As the world slept overnight, Atlanta director and studio mogul Tyler Perry placed his fingers on the home row keys to address one of the greatest maladies currently plaguing the Earth: Kim Kardashian. In an email to fans, Perry has at last responded to the outrage over his casting of the 72-day bride/E! reality show fame whore who is currently divorcing NBA forward Kris Humphries after an exhausting 10-week marriage. All month Perry’s fans have taken to his Facebook and Twitter accounts to express their displeasure after he announced the casting of the rich white lady who assists the global economy by purchasing $10,000 designer shoes on camera in his new ironically titled comedy “The Marriage Counselor.”
“I could not have imagined I’d be getting all these emails about Kim Kardashian,” Perry writes to fans in an email sent at 12:29 AM Thursday. “I have seen them. You have been heard!” Perry goes on to explain that the idea to cast the inexplicably popular reality show fixture came well before her high-profile wedding and even higher-profile split from Humphries. In creating a film for younger fans, Perry says he went in search of a cast “young people are looking up to.” Of Kardashian, Perry writes: “She literally has millions of young people following her. I thought and still do think that it would be very responsible of her to be a part of this film. To have the young people that look up to her see her in a film that is about what happens in life when you make the wrong choices. If one of those young people see this film and find the strength to live a better life. . .then we have all done what I feel I’m being led to do here. I hope you understand I really do. I believe my films speak from the inside out. Why wouldn’t Kim Kardashian be invited into a film about faith, forgiveness and the healing power of God? What is wrong with that?”
In recent days, Perry’s fans have taken to Facebook to post increasingly negative comments about the casting. Writes Kimberly Dillard Starks: “Don’t lower yourself and degrade your next film by allowing Kim K to star in in. You’ll be viewed as a joke just like her and her family.” Fan Kevin D. Williams posted: “I will not support any more of your projects because of your association with Kim Kardashian.” Perry Facebook fan Lefty Lasley was succinct: “The Kardashian thing does not sit well.”
Perry potentially has a lot to lose since he owes his success (not to mention that lavish Buckhead estate) to grassroots fans who go to see each movie, each play and purchase each DVD of each play and each movie at the Walmart with an almost religious fervor. Another factor at play here: “The Marriage Counselor” is 100-percent Madea-free. Perry’s projects not requiring him to wear a dress and brandish firearms typically do less box office for him and his distributor Lionsgate. An all out boycott of one of his films could result in a first for Perry: One of his films actually losing money at the box office. Like his mentor Oprah Winfrey, the power of Perry’s brand rests with how his fans perceive him.
Still, the Atlanta director is keeping a sense of humor about fan outrage. In his email, he writes: “Y’all gave me a new movie title, ‘Tyler Perry’s Diary of a Mad Black Woman Cause You Hired Kim Kardashian, Don’t Make Me Take Off My Earrings and Boycott Yo A**.'” Meanwhile, editors at People, US Weekly and every other lower rung celebrity publication have dispatched dozens of scribblers and shutterbugs to the Atlanta area to document every single Kardashian sighting while she’s here filming this fall.
