Womanist and Black Feminist Responses to Tyler Perry’s Productions

Lisa Allen, Interdenominational Theological Center, USABrittney Cooper, Rutgers, USAJoy James, Williams College, USANyasha Junior, Howard University, USACheryl A. Kirk-Duggan, Shaw University, USARobert J. Patterson, Georgetown University, USAWhitney Peoples, Emory University, USAT. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, Vanderbilt University, USAYolande M. S. Tomlinson, Emory University, USAEmilie M. Townes, Vanderbilt University, USAAndrea C. White, Emory University, USATerrion L. Williamson, Michigan State University, USA

• Foreword; Emilie M. Townes Introduction; LeRhonda S. Manigault-Bryant, Tamura Lomax, and Duncan Part I: Filmography Part II: Theology, Spirituality and Black Popular Religious Imaginations 1: Tyler Perry Reads Scripture; Nyasha Junior 2: Signifying Love and Embodied Relationality: Towards a Womanist Theological Anthropology; Cheryl A. Kirk-Duggan 3: Jesus Will Fix It, After While: The Purpose and Role of Gospel Music in Tyler Perry Productions; Lisa Allen-McLaurin 4: Screening God; Andrea C. White Part III: Theorizing Intersecting Identities and (Re)Envisioning Black Womanhood 5: A People That Would Take Care of Ourselves: Tyler Perry's Vision of Community and Gender Relations; Yolande M.S. Tomlinson 6: It aint where you comin' from, honey: Class, Social Mobility and Marriage in Tyler Perry's Madea's Family Reunion; Carol B. Duncan 7: Mad Black Bitches and Lady-like Saints: Representations of African American Women in Tyler Perry Films; Tamura A. Lomax 8: (Re)Mediating Black Womanhood: Tyler Perry, Black Feminist Cultural Criticism and the Politics of Appropriation; Whitney Peoples Part IV: The Politics of Performance 9: Pause, Auntie Momma!: Reading Religion in Tyler Perry's Fat Drag; LeRhonda S. Manigault-Bryant 10: Madea vs. Medea: Agape, and the Militarist or Murderous Maternal; Joy James Part V: Black Women as Religio-Cultural Capital 11: Tyler Perry and the (Mis)Representation of Religious Morality; Terrion L. Williamson 12: Talking Back and Taking My 'Amens' with Me: Tyler Perry and the Narrative Colonization of Black Women's Stories; Brittney Cooper 13: Do You Want to Be Well?: The Gospel Play, Womanist Theology, and Tyler Perry's Artistic Project; Robert J. Patterson Afterword: T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting