Director/playwright Tyler Perry let his Madea side show on this upcoming Sunday’s edition of CBS 60 Minutes.
Tyler was reacting to director Spike Lee’s criticism of his coonish characters, who Lee calls “racial stereotypes.” Tyler counters that his characters are “bait – disarming, charming make you laugh, bait.”
Tyler argues that he uses his disarming bait to draw in whites who normally don’t know that these types of black people exist. At least I think that’s what he meant.
Tyler goes on to say, “I can slap Madea in something and talk about God, love, Faith, forgiveness, family,” all the qualitiess that Tyler feels whites should love about us, but they don’t know about unless he uses coons or some other stereotype to draw them in.
Sort of like what Chris Rock did with his documentary “Good Hair” to get white people into the theaters. By the way, “Good Hair” bombed at the box office.
Then Tyler loses track of the point he’s trying to make (maybe because it sounds so ludicrous?) so he goes on the attack, “That pisses me off!” he snaps. He tries to take another stab at making sense out of his response to what he knows is valid criticism.
He accuses his critics (Hollywood) of not making enough movies with coonish characters who speak to us.
Got that?
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