The Tyler Perry and Spike Lee feaud picking up steam again. Perry had some choice words for lee at a recent press conference.
Via Huffington Post: Perry, in both a message on his website and a press conference to promote Madea’s Big Happy Family, hit out against Lee,who in 2009 said, among other things, that Perry’s films “harken back to ‘Amos n’ Andy’.” While Perry’s website message was vague and resilient, defending his work as both spiritually uplifting and fun, his words for Lee were blunt and harsh in the press conference.
“I’m so sick of hearing about damn Spike Lee,” Perry said during the press conference (via Box Office magazine). “Spike can go straight to hell! You can print that. I am sick of him talking about me, I am sick of him saying, ‘this is a coon, this is a buffoon.’ I am sick of him talking about black people going to see movies. This is what he said: ‘you vote by what you see,’ as if black people don’t know what they want to see.”
Perry’s films are consistent high performers at the box office; all independently financed, they’ve taken in over $520 million in ticket receipts over the past six years. He recently extended his deal with distributor Lionsgate, with whom he has worked since 2005. Lee was critical in spite of that success.
“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,” he said in ’09. “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?”
Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion. Perry is clearly showing that there is an audience for his films so the best thing for someone to do, if they don’t like his genre of movies, is to make films that represent the voices and characters that they want to see instead of complaining. Spike Lee hasn’t put out a movie in a few years, maybe it’s about that time.