I have a new(I only started it last year) tradition of watching something historical during Black History Month. Last year I watched The Long Song, a three-part miniseries based on a book about a slave named July and her life in Jamaica. Now I tend to avoid black historical films and shows because I find them utterly depressing. Because very rarely do they end well and even when they do the journey to the ending is rife with tragedy. I much prefer reading about the historical moments than watching a reenactment.
But why did I watch The Color Purple? Well I was at work and needed to kill time so I decided to watch a movie and I knew I’d never actually sit down and watch this film in my free time so I decided to do it then. And being black I felt like this was one of the movies I was “supposed” to see but growing up my parents never had it and we never watched it on TV so it just fell by the wayside.
Going into this movie I knew a few things: I knew there was a scene where Danny Glover chases after Whoopi Goldberg and tells her that she’ll be back, I knew there would be a scene where a man is separating two women and kicking one of them out and lastly, I knew this film was depressing. I’ve heard people say it was a good movie but no one ever said it was funny or joyous.
The movie starts off with two girls having fun but it turns out one of them is pregnant, and it’s her father’s kid, and this is the second time this has happened, and like the first, he gives this baby away. The tone of this story drops below rock bottom instantly and doesn’t really make any substantial upward movement until the very end. I thought it was going to be a slow ease into the heavy stuff but they just jumped right in.
When watching this depressfest I was looking for a light in the darkness that would help bring Celie up from the dumps but her savior came much too late. Just about every man on screen was a terrible person and most of the women weren’t much better either. Whenever you think someone is gonna make things better or help out, they don’t. It’s one thing when people don’t notice the wrong, it’s another thing when they ignore it.
The main reason I don’t like slave movies is also the main reason I wasn’t a fan of The Color Purple. It’s the overwhelming sense of dread and doom. When watching your average antebellum film focused on slaves you know that no matter how much they laugh in a scene nor how hard they smile nor how high their hopes are in the very next scene they’ll still be a slave. The happy moments are but a blip on the radar of sadness.
What makes these brief moments of respite for sad Miss Celie even worse is the fact that they aren’t uplifting enough. She might’ve had maybe two moments of happiness before she got away from Mister and even her being free of him wasn’t all that joyous after she had spent around thirty years in misery. It was almost like seeing someone who was wrongly imprisoned get out of prison; you can’t help but think about all the time that was stolen from them.
Do we need films about black pain? I think so. Some people have had the privilege of not knowing how bad things can get for us and need to get a glimpse of different realities. Did I need to see The Color Purple? I think I did. As revered as this movie is in the black community with older folk swearing by it I do think I needed to see it at least once. But I know I won’t watch it again.
