Berry Gordy - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

• In the third episode of The Kids in The Hall Fran dreams about being taken to the Grammys by Barry Gordy.
• Gordy was portrayed by Billy Dee Williams (whose career Gordy had helped to jump-start in the 1970s) in the 1992 miniseries The Jacksons: An American Dream. He was also portrayed by Obba Babatunde in the 1998 miniseries The Temptations.
• The character Gordy Berry in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air is a reference to Berry Gordy.
• The character of Curtis Taylor, Jr., a music executive, in the 2006 musical film Dreamgirls has been called "a thinly veiled portrayal" of Gordy. The film was based on the 1981 musical Dreamgirls, but the film made the connection to Gordy and Motown much more explicit than the musical did, by, among other things, moving the setting of the story from Chicago to Detroit. Taylor appears in the film as unethical and insensitive to his artists, which caused Gordy and others to criticize the film after its release. Gordy called the portrayal "100% wrong," while Smokey Robinson said it "blatantly painted a negative picture of Motown and Berry Gordy and of the Supremes." In 2007, the producers of the film, DreamWorks and Paramount Pictures, issued a public apology to Gordy, saying they were sorry "for any confusion that has resulted from our fictional work." Gordy accepted the apology.
• In the 2007 film Talk to Me, Washington D.C. DJ Petey Greene accuses Gordy of being a pimp and hustler while on the radio, causing a negative reaction from both Motown's lawyers and Greene's bosses. When Greene is forced to apologize on air, he states that Gordy is no pimp, despite the fact that he takes young black musicians and then sends them out to earn Gordy more money through their performance skills — thus sarcastically praising Gordy as a good businessman despite his pimplike actions. While Greene's bosses remain angry, the predominantly black audience agrees with Greene and the radio station's ratings increase.
• In a 2011 episode of British television show, The X-Factor, judge Louis Walsh caused some controversy when he responded to a contestant's performance of "Dancing in the Street" with, "If Berry Gordy was alive, he'd sign you," unaware that Gordy was still alive.