As I was watching the season premier of the HBO series “Treme”, I was turned –on to the conversation that Delmond Lambreaux was having with two people from New York City after his performance for a fundraiser. They were literally calling New Orleans music more of a minstrel show than other cities and Delmond just literally blew-up in front of his girlfriend. This was the trigger point to this post. Many people in the south have a culture experience that cannot be trace before the pre-Civil War days due to slavery. So if you are from the South and think you have ancestry that you can link from the days of Africa, you were either 1) born in Africa, 2) grandparents were immigrants of Africa after the Civil War, or 3) Is just in denial. So when I heard about this Tyler Perry - Spike Lee Debacle, I sat on it for a minute to chime on the issue before posting my thoughts. Here is the rundown in short about this.
Tyler Perry is a producer who has done numerous plays all across small city America (aka The Chittlin Circuit) and ended up becoming a producer of many films that are based at-times from his alter ego, Pistol packing, funny Mabel Simmons aka Madea. All the time he based his films and TV series through Southern culture and God-based issues. Spike is also a filmmaker known for his ground-breaking films such as “Do the Right Thing,” “X,” and “Jungle Fever.” During Tyler Perry career height - success with Meet the Browns and House of Payne, Spike Lee said this:
Then Tyler Perry said this:
But after having it echoed by critics and Spike Lee himself again, He just let loose saying this
I have really seen everything in newspaper trying to pit this out as Spike Lee’s “Black people, we have fight the power.” To Perry “This is what you see in our household.” I am really going to just put it out there to what this beef is really saying, An mis-identity of regional culture
What I have learned about people of all races is that you can talk about what is going on amongst yourself but you never put your business out there in the street. Black people have been a victim of that for a long time even before Dubois vs. Washington, Malcolm vs. Martin, even JayElectronica vs. RZA. I have said that northern black people culture differs from Southern black people culture, but northern black thinks they know about the southern black culture just because they went to three cities or towns under the North Carolina border (mainly Atlanta, New Orleans, one of Texas Big three, etc.) Reality is the southern culture is an experience and Tyler Perry has tap into that whether you are white, black, or any other race. For a person who really thinks that Tyler Perry do not speak for all Southern black men and women, I can tell you that he is telling these synopsis the way is it percieved in life. Most of what Perry's film come from is an upbringing that every southerner either experienced, challenges that every southerner has faced, or the way of the southerner world from the inside looking out or vice versa. Spike Lee did something that Northern blacks failed to realize. He and other African American who feel like “Black people are not like this,” criticize the experience that Tyler Perry have seen throughout his life whether it is work, art, or even life. Maybe nobody in the north know an Aunt Bam in their family, but ask anybody in the south about Uncle Curtis from the “House of Payne” and any black that is not near having their nose turned up will tell you that they have one. So Tyler Perry is dealing with a southern experience which is cool and Spike Lee deals with the northern experience. I believe that is the way it should be. Honestly, do we stereotype every Italians acting like members of Jersey Shore or the Sopranos, every Jewish person to act like Seinfeld, or even every Asian person to act like Jackie Chan? We shouldn't stereotype our own because of the culture differences because people see that and they believe, "Hey if they can do it to their own, why can't we?"
..And for the person who would say “Well, Spike did When the Levees Broke in New Orleans,” I have one word from the Tyler Perry experience, Precious.
~Stay hungry my friends
SA
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