Critical Noir

Tyler Perry and the Black Bible Belt

Posted 05/31/2007 at 6:30 PM  |  3 comment/s

Tyler Perry returns next week with House of Payne, a new syndicated series that will be launched on the TBS network. The series stars Tyler Perry staples Cassi and LaVan Davis as well as veteran hip-hop generation actor Allen Payne. Payne plays the role of a professional firefighter who, with his two young children, moves in with his parents after his estranged wife—a crackhead—burns down their house. Some folk might remember that the show initially appeared a year ago as part of a ten-episode package that aired in 10 markets. In a move that is generally frowned upon in the television industry, Perry bankrolled the initial 10 episodes with his own money—reportedly at $500,000 per episode. Perry’s hope was to sell TBS and others on the potential of House of Payne as a syndicated series, while maintaining control over the product—something that the major networks were unwilling to grant Perry, when he first presented the series concept to them nearly five years ago. Since that time Perry has become a major player in the industry largely on the strength of his films Diary of a Mad Black Woman and Madea’s Family Reunion, which have collectively cost less than $15 Million, but have grossed more than $100 combined. There are many reasons for Perry’s success, including the fact the he is a gifted comedic writer, but at the root of his success is a DIY swagger that he learned from, what I call the “Black Bible Belt”.

The Bible Belt is a moniker for portions of the United States, notably in the Southeast and Midwest, noted for social conservatism and religious fundamentalism. For someone like myself, a native New Yorker and recent migrant to the research triangle in North Carolina, cognizance of the Bible Belt is palpable. But I employ the term “Black Bible Belt” here as a metaphor for a bloc within Black America that has come to social, economic and, increasingly, political prominence. The public voice of the “Black Bible Belt” are diverse figures like Bishop TD Jakes, Minister Creflo A. Dollar and Bishop Eddie Long, who have translated popular tele-ministries into real gate-keeping capabilities. But the power of the “Black Bible Belt” resides in the legions of working class and middle class congregants who embrace a social politics of restraint and the so-called “gospel of prosperity”. Over the past 15 years this bloc has become increasingly more wealthy and had begun to flex its economic influence and no doubt real political influence—we saw glimpses of this in Ohio during the 2004 Presidential election courtesy of the “shiny ball” that was same-sex marriage.

For years corporate America, particularly the entertainment industry, remained oblivious to this segment of black communities. But Perry understood, better than many, the incredible market potential residing in the “Black Bible Belt”. Perry initially built his empire on a traveling tour of Gospel musicals that he wrote and produced (Madea’s Family Reunion was one of the most popular) that proved that black church goers would forgo Sunday afternoon services and Friday night prayer meeting, if the market provided product that spoke to their spiritual and aesthetic tastes. Some critics have disparaged Perry’s plays and now movies as little more than a chitlin’ circuit sideshow, but the fact of the matter is that Perry’s plays put butts in the seats, selling out in virtually every city they went to. When Perry cut his initial with Lionsgate for his film franchise, he could demand creative control, knowing full well the busloads of black church folk that were ready and willing to buy tickets. Perry formula is pretty simply and coheres with the kinds of moral and uplift messages prevalent in Black Bible Belt pulpits every Sunday.

The same phenomenon that Perry has tapped into can also be found in the unprecedented growth of the gospel music industry. This growth is partially explained by the embrace of musical production values found in contemporary R&B (making its as tepid as most mainstream R&B), but is also the by-product of the Mega-church movement. While the purchasing power of the black community has grown in general over the past two-decades, it has been quite pronounced in among the “Black Bible Belt”. In 2005 Arbitron, Inc., the company responsible for audience ratings in the radio industry has noted that 15% of black audiences tune into to gospel music stations, but observed that more than 70% of that audience was homeowners and that nearly 20% had household incomes of more that $75,000. Gospel artists moved about $140 Million worth of product in 2005 and the success of morning drive-time shows like Radio One’s The Yolanda Adams Morning Show featuring best-selling gospel artist suggest that those numbers are poised to go higher. Indeed in some markets the Adams’s show represents legitimate competition for the a Tom Joyner Morning Show (TJMS), which has staked its reputation on being able to deliver a black middle-class listening audience to advertisers.

In many regards the “Black Bible Belt” is beginning to look like the black middle class of three decades ago. It was largely the black middle-class leadership of three decades ago that wrested political influence from black nationalists and young progressives; The “Black Bible Belt” is primed to do the same within the realm of 21st Century politics. The success of Tyler Perry notwithstanding (and the jury is still out on his cross-dressing antics via Aunt Madea), one has to wonder how the social conservatism and strident quest for the accumulation of individual wealth will impact the rank-and-file within Black America. The crass materialism of a figure like Dollar, Jakes’s disdain for a politics of social engagement and Long’s homophobia are well known and in many ways rarely challenged. And as the recent debates about Hip-hop in the aftermath of the Imus controversy suggests, the Black Bible Belt will increasingly be pitted against the Hip-hop Generation(s) by forces that have no vested in either constituency.

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