Why the Black Box Office Continues to Shock White Pundits and Scorn Snobby Critics?

My regularly scheduled coverage of the competitive awards season is interrupted because the Entertainment Industry is dumbfounded that black people go to the movies. To the shock of the industry, Best Man Holiday grossed $30 million over the weekend almost eclipsing Thor 2 on its second weekend. Once again, the industry was caught off guard with the success of a movie they didn’t fully embrace nor hype. It was the only wide release of the weekend in the middle of the Holiday movie season and it still managed to be ignored. When Think Like a Man opened, it found success between a Hunger Games movie and a Marvel superhero one. Best Man Holiday opened between Thor 2 and Catching Fire. Wake up, Hollywood! In an industry obsessed with finding the next big thing, they tend to neglect movies that aren’t for young, white males.

Yes, most people enjoy going to the movies, yet Hollywood seems to forget that various demographics attend movies as well. From the success of Twilight and Hunger Games to Sex and the City and Bridesmaids, they just recently figured out that women like to see movies, too. With boys at times an inconsistent and unreliable source of revenue distracted from video games and televised sporting events, the industry needs to invest their time, money, and creative energy beyond the coveted young white male demo. Before Hollywood can cater to the rapidly emerging Latino market, they need to remind themselves that the African American community is an underserved market that just won’t settle for any movie with an all-black cast (as Baggage Claim reminds us). A rare A+ CinemaScore makes the success of Best Man Holiday more legitmate. Keep in mind the movies that have earned that high of a rating this year all appealed to minorities (42, Instructions Not Included, and now Best Man Holiday). With the success of Best Man Holiday, the industry went nuts including when USA Today tweeted the movie was “race-themed.” The Butler and Remember the Titans were race themed, not this romantic comedy.  How many movies catered toward minorities and women have to “under-perform” for Hollywood to notice? This is getting old.

As this audience becomes a more significant force, critical observations will be made and a backlash will fester. A huge movie critic pet peeve of mine was once again on full display when The Best Man Holiday opened. It is ridiculous when white, left leaning, urban movie critics who are lazy by dismissing a movie with an all African American cast as “a Tyler Perry movie.” The Best Man Holiday is the sequel to 1999’s The Best Man (at a time when Tyler Perry wasn’t making movies) is being compared to Mr. Perry’s shtick by a few critics…primarily because everyone in the movie is black. This isn’t amusing and it comes across as condescending and even with a tinge of racism if not foolish form.

Let’s take a look at the some of the puzzling highlights via Rotten Tomatoes regarding what movie critics had to say about Best Man Holiday.

“Soapy and seasonal – perhaps Seth MacFarlane put it best when he dubbed this ‘Love Blacktually.’” –Susan Granger, SSG Syndicate

“All over the map, zipping from melodrama to slapstick with unnerving speed, finding the production trying to come across as a Tyler Perry knockoff, complete with Christian influences, broad antics, and unreasonable conflicts.” Brian Orndorf Blu-ray.com

“The sexism isn’t quite as noxious as one might find in Tyler Perry’s films, but that’s as far as the compliments go when it comes to this overextended and deeply crude sermon.” –Chris Cabin, Slant Magazine

The review from Chris Cabin faced the scorn of some righteously angry commenter accusing him of racism. The irony of movie critics comparing Malcolm Lee to Tyler Perry exposes their vast ignorance because the director criticized Tyler Perry a few years ago and anyone who follows African American film directors know that his outspoken cousin Spike Lee HATES Mr. Perry. In fact, the only thing these directors have in common would be their race and they work behind the camera. And this brings to light the lack of understanding of black filmmakers among white critics. Would any legitimate movies critic compare Michael Bay to Quentin Tarantino? No! But aligning the slapstick, one dimensional, superficial stereotypes of a Madea movie as identical to the serious themes of faith, love, terminal illness with rich characters featured in Best Man Holiday is a poor judgment of film critiquing.

I know this isn’t new that movie bloggers and pundits are disconnected from the realities of how audiences view a movie and not to mention how they cannot articulate what is unfamiliar to them. If they are so esteemed in their profession, maybe they should broaden their horizons and understand that not all African American movies are the same. This reactionary mentality makes them look foolish. Imagine if a Soul Food sequel would be trashed by a critics for being “too Tyler Perry.” Good thing there were enough white people in 12 Years A Slave, otherwise some of these cynics could dismiss Steve McQueen’s movie in a negative review as Tyler Perry’s Passion of a Slave. The ignorance and insensitivity of some critics toward race relations seems to be outdone with every all-star African American movie that comes out.

This goes back to the naive industry not making enough movies for different demographics. Maybe if this industry begins to embrace diversity, then critics would be so used to seeing a diverse cast and just make an odd, inaccurate connection. As I have said once before, critics who loop all African American movies together is the true testament to the lack of diversity Hollywood needs to overcome in order to reach a broader market. This is a cyclical issue that the industry must own up to fixing. There seems to be a glimmer of hope considering two movies with an all-black cast (one is Black Nativity, the other an actual Tyler Perry movie) open within the month which is rare. Maybe in a few years, this “teachable moment” will be embraced within Hollywood.