I watched "The Color Purple" today for the first time in many years and was reminded of the film's moral complexity.
The novel by Alice Walker and the film generated a fair bit of criticism for portraying the black men in Celie's life as brutal patriarchs. This is also a common trend among scholars--often white ones--who hesitate to explore hierarchies and exploitations within exploited communities. On the one hand, this tendency to depict oppressed people as uniformly noble reflects a noble impulse to reverse old, racist stereotypes. But it can also reflect a subtle form of racism, namely an assumption that oppressed people are not capable of agency and complexity. People without sin, after all, are not really human or interesting. Part of what makes "The Color Purple" so compelling is that Celie wrestles with multiple forms of oppression (racial, gendered, sexual, economic), as well as her own timidity. And the film, like the book, shows that all manner of people--oppressors and oppressed--are capable of great transformations and sacrifices, that we can all love fiercely.
A final piece of irony is that the author of this remarkable story of redemption and determined commitment to family and kin became estranged from her own daughter, who accused her of neglecting her as a child and then being unable to accept her success as an adult.
Hence the marvelous story and the life of its gifted creator remind us that suffering and redemption are bound to startle us.
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