BY OLUWATIMILEHIN DAMOLA
Tyler Perry’s ‘Straw,‘ which premiered on Netflix on June 6, 2025, stars Taraji P. Henson as Janiyah, a single mother pushed to the edge by a broken system.
Known for her powerful portrayals of resilient yet vulnerable black women, Henson doesn’t just act; she becomes Janiyah, transforming the character from a struggling parent into a shattered soul laid bare for the audience. What begins as an ordinary day — Janiyah cashing a check to cover her sick daughter Aria’s mounting hospital bills — spirals into a harrowing hostage situation, exposing the brutal realities of poverty, systemic neglect, and a mother’s unraveling psyche.
Using Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding model, this analysis explores how Straw’s emotional core resonates, or clashes, with different audiences.
Encoding: The Intended Message
Stuart Hall claims that there is a certain way a writer or, in this case, filmmaker wants the audience to interpret a message, and so he structures (encodes) it in the way he wants it to be perceived, but of course, the audience would interpret it in different ways. From inception, Tyler Perry encodes Straw with raw emotion that mirrors Janiyah’s inner battles. He employs the use of visuals like dim color palletes, chaotic montages, the eviction notice, the financial constraints, all communicating a single message: abject poverty that kills dreams. The film is structured to evoke a feeling of sympathy for the main characters and anger at how the system failed Janiyah through scenes like the moment she discovers an eviction notice or is humiliated at the bank loudly placing her as a victim of a myriad of circumstances.
Decoding: The Audience Response
According to Hall, once encoded, a message travels to the audience, and depending on their belief, experiences, and opinions, they can choose to accept, negotiate, or reject it. In the dominant-hegemonic reading, viewers will likely feel pity for Janiyah’s situation, her actions become justified when seen through the lens of maternal sacrifice and injustice in the health and welfare system. Empirical data support her portrayal: Black single mothers in the U.S. (nearly 50% of single mothers are Black) face excessive economic and health burdens, perfectly mirroring Janiyah’s situation in the movie. As a result, the movie will be accepted by the viewers as an emotional drama with a tragic ending.
However, some audiences might adopt a negotiated reading, which involves justifying a part of the movie and criticizing the latter part. This makes room for understanding Janiyah’s pain, but questions the reason for the extremity of some of her actions, especially the murder of her boss and taking people hostage. Critics who adopt this stance are not fully convinced, yet not fully against the encoded message, acknowledging empathy yet questioning bizarreness.
Some may take an oppositional reading, criticizing the film for its narrative betrayal and lack of authenticity. The major plot twist, the fact that Aria died the night before, and Janiyah’s actions were more of a psychotic state of denial rather than a desperate act of sacrifice, can be termed as manipulative and overly dramatic. According to the Journal of Psychiatric Research, films that use mental illness as a poetic device often increase stigmatization of people who live with actual disorders dissociation, depression, and schizophrenia (Stout et al., 2020). Ultimately, Straw is seen as a film that uses actual challenges for popularity. These viewers reject Perry’s encoded intention and instead see the film as an intentional act to mock such challenges instead of treating them with subtlety and dignity.
Conclusion: Embracing Multiplicity
Finally, through Hall’s theory, Straw portrays black single mothers as victims of a dormant system, while influencing varied decodings influenced by each viewer’s perspective. Whether decoded with a dominant, negotiated, or oppositional lens as a just movie, psychological cautionary tale, or dramatic melodrama, respectively, Straw succeeds in driving critical engagement. In the end, Straw is a movie that asks: When a mother breaks, are we listening or just watching?
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