Pause, Auntie Momma! Reading Religion in Tyler Perry’s Fat Drag

Abstract

Tyler Perry’s entertainment business is an industrial machine. In addition to bringing in almost a billion dollars over the past decade, Perry has a seemingly endless supply of monetary backing that includes the fiscal support of Turner Broadcasting,... Book cover Womanist and Black Feminist Responses to Tyler Perry’s Productions pp 165–186Cite as Palgrave Macmillan Pause, Auntie Momma! Reading Religion in Tyler Perry’s Fat Drag LeRhonda S. Manigault-Bryant Chapter Circuit is open Part of the Black Religion / Womanist Thought / Social Justice book series (BRWT) Abstract Tyler Perry’s entertainment business is an industrial machine. In addition to bringing in almost a billion dollars over the past decade, Perry has a seemingly endless supply of monetary backing that includes the fiscal support of Turner Broadcasting, distribution deals with Lionsgate Films, and, of course, good friends with production interests and deep pockets like Oprah Winfrey and Will Smith. A 30-acre studio lot boosts his engine of media manufacturing and he dispenses his products with astounding f requency.1 Since 2000 he has produced, written, directed, and/or starred in at least one film annually, and has multiple television shows that air weekly on TBS and the Oprah Winfrey Network.2 Between 2010 and 2011 the tremendous success of Tyler Perry’s machine moved him ahead of James Cameron as the highest male earner in Hollywood.3 In short, the Tyler Perry machine has dominated black popular media for over a decade and has become among the most successful American commercial media industries today.