When it comes to Back women and racial stereotypes actor Brian White says you can most certainly believe the hype...
From Hello Beautiful
What is your insight on the Spike Lee vs. Tyler Perry beef? Why do you think people hate Tyler Perry so much?
Because Tyler holds a mirror up to people. Stereotypes are not stereotypes today. The most popular character [in, Why Did I Get Married?], and it’s not the one that Tyler picked as the most popular, is Tasha! You have Janet Jackson and Jill Scott; my point is Jill Scott and Janet are huge music stars with huge fan bases, Tasha became the most popular because her character is portrayed the most like “Love & Hip Hop” the most like, “Desperate Housewives of Atlanta,” [we think he means "Housewives Of Atlanta] you might as well switch it around and pop in Nene [Leaks]. [Tasha Smith] is brilliant, she’s nothing like the character, she’s just portraying what she sees in society, magnified.[sic]
And people get mad and say that’s not us. Yes it is, turn on “Love & Hip Hop” and turn on “Desperate Housewives Of Atlanta” those are “reality shows.” You can’t call something reality then get mad when it shows up in the movies as reality but that’s what we’re doing. That’s where the cycle continues. They don’t do that in Africa, they don’t do that in France; they don’t connect with that message. What’s interesting is we, here, in America connect with that message and get upset at it. That’s what Tyler sees. If you look at Spike, what is his most successful movie ever? successful defined by how much money it made versus how much it cost to make. “Inside Man” and the stars were Clive Owens, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Denzel Washington and Jodi Foster… Four huge actors, two white, one known–Denzel and then another amazing British actor people don’t know here. That is not the type of film that Spike necessarily wants to focus on, right? So what makes money isn’t what Spike makes, so it’s upsetting and frustrating–I would assume. But, what Tyler makes, does make money…$500 million worth of money.
