Weeks after Tyler Perry premiered his new movie “Divorce in the Black,” which received horrible reviews, a clip from his appearance on Kenya Barris’ show “BlackAF,” emerged on social media that seems to articulate how he feels about critics that have bashed his latest project.
Despite the movie reaching the No. 1 spot on Amazon Prime Video’s streaming chart, Rotten Tomatoes dealt it a brutal blow with a 0 percent rating from film critics. Over 500 fans on the site chimed in, offering a slightly more generous audience score of 75 percent.
The Guardian, in its review, said that “Divorce in the Black” was “easily Tyler Perry’s worst film to date.”
Critic Mary Kassel from Screen Rant described the film as being “pieced together from several conflicting scripts, making it almost impossible to follow the film’s weighty emotional throughline.”
While the professionals filled their platform with dismal commentary, social media dragged it across the X-verse.
The first 5 minutes of Divorce in the Black is ridiculous! Is this a Tubi movie?! 😂
— Felton (@FeltonJr3) July 21, 2024
Even comedian Loni Love weighed in on the movie’s negative feedback from the public, noting that the problem with the film has to do with Perry’s refusal to hire “Black writers and directors that have experience.”
She maintains that the Hollywood A-lister won’t look to industry professionals to help him with his films because he is “trying to save money by doing the writing and directing himself.”
I love that Tyler is paying Black actors now I wish he would hire Black writers and directors that have experience to help him with his movies… He could improve the movies & make them award worthy if he would stop trying to save money by doing the writing and directing himself. https://t.co/HExhpNMAqe
— Loni Love (@LoniLove) July 15, 2024
While Perry has not publicly responded to what the masses are saying about the thriller, which stars Meagan Good and Cory Hardrict, one of his celebrity friends, Tina Knowles, took to social media and posted a clip featuring Perry talking to Barris from the 2020 episode 5 of Netflix series.
The set-up of the clip is that Barris, who is acting as a fictionalized version of himself, goes to meet with Perry to get his opinion on how he should feel about being critiqued about his Black content by white people.
Barris says, “I really care what white people think.” In the skit, Perry says to his young protégé, “That’s really sad, a sad existence.” Barris then tells his filmmaking friend that after any of his projects come out, the first thing he does is go to Rotten Tomatoes to see what is being said about the work.
“Let me just tell you about them tomatoes,” Perry says in the scene, “I don’t f—k with them.” “I don’t give a damn about a rotten, fresh—none of that means s—t to me,” he says.
Perry then moves on to tell Barris why he does not “give a f—k” about what people say. For him, it is simply because he knows he is talking to his folk.
“I super-serve my niche. We speak a language, we’re talking, we know each other, we get it,” the Madea creator stated. “There’s a lot of times I see s—t that wins Oscars and I be like, ‘What is this s—t? I walked out halfway through it.’ I don’t get it. And listen, I feel like they feel about my work. They don’t get it.”
Perry said his mother taught him the value of “being who I am … of my Blackness.” He explains to the Clark Atlanta University alum, “I’m telling the stories that I come from, and that’s why they’re winning, because people are recognizing themselves in these stories.”
He then later says that his movies are geared toward his demographic and no matter how “crass” people think his story plots are, “I’m talking to us. That’s why millions of people are watching my shows every week. That’s why people keep showing up [and] sending the movies to No. 1. I’m talking to us, connecting to us.”
The clip continues with Perry adding that he doesn’t understand why so many Black creators feel the need to have “white folk” to “approve” them. He refuses.
After Knowles posted the clip, she said positions like this are why she loves Perry. She later said that while she knows “no one is above criticism,” but she believes “opinions are like butt holes.” Some of her 4.1 million followers weighed in with mixed responses.
One comment loved the clip also, writing, “Exactly!!!!!!! I love love this clip. I was just talking about this scene the other day with a friend we must follow our own path and voice and pay no attention to what other people think.”
Someone else addressed the concept of not caring about what people think. She wrote, “You gotta have a little IDGAF about you if you’re ever going to be successful in life and go to the next level. Staying true to who you are. You cannot live to please everybody.”
Another person said, “At some point, we gotta hold our brother accountable. The work is not good.”
A fourth comment presented a challenge to Black content consumers, “People mad at Tyler and want to complain about his style, but didn’t support ‘Origins’ by Ava [Duvernay], or insert film from another genre. There are films/shows for everyone’s taste, stop trying to bully Tyler.”
“Tyler Perry became a billionaire off the same formula, so why would he ever switch it up to appease yall wishy washy a—es? His target audience is satisfied,” a fifth fan said.
Perry is right. He knows his audience and many people have celebrated the movie, standing with the director.
“Yo divorce in the black good as s—t!” said one X user.
Someone else said the movie was “so good” and that she was ready to watch it again.
Divorce In The Black was so good im ready to start that mf over 😭
— keke ❤️🔥 (@keketweeting) July 20, 2024
Staying true to his fanbase has secured Perry sever streaming deals to speak to his market, notably with OWN and his 25 percent stake in BET+, and at the box office, he made close to a billion in international ticket sales.
So why should he care about Tomatoes?
