Dear Tyler Perry:

Why are you all up in my shit, man?  Ever since Diary of a Mad Black Woman in 2005,  your subway ads have been ruining my commutes, and since I live in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn (an obvious focal point for your wicked, racially-roofied marketing campaign), my exposure to this radioactive drivel is exponentially increased.  When I first saw the overblown movie poster for the aforementioned cinematic blasphemy on the G-Train platform, I chalked it up to mere commonplace Hollywood stupidity: nothing to get riled up about.  When I found out that it was made for $5.5 million and grossed $50.6 million domestically in spite of horrible reviews and a 16% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, I didn’t lose any sleep.  Poorly reviewed movies make money all the time.  I’ve learned to live with this as a harsh fact of American life.  However, six years and ten pictures later (4 of which involve you dressing up as a woman), I can take it no more.

As you may or may not know: I’m not black so I am at a slightly higher risk of sounding sanctimonious than most.  Nevertheless, I cannot help but be disgusted at your portrayal of black people in your pictures, or as Spike Lee elegantly put it your “coonery and buffoonery.”  In a recent press conference, you said:

“I’m so sick of hearing about damn Spike Lee. Spike can go straight to hell! You can print that. I am sick of him talking about me, I am sick of him saying, ‘This is a coon, this is a buffoon.’ I am sick of him talking about black people going to see movies. This is what he said: ‘You vote by what you see,’ as if black people don’t know what they want to see…”

You want on to make the following false equivalency:

“I’ve never seen Jewish people attack Seinfeld and say ‘this is a stereotype,’ I’ve never seen Italian people attack ‘The Sopranos’…”

Firstly, as Drew Grant at Salon.com pointed out in his article on the matter, Jewish people have attacked Seinfeld and likewise with Italians and The Sopranos. Regardless, these comparisons are logically inappropriate and miss the point entirely.  Both Seinfeld and The Sopranos brought in wide audience demographics: Seinfeld raked in average of 20 million viewers their last five years and The Sopranos averaging 8 million over the course their run.  The success of these shows was hardly based solely on Jewish-American and Italian-American viewership respectively.  The same cannot be said of your films, which are bolstered wholly by the Black and Urban market.  I don’t know a single white person who has elected to see any of your movies.  And, why should we: they are not aimed towards us.  This is what separates you from the examples in your false equivalency: you are promoting a ridiculous stereotype to the very demographic you are stereotyping, Black America, enriching yourself accordingly, and getting away with it fabulously.

Now, I know there is an undeniable demand for your coonery: you own a private jet and, in 2009, were ranked by Forbes as the 6th highest paid man in Hollywood; however, demand doesn’t mean you have integrity or a soul.  This country is rife with rich shitheads peddling product that is bad for society.  Indeed, Sixteen and Pregnant, Jersey Shore, and Crystal Meth Dealers throughout southeastern Ohio are all doing smashingly well.  This doesn’t make it right.  It also doesn’t make you a talented filmmaker; rather, it merely makes you a talented money-maker.  In other words, you are not an artist, but a mere hack.  Moreover, you will always be a hack.  Black America and American cinema writ large would be better off if you just stopped.  So please…  Please, just stop.  Seriously…  Unless you hate America.  If you hate America, then keep making movies.  But, if you don’t hate America, retire.  We live in a free country, so it’s totally okay to hate America if that’s your thing. So, do you? Do you hate America? If you continue to make movies, we’ll know where you stand on that; however, I suspect I already know where you stand, you America-hating, cross-dressing, douche-bag hack.

In conclusion, please stop making movies.

Also, a “profanity free set” is not a proper movie set.

Finally, stay away from me and my family.

Sincerest Regards,

Brad Saville