Tyler Perry & Glenn Beck: A Match Made In Blind Cult Following Heaven

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While recently talking to my new friend/film bestie Rebecca Theodore-Vachon (who writes for Urban Daily and co-hosts of the radio show ’Cinema in Noir’ where she and her friends “discuss film from the black female perspective”–which you can catch tonight at 6PM EST), we were discussing the faux-backlash from the black community(oxymoron?) about Idris Elba’s comments about not so inflammatory comments about Tyler Perry.

We started talking about how the TP Mafia took to the comment section(where everyone is an expert) of various websites where the Idris interview was posted to defend their leader. After reading some of the comments and pondering the way TP fans are so cult like and are willing to devour anything thing he serves up, it reminded me of the fan base of a certain someone by the name of Glenn Beck. Now Before I wrote this, I had no idea that not only is Glenn Beck a huge Tyler Perry fan, he considers him a hero. Now it makes even more sense why Glenn thinks he and Tyler are so alike.

Sites like Bossip, Nicole Bitchie, and RollingOut were saying Idris “blasted” Tyler Perry and the Oscars trying to create some sort of beef between two men who are probably good friends or industry acquaintances to say the least. and would anyone with good sense really call the following comments “blasts”:

“The Oscars aren’t designed for us…let’s focus on making more films.”

“I don’t like all of Tyler Perry’s films. Yes, I did work with Tyler for “Daddy’s Little Girls” because it portrayed a positive image of a black father. I am happy for Tyler’s success…we need Tyler Perry…by going to support his movies, we need to show economic strength. But we are also responsible for elevating film. I’m not with buffoonish characters like Madea or Big Momma.”

Hardly. But leave it to the internet and the TP zombies to try to turn Idris, the most prominent rising black actor working today, into the villain for their super hero Tyler. And Idris isn’t mad Tyler took  the role of Alex Cross from him(which was a mistake) because Idris knows he’s a much better actor and will continue to produce quality work and get quality roles. When you think about it, how are Tyler and Glenn’s fans really different aside from the field their idols choose to denigrate? One is a film maker and one is a fake journalist who lies for a living, but the methodology is the same — money first, do it under the cloak of God, give the zombies what they want, not what they need.

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Why do you think the Boondocks “Pause” episode angered Tyler so much? If there weren’t so many elements of truth to it would he be calling the network threatening to take his shows off the air and firing people? We wonder why Tyler’s movies are so mediocre yet bring in boat loads of cash and why Glenn is arguably the craziest person on television and clears over 30 million annually and the answer is the cult fan base. They’ve targeted specific markets — black religious folks for TP and crazy right wing conservative extremists for Glenn, and served them a product that speaks directly to their emotions and that’s exactly how you get people to open their wallets.

You want proof? In the same breath of talking about his new found love for Tyler, Glenn said, “I could give a flying crap about the political process. Making money, on the other hand, is to be taken very seriously, and controversy is its own coinage”. Take that same comment, replace the words “political process” and “Controversy” with “film making process” and “religion for black people” and you have the formula for Tyler Perry’s enormous success with high school level screen writing.

There are a lot of black people who will say I’m hating on Tyler and everything else under the Sun the same way they did Rebecca when she wrote her article “5 WaysTyler can win an Oscar“, which was excellent and 110% true. But that’s OK because I expect that — much like Jim Jones and The Peoples Temple, your flock is suppose to always come to your defense if you’ve brain washed recruited them properly. Some people commenting are saying Idris is only talking bad about Tyler after he’s already taken his money but tell me, how many of you work for someone or a company you like and agree with them and their policies 100%? Yet you still collect your check every two weeks.

He made it clear he worked with Tyler on Daddy’s Little Girls, which is one of Tyler’s best(And I use the word best loosely since calling one of his films a “best” anything is like saying you’re the thinnest kid at fat camp) films ironically, because it was not like his other films.  It would be different if he had played one of the buffoonish characters in Tyler’s movie and then talked negatively about it but that’s not the case. He didn’t compromise his beliefs by working on a project he saw fit for him or met his standards no matter what crap Tyler puts out other times — at the end of the day it’s a business and any successful person has done business with someone they don’t necessarily agree with in whole.

So maybe Glenn is right, he and Tyler should hang out because they would have a lot to talk about. One is poisoning America and the other is unknowingly(I think?) doing a great disservice to black cinema and black actors when he has both the means and opportunity to do so much more. Their fans are much more alike than they would ever have thought. They will continue to drink the Perry/Beck Kool-Aid as long as there’s some left in the bowl and I’m willing to bet it’s a bottomless bowl.

Lastly, can I be candid? Seeing how black people are willing to go wherever Tyler will lead them, if Glenn really wants to restore America to its earlier days and get rid of minorities, all he has to do is convince Tyler to make “Madea Goes To Africa” and black people will be right behind him her them.

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