Film Review: Straw is a Film that Provides Work for Nice Black Actors

With his summer Netflix film Straw, Tyler Perry proves once again that you don’t have to be a gifted screenplay writer to write a script that makes a lot of money. Straw follows the depressing story of the worst day of downtrodden grocery store clerk Janiyah Wiltkinson’s (Taraji P. Henson, Hustle and Flow) life. Of course, she’s a single mom in fear of losing her daughter, and in the course of this day, she loses her job, is accused of murder, and inadvertently ends up with the police thinking she’s trying to rob a bank because she’s trying to cash a check and doesn’t have ID. Straw is Tyler Perry Black trauma porn dialed up to one hundred and fifty percent. The movie is filled with Black actors who all need to make a paycheck. They have all learned the overabundance of redundant lines that Tyler Perry wrote for them to say, put on the wigs, makeup, and costumes he approved, hit their marks, followed his direction, and did the press tour to promote the film on Netflix. In exchange, many of these actors were paid on the SAG/AFTRA scale and earned money that counts toward their health insurance for this year. The leading performers were paid more, and in exchange, they went on the press tour, weaving this pig’s ear of a movie into their version of a silk purse.

Talk show host and ex-Jehovah’s Witness Sherri Shepherd plays Nicole, a character whom she renamed because Perry originally called her character “Henrietta, a bank teller who takes pity on Janiyah and shows her some compassion. Then there’s a bunch of cops, including Detective Kay Raymond (Teyana Taylor, One Battle After Another), who bumble around creating the central conflict of the film in broad strokes. Their bad actions allow Detective Kay to be the good Black female cop who tries to help the movie’s victim.

Watching these Tyler Perry films is its own kind of hell. I see Black female actors who want to make a living doing their craft and will do anything to get that paycheck. Witnessing them shove their spirits into these kinds of roles in these terrible movies makes me not want to watch them in anything. It happens with white female actors as well, I’m looking at you, Glenn Close. If this kind of minstrelsy is what you have to do to make a living, I guess all the Tyler Perry minstrel shows are more palatable to the public than the ones that white folks make. Tyler Perry has clearly stated who he makes his films for. Mr. Perry is a trusted personality in conservative Christian Black communities where larger-sized, skinned Black women of a certain age are okay with being the butt of every joke because they don’t think that the joke is about them.

When I watch these stories, I know the joke is on me, and I feel depressed after watching every single Tyler Perry project I’ve had to watch. Over and over in the industry, I hear Black actors say that they work with Tyler Perry because he pays them more than anyone else. Some even say they pay them their worth. That just makes me really sad because is what ends up on screen worth being the representation that will be out in the world for eternity? I don’t watch Black trauma porn, and after watching Straw, an over two-hour-long slog, I had to take a mini vacation. I think Straw may be the worst Tyler Perry film ever made. That’s not saying much. But hey, he’s a wealthy Black man in America, so I guess that’s all that matters to most folks.

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Straw is Rotten 0 out of 5 tomatoes.