Tyler Perry on Who Madea Represents: “Madea is a character who was around on every corner 20, 30 years ago. Now she's extinct, especially in the African-American family, even though a lot of people can relate to her. No matter what race, you know somebody like this character, I truly believe that. But what she represents was the protection of the family. If it takes a village to raise a child, then she was the head of the village, back in the day. But now grandmothers are much younger.”
Perry said the decision to play Madea was a difficult one. “If I had known this was gonna become a runaway train, I probably never would have put that dress on, man, I'm telling you. Watching Martin Lawrence and Eddie Murphy... because I'd done the character Joe for a year in a play and it was pretty successful and I didn't want to do Joe again. I wanted to flip it. Then there's Madea. I said, 'OK, I'll do a woman character.' I thought about my aunt and my mother and they're within themselves hilarious, but Madea is the PG version of what they are, believe it or not.”
Tyler Perry on the Success of “Diary of a Mad Black Woman:” Perry said he wasn’t surprised by the success, he was thankful. “Being on tour all over the country, you see all of these people and they say, 'We're going, Tyler. We're going to support you. We're going to support you.' And then they go so I was grateful. I knew they were there, but to have them go was a whole 'nother thing. I was grateful. I was so thankful to God for that to happen.”
Tyler Perry Describes His Work: “It's schizophrenic. That's how I describe it. It's all over the place, man. It's joy, it's happy, it's sad, it's everything. It's just an emotional roller coaster, you know? Even the plays themselves, you come to see them and it's like a stand-up comedic routine. I'm breaking the wall. I'm talking to the audience. It's theater. It's some of everything. It's concert.”
Tyler said the success of “Diary of a Mad Black Woman” has changed the audience at his plays. “We're still at capacity. You know what has changed is the dynamic of the audience. I'm seeing more non-black people represented in the audience. I can see it from the stage. It's really amazing, since the movie's been out I can look out in the audience and see 30 percent of people who are not black and that's pretty amazing, especially in a lot of Southern cities.
I've always said, even from Day One, I said, 'This is universal. This stuff is universal. Everyone can relate to love, hurt, pain, learning how to forgive, needing to get over, needing the power of God in their life.' No matter what your race, you can relate to these things and I've always said that and I tried to stay true to where I was with that. I've always felt that if people ever gave it a chance who weren't black, that they would find that and that's what I'm seeing.”
Tyler Perry Analyzes His Audience: “You know, this theater audience, I think somebody should really do an in-depth story on this audience because it is a huge, huge audience of just hard-working people who have supported for years the genre of theater that I do. They go to movies and they support movies, but I think the main reason there is so much support of it is because of the subject matter. People want to see positive messages or things that leave you feeling better, rather than leaving you heavy and in dark places.”
Tyler Perry on People Who Just Don’t Get It: “I don't know if it's necessarily about critics or just people in general. There's such a disconnect in this country. There's such a just, everybody has their own life and their own world and everybody's in their own compartment. Nobody's crossing or peeking to see what's over on the other side or in the other areas.
I think the main reason that people don't get it is because they don't understand what this character represents, this Madea character represents, what these movies or shows or plays of mine represent. I'm so used to the mediocre reviews or the terrible reviews, when I see a good one - which I don't read or pay attention to - when I hear about it, I'm really surprised, because I expect people not to get it. I really do."
