‘Barbershop’ Controversy Surprises Cube & Filmmakers

The Chicago Sun-Times reports the controversy over ‘Barbershop’ has caught filmmakers George Tillman Jr. and Robert Teitel completely by surprise. The film was screened for quite a large number of African-American audiences, so Rev. Jesse Jackson’s furor over politically incorrect comments about civil rights icons Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. made by Cedric the Entertainer’s character didn’t seem to be justified. For his part, Ice Cube has said, “People are making too much of it. It’s just a funny movie about a barbershop, and no one is exempt [from comment] at the barbershop. Just because we talk about people doesn’t mean we don’t love these people, too.”