Niche directors have always existed in filmmaking. You’ll have one visionary who finds his stride in one genre, like George Romero in horror, and never really leaves. Most directors prefer to play amongst the genres and dabble in each (and they typically benefit from the experience), but sometimes a director digs in, hunkers down, and cranks out one movie after another for the select audience that has projected them throughout their success. Tyler Perry is one such director. He knows his niche. His audience supports his endeavors (so far, unfailingly). And he continues down his road unabated by harsh words from critics (even I have to admit to having bashed on his work) or any threat from a competing filmmaker.
The audience Tyler Perry has pursued went neglected by larger Hollywood studios for quite some time; the meager fare those studios did produce always tended toward condescending drivel that focused more on generating ticket sales than in any way creating films that embraced African-American culture as it exists today. Before Tyler Perry began his now unending parade of features, the tailored a mainstream film got towards specifically targeting that niche came from the Wayans brothers (and woe be unto any genre which finds itself in their crosshairs) or featured Stella getting her groove back. Granted, this is a gross over-simplification of 
the offerings for that genre, but compared to the distribution and mainstream attention Tyler Perry has built as a foundation for his success – those previous entries were paltry and went nowhere at the box office.
The first by-product of the Tyler Perry phenomena I ever encountered was the umpteenth feature, Madea Goes to Jail. There was some semblance of comedy stuck in there, if you appreciate men in drag as older women (in the tradition of Tootsie, Mrs. Doubtfire, and Big Momma’s House). However, if you hadn’t watched all the previous Perry films wherein Madea was a supporting character offering up a bit of over-the-top theatricality into the middle of often heavier films wrought with deceitful husbands and wives, then the capacity to appreciate a film where the minor character finally took center stage wouldn’t exist. It was genuinely the worst of Tyler Perry’s films to watch first as it required a familiarity with the character and the established belief that Madea’s character was funny and not an ego-trip of Tyler Perry insisting at being at the center of every film he makes. While this belief is unsubstantiated, it’s not entirely incomprehensible as by its title alone Diary of a Mad Black Woman would seem to be about Madea (though it’s not) and other Perry films have Madea in their title. However, had I started with Diary of a Mad Black Woman, I would have discovered after watching his second film that the common theme of Tyler Perry’s films is less Madea and more strong female characters staking claim to their own lives.
My misunderstanding of Tyler Perry’s true objective in filmmaking received further instruction as the second work of Perry’s I ever saw was House of Payne, a truly god awful television program that suffers in writing and direction, but essentially deviates from Perry’s winning formula in every shape and form. It doesn’t boast strong female characters and the writing never succeeds in doing anything right. Anything. Now, after having watched every major film the man has produced, I can safely tell the average viewer that Perry’s House of Payne is the lowest point of Mr. Perry’s creative career. At Lionsgate’s insistence I watched through two seasons and my opinion of Mr. Perry’s abilities couldn’t have fallen lower as a result.
So now we reach the point where I find some of the redeeming entries in his ever-expanding filmography. When Diary of a Mad Black Woman, Madea’s Family Reunion The Movie, Why Did I Get Married?, Madea Goes to Jail, and The Family That Preys arrived on Blu-ray on JustPressPlay’s doorstep my heart sank. Of the lot I’d only ever seen Madea Goes to Jail and that combined with my House of Payne experiences made that 5 Blu-ray stack seem miles high. I slid Diary of a Mad Black Woman into the player and sat back.
Five hours later I’d finished the first flick, gotten through Why Did I Get Married, and was knee-deep in Madea’s Family Reunion The Movie. And, to be honest, the experience was more enjoyable than I’d anticipated. The bad reputation Tyler Perry’s work had earned via my past viewings seemed to be gradually melting away as I realized what it was that actually had his fans coming back. Watching a Tyler Perry movie without the context of Tyler Perry fandom is guaranteed to be off-putting for anyone who considers themselves to have any knowledge about film, its history, and what constitutes a great piece of filmmaking. His dialogue is never all that original and at times comes across as heavy-handed in his dishing out of Gospel and self-confidence boosting morals. Tyler Perry’s direction works better in a group setting when he has lots of pieces to work with, but cut a scene down to two or three people and suddenly things become stilted and the drama withers. So what’s the key that keeps the audience locked in?
It’s clear they know these aren’t masterpieces, but that was never an issue. From day one, Perry established a world for himself to play in and made Madea his anchor. He could string together one film after another, using various casts (with himself always worked in as Madea and as a character resembling himself), and, with Madea thrown into the middle, the continuity that makes an audience feel like they’re returning to a place they once visited instead of embarking down an unknown road. It’s comfort food in film form.
What’s more, it’s comfort food targeted at just the right audience. Tyler Perry has identified a long overlooked niche whose typical film fare has always been far below par. The Wayans have long since pandered to the lowest common denominator with their comedy and so even as they produce films with an African American audience in mind, they never create a film that has any real substance. The entrance of someone like Tyler Perry into the arena was inevitable, and now that he’s here, he’s filling a neglected niche. Furthermore, he’s encouraging and fostering other filmmakers looking to do the same thing.
He might not be the most talented filmmaker out there, but he’s helping to drastically level the playing field in terms of the range of films available in the average cinema. To be fair, when there isn’t a Tyler Perry film raking in money at the box office, chances are there are no films filling the niche in his absence. In a world where films espousing the lifestyles of other minorities and ethnicities can be found in a cinema every few months, it’s truly odd that films catering specifically to an African American audience are so few and far between.
