Blacks see red over ‘The Color Purple’

Press, 8 February 1986, Page 30

Blacks see red over ‘The Color Purple’

By

E. R. Shipp

of the New York Times News Service (through NZPA) Chicago

Some people say “The Color Purple” is only a movie. But many black people disagree. In living rooms, in taverns, on radio talk shows, in newspaper columns and at community forums in many parts of the United States, black men and women are arguing about the movie’s depiction of black men. At its premiere in Los Angeles, dozens of pickets marched outside the theatre. On a chilly Tuesday evening in Chicago recently, nearly a thousand blacks crammed into the Progessive Community Church for a heated discussion of the film. More than 200 people filled the fellowship hall at St James’ Presbyterian Church in Harlem for a similar exchange.

“No media vehicle since ‘Roots’ has caused this kind of dialogue,” said Chuck Sutton, host of a programme on the movie on W.L.1.8. radio in New York.

The movie, directed by Steven Spielberg and based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Alice Walker, tells the story of Celle, a black woman who was physically and sexually abused by men most of her life. For her portrayal of Celie, the actress Whoopi Goldberg

received a Golden Globe Award.

Many black women defend the film, saying that it accurately reflects their own experience or the experience of women they know. Yet many black men, and some black women, say that it gives a misleading picture of blacks in the United States and distorts their history. Ophrah Winfrey, host of a television talk show in Chicago who played Sophia, Celle’s stepdaughter-in-law, in the movie, said: “It is not trying to represent the history of black people in this country any more than ‘The Godfather’ was trying to represent the history of ItalianAmericans. In this case, it’s one woman’s story.” Many women say it is also their story. Ms Eartis Thomas, a telephone company employee in Chicago, said she knew many Celies when she was growing up in Sunflower County, Mississippi. She, her mother and her aunts were all beaten and otherwise brutalised by their husbands, Ms Thomas said.

The movie “just lifted a burden.”

Ms Thomas said: “Black women should not be sacrificed for black men’s pride. Let the film roll.”

Some of the arguments are similar to those used in 1977 about Ntozake Shange’s play, “For Co-

lored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide — When the Rainbow Is Enuf,” and in 1979 about Michele Wallace’s book, “Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman.”

These works confront the often uneasy relationship between black men and black women. Eldridge Cleaver, in his book “Soul on Ice,” described it as a war. Wallace described it as “a profound distrust, if not hatred.”

“It’s a very touchy subject between folks, always has been,” said Mr Haywood McDuffie, a Cleveland lawyer who said he recently argued about the movie with several women friends.

“The most frightening thing for me as a male was to look into their eyes,” Mr McDuffie said. “I wondered, ‘ls that really what they think of us?’ It’s as if there were an element of cruelty implicit in black men that all black women seem to identify.” Mr Willis Edward, the president of the Beverly Hills chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, said in an interview that the movie “never showed the good” about black men.

But Clarence Page, a columnist , for the “Chicago Tribune,” said “This movie is no more destructive of black men

than ‘The Burning Bed’ was destructive of white men.” He referred to a television drama about abuse by spouses. Others argue that the movie distorts black history and appears to blame the victims of racism for many social problems, including a high incidence of broken families and teen-age pregnancy. Ms Lerone Bennett, a historian who is senior editor of “Ebony” magazine, said: “Mr Spielberg doesn’t show us the strong black women who nursed the sick and cared for the orphans and organised clubs and, in general, exercised a leadership role denied white women by white society. What Steven Spielberg doesn’t show us, in short, is the colour black.”

Black men are perhaps no different from other men in their attitudes toward women, said the actor Danny Glover. But, he said, “Lots of times we sweep our own problems under the rug under the justification of upholding black history and the black man.” As the debate continued, the movie had grossed nearly SUS 29 million ($55.1 million) by January 26, drawing audiences that were 72 per cent white, and the book had become “the fastestselling paperback in a long time,” said a spokesman for the publisher, Simon and Shuster.