Tyler Perry Calls Out 'Highbrow Negro' For Criticizing His Movies | TMZ Live
Tyler Perry's not letting anyone tell him which stories matter ... firing off a few shots at "highbrow negroes" ... who think only certain Black stories should be told.
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00:00For almost as long as Tyler Perry has been making movies, there have been people who
00:04have been pretty loudly criticizing him for some of his creative choices.
00:09Tyler Perry movies aren't for everyone, but the people who don't like them, they're getting
00:15louder and in fact, he's reacting really to his latest movie, Divorce in the Black, which
00:21if you hadn't heard on Rotten Tomatoes, the critics gave it zero, which set off all sorts
00:27of discussions in Hollywood where the audience scored 75%, which is Tyler's point exactly.
00:34Now some actors actually came out when that news came out about the zero percent and they
00:39kind of jumped on board with it and said, listen, Tyler, we love you, but you know,
00:44why don't you make something a little different?
00:45Why do you, why are you doing all the writing?
00:48It was really interesting to see people actually put their names to it and criticize him.
00:52Well, he is now firing back at them in a big way.
00:56He thinks he understands exactly what's going on here.
00:59He was on Kiki Palmer's podcast and he did not mince words at all.
01:06Here's what he has to say to his critics.
01:07For everyone who is a critic, I have thousands of, of used to be emails from people saying
01:15this changed my life.
01:16Oh my God, you know me.
01:17Oh my God, you saw me.
01:18How did you know this about my life, my family?
01:21So, so that is what is important.
01:23We're talking a large, a large portion of my fans who are disenfranchised, who, who,
01:27who cannot get in the Volvo and go to therapy on the weekend.
01:31So you've got this highbrow Negro who is all up in the air with his nose up and looking
01:35at everything.
01:36And then you've got people like where I come from and me who are grinders who really know
01:40what it's like, whose mothers and were caregivers for white kids and were maids and housekeepers
01:46and all of these beauticians that don't, don't discount these people and say that their story
01:51don't matter.
01:52It's important for you to be able to say which black story is important or should be told.
01:56Get out of here with that.
01:57I want to ask you something.
01:58Boy, that was, you could tell that was bubbling up in there.
02:01He wanted to get that out.
02:02Probably for years.
02:03Yes.
02:04But I think he has a real point because it's almost like, you know, within certain communities,
02:08I mean the gay community, I think to some extent it's like this, the black community,
02:13my understanding is there's this pressure sometimes that everybody's got to fall in
02:17line.
02:18I mean, we talked about yesterday, Joey Reid talking about any black person who votes for
02:21Trump is just insane, right?
02:23And so carrying that forward to this, I mean, isn't that kind of the same thing that people
02:30are saying to Tyler that you've got to fall into line and conformity with what we want?
02:36No, I don't think that's what they're saying.
02:38The conversation is halfway divided.
02:40There's a lot of people pointing out, why should he change his, his stick?
02:43If this is what he does and it works for him, it works for him.
02:45You guys continuously watch Lifetime movies or Hallmark movies every Christmas and they're
02:49all the same and no one complains about that.
02:52But on the other voice, on the other side, people are saying that the stories that he
02:55tells have just become so repetitive and oftentimes they're, they're trauma based.
03:00So they're just saying when it comes to the black community, they want to see other storylines
03:04that Tyler Perry can put out that are less trauma based.
03:08They want more nuances.
03:09You know, they're just saying that, can you just broaden the storylines up?
03:12Because we, we often see the single mom, the one that he didn't.
03:16He's saying he's speaking to a group of people that don't have a voice.
03:21And he still hears from those people that they like the movies and they're the 75% on
03:25Rotten Tomatoes of the audience saying they like it and that's who he's making these movies
03:29for, right?
03:30I did an episode of Objectified with him and we had talked at length about his history,
03:37about his homelessness, how he slept in his car and how it affected him in terms of the
03:43choices he makes when it comes to art.
03:46And you know, I think this is Tyler Perry's life and he's honoring that by, you know,
03:54looking at the people.
03:55And he doesn't make films for that audience.
03:57Who is going to.
03:58Who is.
03:59Yeah.
04:00Hi, I'm Alexis from Atlanta and I do like some of Tyler Perry's older work, but I do
04:04think that the criticism is valid.
04:06Calling some of the audience highbrow Negroes is ridiculous and I feel like we have not
04:11seen any evolution in the storylines, the plots or the wigs.
04:15He pays the actors great, but there are more stories from black people that need to be
04:19told and that's what we're asking for.
04:22If he wants his legacy to be attached to equality, he needs to make that change and hire more
04:26black writers.
04:27You're never going to make everybody happy.
04:29That's the truth.