Tyler Perry responded to the intense pressure from a writers union and television viewers who criticized him over his “writers room” comments.
Perry promised to give real writers more opportunities to work on future projects at his film and TV production studios in Atlanta, GA after facing backlash for preferring to write his own TV series.
The actor/producer/director has been heavily criticized for laying off writers because he allegedly didn’t want to pay union fees.
He recently found himself at the center of controversy after trying to highlight his strong work ethic by revealing he does not have a writers room for dramas like The Have and the Have Nots, The Oval, and Sistas.
Critics say the lack of real writers at Perry’s studios shows in the subpar quality of his TV projects.
In her editorial for Medium.com, titled “I Give Up on Tyler Perry,” Morgan Jerkins said Perry’s scripts depicting Black women have not evolved in 25 years.
Jerkins writes:
“I did not like A Fall from Grace… The older women were characterized as lonely and downtrodden as if these were justifiable reasons for the abuse they suffered.”
In a recent interview, Perry revealed an incident early on in his career that led him to stop using a writing team.
Perry, 50, said screenwriters turned in scripts that required rewrites — and the writers would get paid for each script rewrite. Perry implied that the writers – who were all Black – tried to take advantage of him.
“It’s not that I don’t want help,” Perry explained on daytime talk show The View. “I had a really bad experience with a writers room once, and they were turning in scripts, and you know, you pay for these scripts and they turn them in, and the scripts are not right, then you have to rewrite them and you have to pay them again.
“And then the returned scripts, we’d put them on the air and the ratings would drop. So I said, ‘Listen, my audience, I’ve been cultivating this for 25 years, they know how I’m speaking to them, they know specifically what I’m saying,’ so I realized then that I needed to continue to just do what I do, and I don’t mind.”
However, following the backlash to his comments, Perry insists he will offer job opportunities for non-Tyler Perry projects to writers seeking to break into the industry.
“There will be other projects at the studio that are not Tyler Perry-labeled projects that have writers rooms and writers will get a chance,” he promised.
