Why Good Black Men Lack in Tyler Perry’s Movies

With the success of Tyler Perry’s latest film For Colored Girls and the ongoing possibility of Oscar buzz surrounding a black cast of acting heavyweights, black film critics and angry black men everywhere are wondering why Tyler Perry and most black films lack characters in the form of good black men and satisfied black women. This debate is so intense within the black community that many African Americans have labeled Tyler Perry as nothing more than the creator of modern day minstrel shows and a cross dressing director who deep down inside hates black men, and has made a fortune off his intense profession of black man bashing and black woman praising. However, can anyone really get mad at Tyler Perry for bringing the reality for most black women to the big screen? Honestly, how many black women do any of us know that hasn’t dated 10 douche bags before meeting one gentleman? Exactly.

Now this isn’t an attempt to put down black men, but more so a magnifying glass to an issue in the black community that none of us really wants to talk about. For once, I am going to address the common denominator in all of Tyler Perry’s plays/films, and screen plays; a very naive black woman. Not only is she the lead in all of Tyler Perry’s films, but she is also praised and viewed as a heroine for continuously picking the wrong black men before finally picking the one right man that she almost shot down because of some meaningless short coming.

Hold on, don’t hate me yet sisters. Hear me out first.

Love is a difficult thing to give away, but most black women will give their precious love away to the wrong damn person. In fact, we do it so often that we have begun to really believe that good black men must be more of a myth than a possibility, and now we’re hopping the fence over to the other side of interracial dating because not only do we not see good black men in the movies, but we hardly brush shoulders with them in real life.

We’re angry, fed up, yet we still entertain the same man that only behaves when he wants to screw us, and looks at women more like sexual conquests than life partners and potential wives.

There’s an ugly 70% statistic looming over the shoulders of black women, since the government claims that studies indicate that most of us will never get married, but will have to settle with raising children alone, since the man we decided to fall in love with was nothing more than a selfish sperm donating bastard who has no desire to ever be a father even though he has kids.

Yeah it’s a crappy reality for some black women, but maybe Tyler Perry hasn’t gotten it all right.

He keeps leaving out the part that involves the fact that black women do the choosing. It’s a hefty selection process, and despite the myth of a limited supply of brothers looking for love, women have done the picking since the Garden of Eden. Women have and will always set the tone and pick the apple, even if it will get us thrown out of paradise. Adam still exists in the billions of men who walk this planet today, and the apple we’re shoving in their faces is either bitter or sweet based off what tree we’re snatching from.

Too bad most of us keep picking from the wrong damn tree…then we wonder where all the good apples have gone, and go in packs to the latest Tyler Perry film which will attempt to tell us.

But it’s our mentality and unwillingness to take responsibility that will hinder us from real love.

Since we can’t seem to pick the right black men, neither will Tyler Perry. We won’t even acknowledge that just maybe we are guilty of picking the wrong partners, so neither will the lead character who allowed her trifling ass husband to drag her out of their house and had the nerve to write in a diary for several months before she wrote on some divorce papers.

I don’t want to be that black woman. You know who I’m talking about.

The one that claims she’s so angry and fed up, but still won’t leave…yeah, I don’t want to be her.

And I don’t want any of my sisters to be that woman. Instead, I want you to be that woman who has options, and isn’t afraid to be lonely verses staying in an unhealthy relationship just to say she’s got a man.

I don’t want any of my sisters to be that bitter woman who has grown to hate men because she can’t pick out the right man.

I can’t bare watching my sisters shoot down the too nice guy in exchange for the fancy dressing mean guy who’s a brother with a college degree that is going to treat you like a sideline hoe just because he looks good on paper. You may look good together, but there’s nothing good about what you got going on now is it?

And that woman isn’t a hero, but a naive desperate sister who hasn’t learned to make the right decisions. Heart break after heart break, just what does it take for this woman to learn?

So is Tyler Perry accurate in his film depictions of black men and black women in his films and plays? He’s dead on when it comes to most of us.

No shade, but most women must have forgotten that we set the tone and pick the apples. Even through the “shortage” of good black men, men still only do what we allow them to. They screw us over when we let them, make us bootycalls when we settle for those after midnights relationships, and use as as punching bags when we forgot to value ourselves.

So maybe when we do better in real life, just maybe, we can finally do better in the movies. But until then, just how long can we blame black men for what we’ve allowed to them to do to us?

It’s time to start picking better apples.