The 2008 TIME 100 Finalists

AGE: 39
OCCUPATION: Playwright, performer, writer-director, Madea
NUMBER OF TIME COVERS: 0
PREVIOUS APPEARANCES ON THE TIME 100: 0

PRO: Ever since Diary of a Mad Black Woman made nearly 10 times its budget, Hollywood hasn't been able to ignore Perry, whose wholesome, idiosyncratic adaptations of his popular road-shows continue to confound box-office prognosticators. (His latest, Meet the Browns, pummeled Judd Apatow's Drillbit Taylor.) Perry's his own cottage industry, the George Lucas of the modern African American experience. And his Madea character — a gun-toting, no-nonsense grandmother — has become iconic in her own right.

CON: You might not recognize him out of the granny drag. And detractors dismiss his movies as sentimental, unsophisticated hogwash.