It’s been nearly 40 years since Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel about a young Black teenager’s tumultuous life in rural Georgia during the 1930s was adapted into a star-studded feature film directed by Steven Spielberg and scored and co-produced by Quincy Jones. “The Color Purple” was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, with Whoopi Goldberg winning a Golden Globe for Best Actress for her depiction of Celie. The film immediately attracted protest and praise, including from James Baldwin, who called it “awful” mainly for its uncomplicated take on Black male characters.
There are clear villains and heroes, there is danger and trauma, but there is also growth, evolution, celebration and joy.
The popular reworking of Walker’s literary work — both the 1985 film and its more recent turn to musical theater — reveals the ongoing interest in a story about personal triumph in the face of adversity. It’s a very American story, a fact made all the more evident by the latest star-studded adaptation.
Or rather, the adaptation of an adaptation. The latest “The Color Purple,” directed by Samuel “Blitz” Bazawule, is a musical film adaptation of the 2015 revival of the award-winning Broadway musical production, which debuted in 2005. In the years between the first and second of these adaptations, Hollywood has seemingly cracked the code on how to represent Black pain and trauma alongside joy, and the musical format in particular softens many of the rough edges of the book and its original adaptation. It also makes it even more difficult to delve into the subtleties of the novel, especially its depiction of the Black lesbian experience and Celie’s relationship with Shug Avery (Taraji Henson), plotlines Spielberg admits he avoided in the film.
This turn to musical theatrical has been embraced by Walker, although Walker has not figured prominently in its promotion (most likely because of past controversial remarks). Instead, the public face for…
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