HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Spike Lee appears to have a new target in Tyler Perry after making several controversial comments about Perry’s television and film work.
During an interview with Ed Gordon on Our World with Black Enterprise, Lee dismissed Perry’s TBS sitcoms Meet the Browns and House of Payne as “coonery” and “buffoonery.”
“Each artist should be allowed to pursue their artistic endeavors but I still think there is a lot of stuff out today that is coonery and buffoonery,” said Lee. “I know it’s making a lot of money and breaking records, but we can do better. … I am a huge basketball fan, and when I watch the games on TNT, I see these two ads for these two shows (Tyler Perry’s Meet the Browns and House of Payne) and I am scratching my head. … We got a Black president and we going back to Mantan Moreland and Sleep ‘n’ Eat?”
“We’ve had this discussion back and forth. When John Singleton [made Boyz in the Hood], people came out to see it. But when he did Rosewood, nobody showed up. So a lot of this is on us! You vote with your pocketbook, your wallet. You vote with your time sitting in front of the idiot box, and [Tyler Perry] has a huge audience. We shouldn’t think that Tyler Perry is going to make the same film that I am going to make, or that John Singleton or my cousin Malcolm Lee [would make]. As African Americans, we’re not one monolithic group so there is room for all of that. But at the same time, for me, the imaging is troubling and it harkens back to Amos n’ Andy.”
Lee has previously engaged in several beefs around Hollywood, including one last year in which he accused Clint Eastwood of overlooking black soldiers in the films Flags of Our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima.
Watch Spike Lee’s comments about Tyler Perry:
