Tyler Perry's Divorce in Black

There is a saying that I encountered in high school while attending Christian Union music performances. “Listen to the message, not the voice.” A disclaimer that meant ‘This is about God and if you critique my singing, you’re critiquing God.’ Inevitably, those who led with such a disclaimer were tone-deaf or lacking in musical talent. We often suffered in silence, applauding and cheering at the end. At the time, it seemed a low price to pay for social harmony. Years later, this pre-emptive warding off of critique has been honed to a fine point and is encompassed in one word. Representation.

The word is a veritable club with which to bludgeon any future negative feedback. Watching a television show or film with a critical eye is futile. Your only assignment is to applaud and cheer, because otherwise you hate black, or female, or fat, or *insert whatever marginalised group of people is being ‘represented’. Like most media trends of the current age, it is one we have inherited from the west, using the very same tactics in defence against criticism of flagging standards in the media.

Divorce in Black

Take Tyler Perry- must we? Yes, we must, stick with me. Viewers recently expressed deep disappointment in his latest film, Divorce in the Black. There were calls for him to please, please for the love of all things Cinema, hire some screenwriters. When asked how he handles this criticism, he responded “… So, you’ve got this highbrow Negro who is all up in the air with his nose up looking at everything, then you got people like where I come from, and me, who are grinders, who really know what it’s like, whose mothers were caregivers for white kids, and were maids, housekeepers…beauticians. Don’t discount those people and say their stories don’t matter. Who are you to be able to say which black story is important or should be told? Get out of here with that BS”

Killing the artists before they grow

The overt mischaracterisation of the criticism is cleverly wielded, allowing him to weaponise his audience. Under the banner of representing black stories of a certain class, Mr. Perry masterfully turns his audience on his critics, with the suggestion that those who question the quality of the film, don’t think their stories are important. The message is; they’re not like you, they don’t understand you, and they are against your very existence. It’s cynical, calculating, and highly effective and its stain has spread to our screens. Granted, this kind of rhetoric barely makes a dent in the long history of American film, but it is highly detrimental to an industry still in its infant stages, as the Kenyan one is. It is killing the artists before they grow.

One such example is a Kenyan show that aired recently on Showmax. Other than the lead character being a ‘big girl, it is ambiguous what the premise is. The protagonist’s goals are unclear and her character is inconsistent and lacking logic. Though seeming to lean towards comedy, it lacks comedic structure, straddling the line between drama and awkward slapstick humour. The cinematography screams ‘look at me’ with no emotional tie in to the story. In an attempt to garner our sympathy, the plot relies heavily on ‘bad’ things happening to the protagonist. She makes no decisions but spends most of her time reacting to the unfairness of the world. There is hardly any character development or exploration and no reason why we should root for her. Some audiences made the interesting observation that the show felt ‘American’, and rightly so.

‘Representation’!

When these critiques were made, the dreaded word ‘representation’ reared its ugly head. You see, the lead character is a ‘big girl’, and that is not represented on television. We’re being told to listen to the message, but even that is unclear. Are we to empathise with a character who’s only defining trait is her size? Instead of an answer, an accusation was lobbied that an aversion to ‘big girls’ is the reason behind the criticism. Like Mr. Perry, the response was meant to create an ‘us vs. them’ atmosphere- but what happens to the filmmaker? Do they do better next time, or create an even more marginalised character that we can’t possibly criticise? More importantly, what happens to the audience? Do they learn that no matter what is given to them, they must shut up and take it or risk being called bigots?

‘The Danger of a single Story’

The result may very well be what Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s verbal essay ‘The Danger of a single Story’, addresses. In it, she speaks passionately against the singular portrayal of Africans in literature by western writers, but this can be applied to any group that is ‘represented’ this way. She posits, “…So that is how to create a single story, show a people as one thing, as only one thing, over and over again, and that is what they become.” In brutal irony, this shallow mode of ‘representation’ champions the storytelling she spoke against, while claiming to fix the problem.

Artistry matters, not representation

As I watch yet another shot of the lead character lament once more the difficulty of her existing in the world as her size, I say, no more. I am no longer ‘listening to the message not the voice’. I will not be applauding. I will not be cheering. Artistry matters, not representation. The craft of storytelling matters, as much as the story being told. The two must work in tandem, the artistry lending itself to effectively carrying the message across. To say audiences shouldn’t care about the quality of storytelling is insulting and belittling. I am absolutely over it. You should be too.