Within the scope of this thesis, I provide close textual and visual readings of director/actor/producer Tyler Perry's most well-known character, Mable "Madea" Simmons -- a performance he does in full female drag attire -- focusing on his mainstream hit film, Madea Goes to Jail (2009). My reading of the character of Madea veers against the common narrative her existence being just another recycled trope of men disguised as women only to perform in stereotypical and demonizing behavior. I argue Madea represents what I refer to as a "trans*female character", within the space of Perry's popular film that feature her. Read through the lens of being trans*female character, I propose this shift in analysis and critique of cinematic displays of drag helps to transgress beyond male/female binaries of acceptable and possible visual gender representations. More in-depth, using the theoretical concept of Gwendolyn Pough's "bringing wreck", I make the argument that while ostensibly representing the "angry black woman" stereotype, Madea's characterization and actions within the film represent strategies and efforts to not be contained within hegemonic ideals of black female respectability politics and the law efforts to put her behind bars. By "bringing wreck", Madea's fictional acts of violence and talking back are read as a strategy that reflects a historical trend of misrecognition that renders black women's concerns and discontent with marginalization as irrational anger. / text

In this thesis project, I investigate the drama of Perry and introduce his dramaturgy into the academic landscape. As the critical discourse is shifting towards the realm of popular culture, we must begin to locate several discourses at work in the drama of quite possibly the most popular, visible, and financially successful African American playwright of the twenty-first century, if not of all time. Drawing on gender and queer theory, I offer a theoretical discussion about subversive and non-subversive drag acts, and I question the degree to which Perry appropriates drag in a politically liberating or constraining manner. Moreover, I examine the gender and sexual politics in Madea’s Family Reunion to illustrate the ways in which I read Perry as offering a very conflicted dialectic between activist aspirations and oppressive tendencies, particularly in regard to questions of safe feminist spaces, motherhood, female self-sufficiency, female self-definition, domestic violence, and homosexuality.

ABSTRACT This dissertation examines how Tyra Banks, Shonda Rhimes, and Tyler Perry negotiate blackness in terms of racial representation both in their interactions with the press and public as well as in their final product. Banks, Rhimes, and Perry are among the few prominent African American executive producers working in an industry of inequality. Each is the creative figure behind a prominent prime-time television show. This project contributes to the discussion of race and representation in the field of television studies. I argue there is a connection between how Banks, Rhimes, and Perry publicly discuss race and how these perspectives are encoded in America’s Next Top Model (Banks), Grey’s Anatomy (Rhimes), and House of Payne (Perry) from 2005-2010. These three are vital case studies because their shows offer a range of African American representations and extra-textual discourses about representations. Chapter Two historically contextualizes the industrial shifts in mainstream broadcast networks and basic cable channels as it relates to blackness onscreen and diversity behind the scenes. ABC, The CW, and TBS are the focus of this chapter because they are the outlets for Banks, Rhimes, and Perry’s shows. I also position ABC, The CW, and TBS in relation to the rest of the industry as it has moved from the multi-channel transition to the post- network era. Chapter Three examines how Banks, Perry and Rhimes promote and publicize themselves as the key creative figure of their shows. This analysis places each individual in different sites of the burden of representation, which each handles differently. Chapter Four explores the connection between the role blackness plays in their image as public creative figure and how it is represented in their texts through a representational analysis of America’s Next Top Model, Grey’s Anatomy and House of Payne. This dissertation advocates a neo-racial framework to examine blackness on television and behind the scenes. A neo-racial framework acknowledges that racial inequities continue to exist and the context surrounding these inequities needs to be examined. I conclude that the Banks, Rhimes, and Perry cases show that we are not in a post-racial society or in the post-network era.

No description available.

This study explored media discourse of gender violence against Black women in Black contemporary films. Four Tyler Perry films were examined using a novel, qualitative and analytical framework: Black Feminist Discourse Analysis. Discourses that were studied include, but were not limited to: portrayals of gender violence and victims, character dispositions and interactions, stereotypes, relationship dynamics as well as portrayals of race, gender, sexuality and religion. The use of new and existing controlling images based on systems of race, gender, sexuality and religion were revealed in a transitional and systemic model. Common themes across the films are provided. This research closes with concluding assertions grounded by existing literature and the current study’s findings, as well as recommendations for future film writing and production and implications for social work.