise to treat McGruder's ridicule as "par for the course when you're successful" without doing what some people think you should. I don't know what Perry told Straight from the A off the record, but a public statement indicating he's not that troubled or no statement at all is the better route.

While Perry may or may not have blasted TBS, it's good to see him not acting like a maniac in public. That's smart, Mr. Perry. Never let 'em see you scream.

Extra: Last month African-American novelist Bernice McFadden wrote an Op-Ed at the Washington Post, "Black writers in a ghetto of the publishing industry's making," in which she discussed that black authors today face challenges like those Hurston discussed in her 1950 essay. While McFadden's editorial was well-written, she still received comments from people who just don't get it.

Perry is also a book author. His book, Don't Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings: Madea's Uninhibited Commentaries on Love and Life, published by Penguin Group in 2006, was a bestseller.

Related: Part 1, "Tyler Perry, Zora Neale Hurston and Never Let "Em See You Scream," and also Adult Swim's Boondocks takes on Tyler Perry.  Plus, NewBlackMan calls Madea "patriarchy in drag," and Keep it Trill says while she likes Tyler Perry, she thinks McGruder was on target.