Jamie Foxx: Spike Lee's Django Unchained Digs Are "Irresponsible"
Jamie Foxx
Jamie Foxx is firing back at Spike Lee for calling his film Django Unchained disrespectful to his ancestors.
"The question for me is: Where's Spike Lee coming from?" Foxx said to London's The Guardian. "He didn't like Whoopi Goldberg, he doesn't like Tyler Perry, he doesn't like anybody, I think he's sort of run his course. I mean, I respect Spike; he's a fantastic director. But he gets a little shady when he's taking shots at his colleagues without looking at the work. To me, that's irresponsible."
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Last month, Lee told VibeTV he wasn't going to see the Quentin Tarantino-directed film about a former slave (Foxx) who becomes allies with a German bounty hunter (Christoph Waltz), as they try to rescue Django's wife (Kerry Washington) from a ruthless plantation owner (Leonardo DiCaprio). The movie has already made $129 million since opening Christmas Day, making it Tarantino's highest-grossing film.
"All I'm going to say is that it's disrespectful to my ancestors to see that film," Lee said. "I can't disrespect my ancestors. That's just me. ... I'm not speaking on behalf of anybody else."
Foxx says that just because Tarantino is a white man making a film about black history, that doesn't mean he can't do it accurately.
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"You got to look at the individual cases," he said. "When Pat Boone covered Little Richard, you think, 'Huh?', he's got no affinity for it. Good Golly Miss Molly? I don't think so. But you can't tell me that Eminem ain't hot] he's white or that Elvis Presley isn't a bad motherf-----, or that Quentin Tarantino can't do whatever he likes, [because] damn straight he can."
And if there are parts of the film that make audiences angry, Foxx has three words to say: "They're supposed to."