Tyler Perry’s ‘Madea’ character has brought the writer and director a lot of notoriety and success. However, Perry has been the subject of criticism, especially from Spike Lee. The ‘Do The Right Thing’ director once referred to Perry’s ‘Madea’ movies as “coonery buffoonery” at one point. Now, Perry has addressed the comments once made by Lee.
While on the ‘Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace’ show on HBO, Perry was asked about his work and if he thought the work was tied to negative stereotypes of black women and men. Perry said, “There's a certain part of our society, especially Black people in the in the culture that…they look down on certain things within the culture. For me, I love the movies that I've done because they are the people that I grew up with that I represent, and they, like, my mother would take me in the projects with her on the weekends, she played cards with these women.”
In one part of the interview, Perry expressed that he felt uncomfortable playing the character and said, “here’s the thing, the audience won’t let her go. Like even the last time I did it, I said I’m out, I’m not doing it anymore. And then the world goes upside down, we have a president and a new president. So I wanted to make people laugh.” He continued saying, “So I said what do I have? Pull her out, put the movie on Netflix. It’s number one everywhere. (Yes, it’s great) But the minute people stop coming to see her, that old broad is dead. She’s dead, for sure.” Watch above.
source: Yahoo
