Tyler Perry Is Receiving Backlash After He Called Critics Of His Films "Highbrow" And Used An Outdated Term To Describe Black People

Tyler Perry is a legendary filmmaker and playwright, from his first play, I Can Do Bad All by Myself (1999), to all his subsequent stage plays, dozens of film adaptations, original movies, and projects across film and television.

If he isn't known for his portrayal of the gun-toting grandma Madea, then he's celebrated for his groundbreaking work in, particularly, Black cinema, and his 330-acre Tyler Perry Studios, one of the largest film studios in the nation.

However, his films have received a lot of criticism for their negative or offensive portrayals of Black people, and Tyler had words (probably not the best ones) for those naysayers.

Criticism of his work even reached pop culture . Infamously, the episode "Pause" of the third season of The Boondocks had a character named Winston Jerome, who was a controversial playwright and director, who was a parody of Tyler and Madea.

The episode "Work Ethic!" of the fourth season of Atlanta featured Chocolate Land, a TV studio run by a mysterious character named Mr. Chocolate, who exploits negative tropes for his TV shows.

On an episode of the Baby, This Is Keke Palmer podcast, Tyler said, “For everyone who is a critic, I have thousands of — used to be — emails from people saying: ‘This changed my life. Oh, my God, you know me. Oh, my God, you saw me. How did you know this about my life and my family?’ So that is what is important.”

“If you let somebody talk you out of a place that God has put you in, you are going to find yourself in hell.”

“We’re talking [about] a large portion of my fans who are disenfranchised, who cannot get in the Volvo and go to therapy on the weekend,” Tyler said. “So you’ve got this highbrow Negro who is all up in the air with his nose up looking at everything, and then you’ve got people like where I come from, and me, who are grinders, who really know what it’s like, whose mothers were caregivers for white kids, and were maids and housekeepers.”

Tyler's comments, especially the "highbrow" statement from the interview, went viral, and people were unhappy about it. Here are some of the reactions:

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Watch Tyler Perry's interview on Baby, This Is Keke Palmer here .