The Prestige TV Podcast - ‘Atlanta’ Season 4, Episode 5 Recap

Episode Date: October 7, 2022

Charles and Van take a close look at Tyler Perry’s reputation while breaking down the fifth episode of the final season of ‘Atlanta.’ The duo dives into what exactly Donald Glover is attempting to say about Tyler Perry as a filmmaker. Hosts: Charles Holmes and Van Lathan Associate Producer: Jonathan Kermah Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Yossi Salick, and I'm the host of Bansplain, a show where we explain cult bands and iconic artists by going deep into their histories and discographies. We're back with a brand new season at our brand new home, the Ringer podcast network, tackling a whole new batch of artists, from grunge gods to power pop pioneers to new metal legends and many, many more. Listen to new episodes every Thursday, only on Spotify. Want to support your gut health? Take Activya's gut health challenge by enjoying two Activio Yogurt a day for two weeks and see if you feel a difference. With billions of probiotics and 20 years of scientific expertise, Activia is one of the easiest and tastiest ways to start your gut health ritual. Try Activia today. Enjoying Activia twice a day for two weeks as part of a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle may help reduce the frequency of minor digestive discomfort,

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He's Van Lathen of Higher Learning with Rachel Lindsay. Together, we're known as the Midnight Boys. And we're here to discuss the final season of Atlanta. And on today's episode, we're breaking down work ethic, directed by Donald Glover and written by Janine Neighbors. At Van, I got to tell you something, bud. I got to tell you What do you want, Charles?

What you want? This might be the strongest stretch of episodes we've had in Atlanta ever. Very long. Very long time, maybe ever. You're right. By the way, you say we're not eating cracked sandwiches.

Speak for yourself. Because I haven't heard the peanut butter and crack sandwich since the days of Dave Chappelle. No, we're talking a three-episode run that's pretty fantastic. The last episode of Atlanta

funny. This one had some of the funniest moments. I was hysterically laughing. There's some really, really interesting criticisms, I think here. I think the show is doing something very interesting critically, which I don't know if I always agree with Atlanta when it gets a little preachy, but we'll talk about that. But as far as the overall quality of this episode and the entertainment value here,

amazing, amazing, amazing episode. You know, totally agree. So before we get into our impressions of work ethic, we're going to briefly break down the plot of this episode. We begin with Van and Lottie traveling to Chocolate Studios, a quote, studio for the culture, run by the culture, owned it operated by a Tyler Perry sendup named Mr. Chocolate. In an effort to find more independence, fan has agreed to play a bit role in one of the studio's many productions. After Lottie interrupts one of the takes, she catches the eyes of Mr. Chocolate. but at this point is a disembodied voice coming from a PA system and thinks of himself as a god of the lot.

Lottie is whisted away to film a variety of low-budget TV shows and movies, while Van is stuck in a social labyrinth that's determined to turn her into a cliché of a Tyler Perry mom type character. By episodes end, Van confronts Mr. Chocolate and refuses his offer to turn Lottie into a star. Instant reactions, Mr. Lathen. Uh, insert reactions is funny, engaging, engrossing in that familiar Atlanta way. What, what have we talked about, Charles? A show that bridges the gap between something that's super familiar and something that's otherworldly. We know what the commentary is.

We know who's being like, wait, when did you know? Because the minute, right away. The minute she drives up to, she sees like the Mr. Chocoloccalo studios. I'm like, oh, fuck, you're doing it. Right away, right away. So at first I thought they were going to like, in a. amusement park or something.

But I'm thinking, why are they going to an amusement part in, like, before the sun has risen. And then when they get there, Mr. Chocolate Studios, boom, it's a send-up of Tyler Perry studios. For people who don't know, Tyler Perry, obviously is one of the most

successful filmmakers in a lot time. Love it or hate it. That statement is a statement of fact. His studio is based in Atlanta, where... 300 acres. I was watching the video of him, giving a tour, like, they did a very good job of making this not only look like Tyler Perry's

studios, but yes, he, the same way that these buildings in Atlanta are named after like Mario Van Peebles and John Witherspoon, his buildings are named after black people like Holly Barry, Denzel Washington. And this episode, as much as it is like a satire that is very direct at points, they're not wrong about how prolific Tyler Perry is. I was reading an article where it says, quote, this is from the Hollywood Reporter. It's not unusual for him to bang out a full 25 episode season in fewer than three weeks. And this is someone who is like writing the episode and directing all of the episodes. And what I want to ask you, man, is before we dig into this episode, I feel like we have to for maybe an audience that is not blacker as up on Tyler Perry as we may be.

can we talk about why Tyler Perry is such a fraught figure in the black community just in terms of like I'd never meet people who are in the middle in the gray of Tyler Perry either you're a Tyler Perry fan or you are a slight snob who was like Tyler Perry I'll never watch Tyler Perry movies like is that a fair statement to say? Maybe. So I once wrote a column about

Tyler Perry movies where I called them fried catfish cinema. And this is what I meant. What I meant is that the comfort food of all comfort foods where I come from is fried catfish. It's so hard to fuck it up, right? You take it, you batter it up, you season it up,

you fry it down hard enough. Sometimes you don't even have to have the best actual filet of fish. If you fried down hard enough, it's crunchy with a little meaty in the middle, you salted up nice, you got something good. It's cheap to make.

Fried caffish. All right, reds dogs. What's the catfish? So it's a catfish. I'm from Louisiana. So you go to Louisiana, you get fried catfish, you walk into a store.

If you want something that's going to not challenge you, not push you, not make you think any harder and not fail you, you go for the fried catfish, right? Give me some catfish nuggets,

some fries, you're probably going to be okay. Okay. And so Tala Perry's, movies and shows were the ultimate comfort food for a very long time. It was something that you can go in. It was going to be familiar to you. It was going to be really hard to fuck it up.

But it was never going to push you anywhere you weren't going to go. It was never going to make you reexamine your circumstances in society. It was going to be something that brought you back somewhere, made you feel like you were at home. And I said in this that I wrote a long time ago that perhaps he's a good enough chef to cause something different, but we'll probably never know. Because he's made so much giving us what we're comfortable with. He's made so much

grounding movies in the church. Old black mamas who are crazy. You know, rich black people who have somehow sold their soul to get where they are and are bereft of something. Poor black people that are somehow fucking honorable

and magnificent in their poverty and just looking and have been done wrong by society and just looking for the right way to crawl back in, you know? And so I'd say that there is an in-between. But even the in-between, like, I don't hate Tyler Perry. I don't love Tyler Perry because I understand him. I think that's the in-between.

The in-between is understanding that sometimes we just want to go to the movies and see some shit that's not going to stress our minds. We don't want to see, at least that was what it was before. We don't want to see floating, tracking dolly shots from Spikely or endings that we have to decipher. A Jordan Peele movie, yeah.

A Jordan Pill movie. As a culture, there was a whole point where we, well, people just wanted to feel us again, where black cinema was in this weird midpoint. However, I'm being traditionally long winded, I'll end here. The avant-garde revolution

of young black artists serious filmmakers with weird, cookey, direct, crazy shit to save. The rebirth of the black filmmaking auteur, in my opinion, is a direct response to the Tyler Perry era of black cinema. Atlanta, to me, this show,

shows like Atlanta, creatives like Jordan Peel, people that, like real hot, Like, insecure. This entire era we're in, we're in, is a direct response to a bunch of creatives that appreciate a Tyler Perry. Don't get me wrong. That much success. You have to appreciate them.

But definitely, once again, Terrence Nance, I'll bring him up to, definitely did not want to be Tyler Perry. And Atlanta has always been a one of those shows to kind of stretch that out. So I think I come to Tyler Perry in a different place where I do land where you are where it's like I don't have any strong feelings about Tyler Perry, but because I was younger when he was going on that run, it was something that was like on BET after we got back from church and my mom might watch a few minutes. But I came from it in a different way where it's like Tyler Perry is the guy that the boondocks would lampoon. or a couple years on Twitter, do you remember this moment where Tyler Perry post a stack of scripts

that he's finished and he's like boasting about the fact that he doesn't have a writer's room and everybody's like dunking on him like maybe you need a writer's room and this is around the time where it's like he's pumping out a lot of shows

and he keeps getting dunked on because of like the wigs not fit in right the lace front's being fucked up. This so, many things that it seems like Tyler was almost fucking with us at one point. Once again, I don't want to do a whole Tyler Perry bashing thing because I really do have a lot of respect. I'm not bashing. I'm trying to explain kind of like how this episode, how this episode happens, where there was a

moment in the culture where it was almost a meme. You're like, Tyler has to know what he's doing. Right. And I think a lot of this episode is interrogating a couple things. The first think thematically is, is like, for lack of a better phrasing, the difference between our recent obsession with prestige black art versus what some people might call comfort food, maybe a lower brow black art, where it's like, that's where a Medea comes in. And I don't think it's a coincidence that the episode ends with us seeing Vans new, more expensive apartment. Because this is the first time we get to see Vans' apartment since I think like the first season. When she's like, when they're not doing well.

And I think what I love this episode, it makes it funnier that it's van because you have to think about where van is right now. She has the nice apartment. She doesn't really have to worry about money. The only reason she's doing this is because she wants some type of independence away from earn. And when there's this director, PA who says they're driving and they're arguing and they're arguing. and they're talking about all the awards that Mr. Chocolate Cats, BET awards,

that AACP awards. And they turned to Van and she's like, so only the white ones matter to you? And I think that that was when I was just like, I don't actually think this episode is being as mean to Tyler Perry as it seems on the surface.

What I think this episode is actually interrogating is how someone like Van, who is wealthy, conventionally attractive, views this type of art and the people who consume it. I think that that could be the case. There's no way to watch this episode and not think that this episode is a critique

of the type of art that Tali Pair makes. Oh, it is a critique. I'm not sure. It is not a critique. But Van doesn't leave this episode looking the greatest. She, the reason why I'm saying it's like, prestige black art versus low brow black art is that when Van comes on to the lot,

she thinks that she's above this, where she's just like, yeah, I'm just doing it, a friend got me in, it's no big deal. What I find ironic about that is I'm like, Van,

you think that you're better than the Mr. Chocolate films, but do want the success that they tease out. You're no different than everybody else was around here. the only difference is that you technically don't need it, but you want what Mr. Chocolate has. And I do think that that is a level of like,

Jordan Peel is successful, Donald Glover is successful, Issa Rae is successful. Are any of them as financially successful as Tyler Perry? No. So here's the thing. Van rejects all of this, though. Does she, though? She absolutely does.

Wait, but what does she do at the end of the episode? She goes to make mac and cheese. But before that... She takes out the card. She takes out the card and I took it as there's this thought. She's thinking because the guy is hot. She's like, maybe I'll call him. She flips over the card and she sees that he's a fuck boy.

That to me was the ultimate, like, this is definitely a critique of Tyler Perry, but I do think it is abiding in its critique of people that think that they're above a Tyler Perry, that they're above of Mr. Chiron. that they think they're too good for it. Yeah. I'm not disagreeing with you.

The only thing that I'm pushing back on, every single time we get an insight into Mr. Chocolate's operation, it is absolutely disastrous. It's disorganized. They're blocking shots. So if you're Tyler Perry and you're a filmmaker, and you're watching this, right? They're blocking shots.

He thinks they're shooting them and he says, we'll fix it in post. He doesn't know where the stage is on his studio are. He's incredibly pretentious. He's holed up in an office with a mountain of scripts wearing a beret and a goddamn, brilliantly played by Donald Glover, by the way, wearing a beret and paj.

and pajamas. He's detached from reality. And I think that the reason why the stuff that he produces is so inane is probably because he is attached from reality. Why do the people that work with him

have such absolute fieldty to him? Once again, it's something that we relitigate when we talk about art versus commerce in the black community because it's successful. case and point everybody hates takashi six nine right now right everybody hates him when takashi six nine was popping nobody cared

that he was a rainbow hair kid that had no respect for the art form that had no respect for for the ogs that had no respect for the street rules the whole and i'm not going to get into these dudes business but the whole set up in new york was with it a bunch of rappers were with it everybody was just cool with it And then he gets busted. We never liked the guy anyway, really. It was the success, the bag that we can't say no to in the black community sometimes because we don't come from that. So what happens is when somebody has that, for whatever reason, when they have that,

we just bowed down. We've been to knee to guys like Tyler Perry. We've been to need of guys like Hove. We've been to need of guys like Kanye West because we cannot fathom that type of money, success, or influence. I am not putting Tyler Perry in the same predicament as some of those other guys might be in. But what I'm saying is that artistically, there

are a lot of criticisms of Tyler Perry that will never hold water with so many people because he is so fucking successful. Then, to me, he tells her, he says, your daughter will never have to worry

about money until she's 20. She's like, right now, what will you do right now? We'll set her until she's 20. You never have to worry about any money. When she's 20, she's probably going to be doing the other type of Mr. Chocolate stuff. And he gives her the opportunity to say, hey,

you can be independent from earned. You can be independent. What you can buy into me right now, you just have to come along with this buffoonery. She says no. She says no. Her character rejects it.

And we move on. And then he showed her he was like her life is not so different than one of his movies already. But by her, by us as an audience scene, if that's kind of a thing, and by her still saying no, it's her striving to have a different life, a more artistically meaningful life, a life of more substance and more organization. And she did that when she was playing an away game, I think it's a clear rebuke of him. Oh, I, no, I agree.

I do think that largely this is a rebuke. And I think what you're saying about money is not only true. I actually think it's a little bit more insidious because what are they say in the beginning? The tour guy. A studio for the culture run by the culture. Now, I love black-owned businesses. I love black-owned businesses. But one of the first jobs I had in college.

Here we go. Here we go. Bring it, Charles. Talk your shit. You're about to go viral. Go ahead. Was an independent black record label that paid. me like garbage, right?

Uh-huh. And the reason that I stayed for as long as I did is this thing that I think that we do build up in the black community is like how many times you hear, yo, we got to do it for the culture. Oh, people try to pay you in culture.

They try to pay you in it. You stay in these situations where like, I was looking around at this coming. I'm like, all this shit is fucked up. They were trying to talk about how they were going to pay their way to get a Grammy. And I'm just like, how about we pay our way to make a good actual fucking song.

Like, nah, no, we got some bots on Twitter that we just bought. So it'll make sure she got some fans. And I'm like, whoa, whoa, before we do that, like, but where's the music? And they're like, no, no, no, that's cool. That'll be done. That'll be done. I'm like, I was there for an entire semester. And I was telling myself, everybody's telling me, like, no, we're building something,

the culture, the culture. We're building something. And I'm like, it took me a while to be like, I can't eat the culture. Yeah. I can't eat this shit. And that's what I think this is also interrogating how many times, like, for example, this episode to me is wild. The reason why it's wild, man, this is a conversation I feel like we are taught as black people. Donald Glover, you go have this conversation with Tyler Perry.

Don't air that business out, even if you're satirizing it. They're just making the joke loud that everybody says in their home about Tyler Perry movies. the crack sandwich being the most obvious of one to be like, yo, what is this? Is this actually good for the community? The most biting critique, I feel like, is when Van is sitting watching Lottie and the other mom is essentially like, yeah,

maybe my daughter, who is darker skin, can be like the sassy friend who's good at computers. Charles, that was the first shot. He comes with another. one at the end. They are outright accusing Tyler Perry of colorism. Outright, at the end of it, she goes,

I bet your baby daddy is dark skin. I got you the light skin ex-con. I bet your baby daddy is dark skin. This is, to me, if I watch this, I am interested to see what Tyler Perry thinks of this episode when this episode drops. he is outright accusing Tyler Perry

of being a colorist. This was some ether shit, which can I? Yeah, man. Can I say this, though? What is so funny, I think, about this, is that what were our conversations or what were the conversations

in the culture about Zazi Beats on this show? That she's light skin. You know what I'm saying? It's like, even Donald Glover, which makes this whole thing funny, is like how many of the conversations we have about Donald Glover are based around colorism, like what type of black women does he put in the shows? How do they portray black women?

All of these different things. So that's actually what I think makes this send up this satire even more funny because it's like, what came first, the chicken or the egg? People were complaining about Atlanta only featuring light skin women. Atlanta's commenting on Tyler Perry only featuring. Light skin women, light skin man. This shit is, I'm sorry, it's so funny. It is very, bro.

I laughed several different times. I laughed whenever he came in from the heavens. They're like, yo, like that was blocking the scene. We'll fix it in post. I'm like, I'm laughing. By the time it got to him at the end, that whole scene, like, because it's so funny. He's so indignant. And once again, I've met Tyler Perry.

I think Tyler Perry is a good man. this version of Tyler Perry is insanely self-important and toxic. All right, but let's be real. I mean, he's being really, look, Tyler Perry is a good dude, bro. Tyler Perry, if we want to be real, put a lot of older black actors who I've been forgotten by the industry. He paid Sicily Tyson a million dollars. say what you want about whether or not you fuck with Tyler Perry's stuff.

By the way, there are some Tyler Perry movies that I really enjoy. The family that praise are a couple of movies that I really enjoy. Say what you want. Tyler Perry has put his money where his fucking mouth is when it comes to putting people to work

in the black community. Some actors and actresses that you guys hadn't thought about in fucking years. Think about what he did for Janet Jackson after the Super Bowl. It puts her in a movie. Absolutely.

When she was the most toxic, which it was toxic to the entire pop music white hemisphere. Like this is what I'm saying where it's like, I do think that this episode is hilarious. But a part of me is like, is this, it's funny. Is he not giving someone like Tyler Perry enough nuance? Because Van Wrightout says it, calls him a con man. And I'm just like, I think Tyler Perry is.

a way more complicated and complex figure than that. And to your point earlier in the show, we don't have this era of black cinema. We don't have this era of black TV without Tyler Perry. I agree. I agree. I think for a long time, he was the only game in town. I mean, it just wasn't happening.

Look, black filmmakers were making films. Don't get me wrong. But what I'm saying is that in terms of movies that were black produced, that were on that top 10 list that people were talking about. Black Panther was filmed on his lot. Like, that's the level of, like,

success. Walking Dead is filmed on Tyler Perry's lot in Atlanta. Like, this, we're talking about a different lot. He owns his own studio. Okay? I'm not, it's not about, and so, and by the way, despite all of this,

I loved it this episode. And I can't wait to see what people think of this critique of Tom. The episode is so good. Yeah, yeah, I can't wait to see what people think. Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zepbound terseptide may be able to help. Zepbound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity

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I also want to ask you something really, really quick. Sure. Because there's another thematic thing that's happening in this. And I think it's the cost of rooting for everyone black. Because a character does say that in this episode, like, Rooin for Everything Black. And even if this version of Tyler Perry, Mr. Chocolate, is a con man, he's a con man that's making jobs for an entire city

and more importantly, for an entire segment of people who are generally shut out of Hollywood and the company isn't run well but I do think that there is an underlying that's why I'm saying like this is very mean of a critique but I do think that there is a level of like this episode

is trying to grapple with. Can you really root for everyone black as a black person? I think I think what Donald Glover wants us to do is root for everything good. Oh, that is, I mean,

do you remember, did you ever read the interview MAG interview where he got dunked on because he interviewed himself, but he was talking about, he was like telling Zendaya to basically to come to death

throw because he's just like, you've done all that euphoria shit, you've worked with motherfuckers like, come over here. I think Donald Glover is obsessed with pushing black art as far as can possibly go. And I think he is the type of person that I definitely fall into this camp where we host the Midnight Boys Together. You know I'm very critical of everything, not because I hate everything, but because I love this stuff so much. And if shit is mid, I'm going to call it mid. But I do think that, and I've learned this recently, that there is a barrier to that, especially when you're talking about things that other black people make. And that's not saying that we should treat black art with kid gloves. But I do think there is a level of conversation that we don't necessarily have in terms of like how hard it is to make anything successful as a black person, especially black art.

So I think what people want to do with black art is always keep in mind how hard it is to make it. And I think that has to do with everything black, right? So it's like,

why do we celebrate when like a the child of a single mother from Philly gets 15 scholarship offers at age 16. Why do we celebrate that? We celebrate that because that's not

supposed to happen like Heath said in the Dark Night that goes against the plan. It's not part of the plan. Okay? So we don't want to just talk about the fact that we're at Harvard. We want to talk about what it costs

for us to get there, like how hard it was. And we want you to understand that that hardship and that struggle is a part of our story. So the reason why we root for everything black is because they're black and because we're celebrating them, of course. But also we root for everything black because we feel intrinsically linked to their struggle. And we know that if they got here, they had to go through some bullshit, most likely that other people didn't have to go through. So we're rooting for them because we want the next person and the next person and the next person and the next person. So we no longer have to root for anyone for whatever reason other than the fact that we like their shit, even though I always root for them because.

they're black. And I think it's important to have art out there that litigates that. I'll ask you this. Does it make us worse critics as black consumers? Without a doubt. Like, without a doubt. I agree. In terms of like, there's the conversations we have that the tool of us can have behind

closed doors. And then there's the conversations that we have, for lack of a better term, in front of company. But the question ends up becoming, when we're talking about black people, We're talking about us. Is it more important to be good critics or good citizens? Is it more important to be to have what do we gain? Because look, in mainstream American society, criticism is its own art form.

You know, criticism is an art form in and of itself. Some people are able to deconstruct something and tell you why it's good or bad to a degree that, Jesus Christ, I didn't even look at it that way. Criticism. For us, is it as valuable? Is it as worthy? Is it as worth it? because that criticism oftentimes, like, sways people from either consuming something

or liking it themselves. And the question is, do we have enough creators out there to do it? I think the difference was years ago, maybe even when Atlanta started, we didn't, and we're starting to now. And I think that for us to hit the critical and cultural heights we want to hit, I think honest criticism is,

very important. I think it is. You know me. Yeah, yeah. I think honest criticism is very important. But remember, there's also a community that has a different set of standards for itself. Puff, Birdman, all of these guys, they get in trouble with ex-artists because they say, hey, we got jerked over and fucked over by these guys. And then they pull the community card and say, hey, these guys did this to us.

And they shouldn't be treating each other like that. Cool. You never hear about people talking about how shit went wrong with Jimmy Iveen, Clive Davis, all these other people that run these labels because they expect to get fucked by them. They expect to get fucked by the white people in charge. They don't expect that somebody that's from where they're from would do it to them. And I think that's the same thing with these movies and these shows and this other stuff.

They expect cultural loyalty because you're supposed to know, nigger, we're doing our best. and if I can make a dollar selling something, it don't matter. I think Atlanta has always, always pushed us to re-evaluate that. And I think now Donald is willing to be the villain, man. So I, and I will say this, because I'm the first person to jump out, be like, you know, as a community, we just got to stop celebrating the mid. but I do think that there is more nuance to this conversation. What I mean by that is like, I was watching this. It was a funny interview, but I was watching one of those Vanity Fair lie detectors with Tyler Perry.

And they asked if he ever read criticism of one of his first films. And he lied. And they're like, do you care about your criticism? He lies. And then he tells the truth. And he's like, yo, I don't care about criticism when it comes, like, I don't care about critics because they're not my audience. I make my content, my TV, my movies for a very, very specific audience. And when I heard him say that, I argue with my brother about this all the time.

And we try to litigate it. You've got to think about the type of people who are making, you know, get out, insecure, Atlanta. And this is no shots at them, but there's a certain type of black person, like highly, like highly educated, usually living on the coast, usually making movies and TV that even if they are for black people are getting consumed by a certain type of white person, somebody who's a coastal elite, someone who's like up on New York Times and all this shit. And I think like when I heard Tyler Perry talk about his audience, I'm like, there are millions of black Americans who need a Tyler Perry after they come. back from church, who to your point, just want comfort food, who like aren't going to turn

on Atlanta at the end of the day. That's not what they need for their soul. Tyler Perry found that in the same way I'm just like, like there's millions of white shows. Turn on CBS, Big Bang Theory, all this fucking shit, law and order that white people have. Tyler Perry was finding a niche that was not being served of millions of black Americans being I'm like, I just want something comfortable I can see myself in that's not insecure, not Atlanta, not these things that are a little bit more, for lack of a better term, for, yeah, highly educated people from the East Coast, West Coast who are you on Twitter all day? So it's important that people know the Tyler Perry story when we talk about art and what Atlanta is doing this episode. We didn't, in my household, my mom and them, my grandmother,

we didn't start watching Tyler Perry movies and shows when Tyler Perry started releasing things theatrical. We would go to, be it Buffalo Video or wherever you could get them, and rent the VHS's of the place. That was the first thing to get hot. Like, you would go and rent the plays themselves would come out on,

like, Medea and all of that stuff, I knew that way before. Way before that shit came on in the movies. That had been a thing. The deal with Lionsgate was a reaction to just how popular you couldn't keep the videos in stock.

Medea's family reunion, all of that stuff, you couldn't keep the videos in stock there. And so like, you would, like, I remember one time we went to Blockbuster, and Blockbuster didn't have him because it was like a, like a smaller company that was distributed. My grandmother was pissed.

Y'all ain't got no Tyler Perry in here? And so, and then he comes out, and he's a relatively young man when this happens, and the movies just go nuts. Everybody that rented that shit went to go see it. But you want to know what that says? That's accessibility. And when I'm saying that,

I'm not saying that dumb people like Tyler Perry movies. No, no, I'm not saying at all. I'm not saying that. No, I know you're not saying that either. I want to say, I'm talking about the, People who can access Tyler Perry movies to this day. Where do Tyler Perry TV shows live on BET? There are a bunch of people who might have a, like, share, like, cable on linear TV

who are in Middle America who are not, like, subscribe to HBO. It was TBS.T. But that's what I'm saying. Like, it's accessible. You can go to a video store. You can get it, even if it's selling out. Now, Tyler Perry is still feeding that consumer. I don't know if his consumer is somebody who's.

It's just like, all right, I'm up on industry and House of the Dragon. It's a different consumer. And those consumers do deserve to get served. I think Tyler Perry has moved. I think Tyler Perry has become the boss. The guy who is in this episode of Atlanta, he's become the boss. He's become a guy who can do whatever the fuck he wants to do. Because it don't matter whether or not you like his movies if Black Panther is shooting in his soundstage.

It doesn't matter whether or not you like his movies if Walking Dead is shooting in the soundstage. If there's a tax credit in Georgia that people can come to Georgia to shoot movies and Tyler Perry has an amazing studio. He's become something. He's become the factory. He's become something that a lot of black people don't get to become.

You get to design the clothes, but do you get to own the factory where the clothes are made? You know, different people have been, you know, talking about that. I'm not going to name the name again, but can you be the tip of the spear on that? And, you know, the question is,

how did you get there? and are we prepared for there to be another Tyler Perry? Or is what... Van essentially is in a Tyler Perry movie this entire time. We just don't realize it until the end. Wait, so can I talk to about that structure? Just real question, real quick. All the wackiness, all the crazy shit that happens,

it's very staccato, it doesn't make any sense. Her wig is bad. All of that stuff, like, she's essentially in one, but we don't even realize it. to the end and then we get back into the flow of what it is that we're doing. It's almost as if she went into the world. She evolved past it. She rejected it.

And now we get back to watching the show that we were watching before. So I think the actual brilliance of this episode is that metastructure. Because I started seeing it happen around the time she's talking to the costume, the old woman who's in charge of all the costumes. and what ends up happening with that structure to your point is that because this place that's in Atlanta, but is essentially its own country, is so different and so hostile to someone like Van, someone who believes that she is above this shit, it turns her into the Tyler Perry crazy mom archetype. You see, and what I want to ask you is how much of what Mr. Chocolate witnesses is a real reflection of black life or him seeking to find patterns to fit a narrative that he's been able to sell back to the black community? Because when he's watching Van, I don't think it's that Van is turning into a Tyler Perry figure mom so much. it's the fact that he thrust her into a situation

where that's all that could happen. And it's like a chicken in the egg, what happens first? Is the black community the way Mr. Chocolate envisions it? Or has he created a self-fulfilling prophecy? The more movies he creates, the more TV shows, the more successful he is, he keeps marketing essentially the worst. stereotypes of our people back to us? Fascinating question.

So I think you look at it two ways. Number one, everybody that works for him is so unbelievably indebted to him. There's an ex-con who probably wouldn't be working if not for Mr. Chocolate giving him the job, you know? You have hair people, you have makeup people. You have people that just are indebted to him. They revere him. and they're willing to do whatever they have to do because he is a way to go

like even when she says when the girl who is the stagehand says that she's never actually met him she's never met him but she talks to him every day see like those kids in those situations don't get to be in places where they have direct connection to the CEO like that was the thing about working at TMZ so you can say what you want about TMZ

I talked to the boss every day every day. And so I was able to prove my worth, like whatever, learn things, unlearn things, whatever. As a black person in an industry, you don't get that very much. You don't get that hardly any place.

So the fact that the proximity of him, he's so close to his community, Tyler Perry is, and Mr. Chocolate is. He's so close. I mean, he's still far away in the building where they can't quite get to him because they ain't no billionaires, but they hear his voice every day.

Like they go back and forth with them every day. like he's right there and it's real to them. But at the same time, like this world, it's crumbling. I mean, think about when Van walks into his office finally. It's not even a computer. It's not a typewriter.

It's a, the funniest thing is, he's banging on a piano, making all of these pages that make no sense. That was actually, like if we're talking about the cruelest part of this satire, is that that symbol, of seeing Mr. Chocolate guarded where

he doesn't want any other people any other black people to get near him, but in his godlike, I'm only talking to you through a PA system, he gets to tinker. And he gets to say, like, even if he's not

of the people anymore on the ground level, he still gets to control their lives in ways that make them crack. Like, think about the woman. And there's also an ost. going on there. Yeah. There's a Wizard of Oz thing that's happening in this entire deal to where there's a man

behind a curtain and he is talking to people. And when you get to him at the end, he's this broken, disheveled version of himself that doesn't understand the world around him. That doesn't get what's happening around him. That was the thing about Oz. When you saw Oz, Oz was doing all of it. of this. Os didn't know what was happening down there on the ground. Oz was up there trying to protect what he had.

And I just think that if, I mean, obviously it's our job to read too much into everything. But if any of these things ring true in the intent of the fantastic writer and the amazing director here of this fantastically entertaining, funny, Donald Glover directed this one. So this is, yeah. He has something to say, even though Janine Neighbors wrote the shit out. Love her. If any of this is as we're interpreting it, this isn't either. This is a moving disc track, a 30-minute scathing critique, in my opinion, of the career and current place and not just the ecosystem of film, but in culture of Tyler Perry.

Like, this is something that Van didn't want her child to be a part of. not somebody else is out there. She said no to her daughter doing this. So it's corrupting. And calls him a con man. Like I was just like, what the, and this is what I want to say. Atlanta being the messenger of this is hilarious to me. Why is that?

How can I turn? I like Atlanta. I love Atlanta. I think what Donald Glover and his team, Herald Marai, Stephen Glover, all these amazing, amazing talented writers and directors have built is just something that, like, I'm always in awe of. But if anyone,

if anyone knows the, the double-edged sword of the, quote-unquote, culture, a black culture, just these writers. I agree. You know what I'm saying? Like, you know what I'm saying? Like, Donald Glover has been this person. Donald Glover has been this person.

Just as much as Tyler Barry has been this person, where people are like, why do you, why do you treat black women in your shows this way? Why are you so enamored with white culture? Why do you always want, why do you compare your albums to fucking classics by white people? Why do you want whenever he's trying to say like Atlanta is going to be better than something? He says white shows like the Sopranos. People have attacked him for some of the same things that they go at Tyler Perry for, which I think actually lends itself to some of the Biden criticism. Because, like, who's the best person to critique someone else?

Someone else, like, not at the Tyler Perry level, but Donald Glover does hold that place of, like, you could change how black people are viewed on TV. And this is not how I'm thinking, but a lot of people think, like, you can change how black people are viewed on TV. Why aren't you doing more? And this is the same critique that they're having about Tyler Perry,

which is, like, it's funny because you're just, like, it's messy. Is anything I'm saying fucked up, dude? Bro, absolutely. Like, everything you're saying is awesome. Everything you're saying makes total sense. It's just, that's why you got to let your dick out sometimes, man. You do.

When you're making this stuff, you can't play nice. You got to let your private parts hang. You got to drop your nuts. I don't want to be. or normative here or sexist. So I don't know what ladies drop when it's time to get their shit on lead shake. Sometimes you just got to go for it. And I think this is an episode that doesn't get made in the first or second season.

This is the last season episode with this type of shit going on and with this and this type of send up. And, you know, it did this before when they really took on the movement. They took on Doree. They took on Sean Keene. They took on some people. It's a, it was fantastic. But isn't this what we celebrate, though, in terms of, like, when we look back on black comedy, the thing I will say is I feel like we've gotten way too nice, where it's just like we are so afraid of going against our own.

I'm like, yo, great art can't be made unless we're critical of this shit. Like, like, Tyler, like Tyler Perry will be fine. Tyler Perry's still a fucking millionaire. You know what I'm saying? Like, all these motherfuckers is going to be fine. Like, it's jokes. Like, if I'm Tyler Perry, I may not want to watch this one. But this shit is hilarious.

I do want to end on this note. Not a negative note, but I want to ask you, we're in the last season, and I think the last two van-centric episodes have been very, very strong. Yeah, really good. But do you feel that the show has always struggled to figure out where Van fits in the larger narrative?

Because if you think about it, It's literally four seasons of her. I think every single season she gets her own episode, which can be a stylistic indicator or can be like, yo, it's hard to really fit Van into a lot of the paperboy stories, but she needs something to do. This just can't be a bunch of dudes. And when I left this episode, I'm like, this is one of the funniest half hours of TV I've seen lately. But I was thinking about, because this is our last season, wondering, like, did they ever figure,

out what Van's role in the show was. No, because at first, they played with some relationship stuff with her and herne, which we never really got to the point to where we gave that much of a fuck about. It was interesting when they were going back, remember the episode where they go to, like, with the Leader Hosen place,

or it was October Fest or something, and shit goes left or whatever, but I just, they were never able to establish their connection as being something that Van and Earn could be together, Van and Earn could not be together. So then if she doesn't serve as like a his girl, which you don't want to be reductionist in a show like this that's so forward thinking and have the female lead just be Ern's girl, then the question is, how do you give Van her own situation? even this is still in proximity to him because this is really about her but also her daughter, their daughter, should I say. But it's also why is she doing this in the beginning?

Her big drive is she wants something of her own that is not attached to Erd. So this is still very much this black woman, her drive being trying to distance herself from a black man, which has been her drive for four seasons. I think we never really knew what she wanted. and we still haven't found out. And maybe in the next couple of episodes of the season, we'll find out what Van wants and what her future is going to be. But I wouldn't be surprised right now if,

what the way things are going, if they get on the rocket ship and blast off to Mars and start touring the galaxy, you just never know what kind of crazy shit is going to happen. It's just so funny. I ask you that question because it's like, I do think that this is where we run up towards, like how far does the critique or the satirization go?

Is that like this entire episode is interrogating how a Tyler Perry figure treats black women in his own shows and movies? And I think this episode left me with is like, great critique, great episode, hilarious to tell. Y'all had some points. But the own show that,

the show that we're in, still doesn't necessarily know how to censor it's black female characters. Still learning. And that's in that, I think it's fine. That's actually what I think is kind of the messiness that I kind of come to Atlanta for is just like, yeah, this is kind of like

the stuff that nobody wants to say out loud in terms of like, hey, it's not. We need more, we definitely need more black women because I'm just like, yeah, I don't know. I don't know. if this, I don't know if this Tyler Barry setup could be in any other show.

But I definitely, like, I'm like, maybe it should have been in another show. Maybe. Are any of your aunties, is your mom going to be pissed if she watches this? Nah. They love Donald too. See, the thing is,

is that we understand Donald. Like, and we understand that people are, like, Donald is the foil of Tyler Perry, he's the bizarre. He's his six-big chance, as my dad used to say, like his, his Donald's, Tyler's here. These are the spectrums. Tyler's here, Donald's here. Tyler inundates us with, with content.

Donald's very selective, almost reclusive with it. Tyler's front-facing in our face. Boom. All it is. Big-time capitalist. All of that. Not making any type of criticism. I'm just saying.

Donald is mysterious, aloof. away. You hardly see him. He won't talk about any of this stuff, you know. All of Tyler's content is, it's so scattershot that it's like you notice, it seems as if it's held together with ductate sometimes. Whereas in Atlanta, it seems like every single scene is individually manicured, not with the butcher knife. It's cut with the scalpel. It seems like it is. They're just really creative foils to one another. They're one guy's over here and one guy's over there.

But the important thing is, a true artistic community realizes that there's room enough for both of them. You're my Tyler Perry. I'm your Tyler Perry. I'm Tyler. You're Donald. I'm like, yo, let's go have some fun. You're like, fuck it. It's like, you know what?

This is my honestly, last, last, last question. Who you put your money on? If Tyler Perry grows up on Donald, be like, yo, catch his fate. Yeah. You ain't never been around Tyler before. That's a big-ass nigger. And that nigga from New Orleans? Donald, brother, bring some ass.

That's what they say down there, Louisiana. You got to bring ass to get ass. You better bring some ass. If Tyler get pissed off. Tyler, I don't remember what Tyler told fucking Spike Leader go to hell. I was talking about it was like, hey, the tail of the tape is bad for Spike. Big-ass, new-a-oldless nigga. And he'd be working out, Tyler Perry ain't no, Tile Perry ain't no hole.

Run up on him if you want. It's not going to come to that, but I'm just saying, man. Yo, everyone, this has been another episode of the Prestige TV podcast. Thank you to my own personal Tyler Perry, Van Lathen. Thank you to Kerm for producing us. Yo, we're going to be back next week for some Atlanta. Goodness. See y'all.

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