The Color Purple

The following was something I did for a Feminist film theory class. It should be a good laugh to all:

Black males viewers have denounced the The Color Purple as stereotypical representations of black males. They have stated that it is the most racist film since Birth of a Nation. This has caused a feud between black feminist critics and black male viewers also. Even most left-wing publications have denounced the film. They have stated that the film is misleading in its representations of blacks of that time period. Gay rights groups have also objected to how director Steven Spielberg dealt with Lesbianism in the film.

The wide acceptance of a cultural myth and how it functions as a cultural belief system characterizes as the myth of the exotic primitive. With that, all types of convictions have some sort of mythology working with it. The myth associated with black people are they are naturally childlike, oversexed, and are savages taken from a culture relativity low on the scale of human civilization.

The “subject” differs from the individual in that the individual is a biological being produced by nature. The subject, however, is a social theoretical construction that is used to label individuals in regard to their significance in a political or theoretical sense. The subject is more based on assumption whereas the subject is based on a much more complex view.

The principle of articulation is used to explain how individuals within a particular society at a specific historical moment battle dominate forces in a culture and attain authority over their lives for themselves and for others within their social group. In The Color Purple, the protagonist is constantly fighting such things and finally becomes in complete resistance to her expected position as a black female. The whole story is a battle against a black female’s role as a black female. This is why the color purples in a excellent example of the prince of articulation.

The Color Purple can have both a positive and negative oppositional response because its relative to what individual is watching the film. The black female can be proud of the film for its representation of a black woman’s strength and courage. A black male can look at it as stereotype black males as dictating and oversexed wife beaters. With that, the white viewer can see it as a myth that works on their own myths. The film is relative to whatever background you come from.

-Ty E