A great rapper once said, "It ain't no fun if the homies can't have none." Now, of course he wasn't talking about television, but it's a belief I'm sticking to when it comes to Tyler Perry’s TV shows.
It seems that some of Perry's black fans are up in arms over his new TV series, Tyler Perry's Too Close to Home.
(Side note: I appreciate the fact that he's reminding us this show is his.)
But anyways.
People are mad because his newest cast is—gasp—all white. And that's all right with Tyler. During an appearance on the Tom Joyner Morning Show, Perry defended his show.
“I’m so sick of folks asking me why I have a show full of white folks. What the hell?? Nobody asked Norman Lear why he wrote for black people all those years. People are people. I’m writing a story about a girl that comes from a trailer park and whose family has a lot of dysfunction. It’s all the same. That can happen whether you’re black or white," Perry stated.
This may be the first time I'm in agreement with Perry. I appreciate Perry as a businessman. Seriously, he came from the chitlin circuit and made a name for himself and believes in giving back to his community. But I also believe that ain't nothing wrong with sharing the mediocrity with white people.
I mean, how basic can you get with a white girl from a trailer park finding a career working in the White House and then having an affair with the president? It's almost like a low-budget Scandal.
Perry also went on to discuss how diverse his casts already are:
“I got white folks on my other show Have and Have Nots, but nobody noticed. If Donald Trump can pitch to black folks in an all-white neighborhood, why can’t you watch this show on TLC!? What is going on in this country?" Perry continued.
Yup, equal opportunity, folks!
I will say I did catch the first episode of the series, and yes, it's everything you'd expect it to be. And there is one black woman in the cast. But most importantly, there's a fine-ass man who looks like this:
Brock O'Hurn started out on the ’gram … now he's on a Tyler Perry series. Now, that's what you call a come-up.
https://twitter.com/Ritinha_O/status/767927574559203328
See, from the tweet above, it's going to be a TLC hit!