Overview

Tyler Perry is the most successful African-American filmmaker of his generation, garnering both accolades and controversies with each new film. In Tyler Perry s America, Shayne Lee digs into eleven of Perry s highest-grossing films to explore key themes of race, gender, class, and religion, and, ultimately, to discuss what Perry s films reveal about contemporary African-American life.Filled with slapstick humor, musical wizardry, and religious imagery, Tyler Perry s films have inspired legions of fans, and yet critics often dismiss them or demean their audience. Tyler Perry s America takes the films seriously in their own right. After providing essential background information on Perry s life and film career, the book looks at what the films reveal about post civil rights America and why they inspire so many people. The book examines the way the films explore social class in America featuring characters from super-rich Wesley Deeds to homeless Lindsey Wakefield and the way Perry both celebrates upward mobility and critiques soulless wealth. The book discusses the way religion fills the films from gospel music to biblical quotes, the power of sexuality, and more. Lee also devotes a chapter to Madea, one of Perry s most controversial and complicated characters.Tyler Perry s America is a thought-provoking examination of this powerhouse filmmaker which highlights the way Perry s films appeal to viewers by connecting a rich African-American folk-cultural past with the promise of modern sophistication.

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9781442241862

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Reviews

In Tyler Perry's America: Inside His Films, sociologist Shayne Lee offers an unmatched and unrivaled scholarly consideration of the sociocultural relevance of Perry's oeuvre for a post civil rights, post-soul era. With a keen eye towards class, religion, and race, among a host of other domains, and with a new approach to evaluation at hand, Lee ups the analytical ante by transgressing the all-too-easy conflict management and moral maintenance analyses that have shaped previous treatments of this and other subjects. Lee offers here a compelling, rigorous sociological approach to his data that sets a new standard of engagement that future treatments will have to, no doubt, consider.--Monica R. Miller, Lehigh University; author of Religion and Hip Hop

Author Information

Shayne Lee is associate professor of sociology at the University of Houston. He has appeared on CNN, ABC, and Fox, blogs for The Huffington Post, and has been interviewed in the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Atlantic, USA Today, and other popular media outlets to comment on American religion and culture. He is the author of several books, including T.D. Jakes: America s New Preacher.

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