The story of World War II’s only Women’s Army Corps unit of color is revealed in Director Tyler Perry’s historical drama, The Six Triple Eight.
Inspired by the real-life story of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, an all-Black, all-female unit, Perry’s film recounts how these 855 women joined the war to fix a three-year backlog of undelivered mail for U.S. service members in England and France. Faced with discrimination and a country devastated by war, they managed to sort more than 17 million pieces of mail ahead of time.
On December 15, after the DGA membership screening in New York, Perry discussed the making of The Six Triple Eight during a Q&A moderated by Director J. C. Chandor (Kraven the Hunter).
During the conversation, Perry revealed why he opted to open the film with visuals of the horrors of the war.
“It was very important for me, if I’m gonna do a movie about World War II, I’m gonna open with some of the horrors of what was happening. The whole beginning is silent as far as there’s no dialogue in it. But you take that ride as you walk through what was going on in the world at the time. I wanted to get a sense of what that letter meant and why he would even take it out of Abram’s chest and hold on to it because that meant I needed to tell somebody ‘I love you.’ That meant I needed to tell somebody ‘I made it.’ That meant something to someone so that’s why it was so important.”
He also spoke about the historical significance of the film.
“There’s so much history that is being ignored that I think that — if we really lean into all our history not just some parts of it — we would have a better example and a better quilt of who we all are.”
Some of Perry’s more recent directorial credits include the feature films Tyler Perry’s Divorce in the Black, Mea Culpa, Tyler Perry’s A Madea Homecoming and A Madea Family Funeral; the movie for television Madea’s Farewell Play; and episodes of The Oval, Ruthless, Sistas, All the Queen’s Men, The Haves and the Have Nots and House of Payne. He won the 2023 Humanitas Prize for his feature, A Jazzman’s Blues, and in 2015 he was recognized with the DGA Honor.
Perry has been a DGA member since 2005.