The Color Purple (2023) may win ALL of the awards next year

Get the Point!

Season's Greetings! 

While I trust that my readers are enjoying their holidays, I am pausing from my own hard earned respite to herald one of the best movies that I've seen in quite some time—the 2023 version of The Color Purple. 

Like many people my age (51) and older, I consider the original film, based upon Spelman College alumna Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize winning novel—and directed by Steven Spielberg—to be one of the greatest movies in Hollywood history. That film, one with an all star cast that included Danny Glover as "Mister," Whoopi Goldberg as "Miss Celie," Akosua Busia as "Nettie," Margaret Avery as “Shug,” and introduced Oprah Winfrey as "Miss Sophia," also featured a riveting soundtrack composed by the legendary Quincy Jones—and should have swept the Academy Awards in 1985!

Alas, it did not 😢!

The 1985 version of The Color Purple was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, including Best Actress for Whoopi Goldberg (Miss Celie) and Best Supporting Actress for Margaret Avery (Shug Avery). The movie did not win Oscar gold in ANY categories…

But as some of my friends noted on social media before I stepped into the theater yesterday afternoon, 2023’s The Color Purple is NOT a remake of the original drama, but a musical—one that uses elements from the source novel, the original film, and the long running Broadway play of the same name to create its own unique cinematic appeal. 

Yes, you read it correctly—same characters, same overarching themes, but different words and different voice cadences set amidst a different but equally splendid musical score—all delivered by brilliant performers who were aided by the brilliant direction of Blitz Bazawule—and produced by the original director, Steven Spielberg, and the original Miss Sophia, Oprah Winfrey!

With a star studded cast featuring Fantasia as "Miss Celie," Colman Domingo as "Mister,"  Halle Bailey as the younger version of Celie's loving sister "Nettie," R&B star Ciara as the older Nettie; Academy Award winner Taraji P. Henson as “Shug Avery,” and Danielle Brooks as the scene stealing "Miss Sophia," I am very much looking forward to seeing if the 2024 awards season reaps the recognition for the new movie that the original version deserved but failed to garner back in 1985. Stay tuned…

From left: Director Blitz Bazawule, Fantasia, Taraji P. Henson, Danielle Brooks, and Producer Oprah Winfrey pose at the private premier of The Color Purple…

Last, there has been quite a bit of chatter on the Internet that the newest movie version of The Color Purple, much like the original, is "Black Trauma Porn" which bashes Black men for two hours and some change. 

As to these points, if you have read Alice Walker's book or seen the original movie, then you know that both domestic and sexual violence are rife throughout the stories. If such scenes trigger your anxieties in any way, then by all means, this is a movie that you should miss! On that note, I do not think that it's a spoiler for me to opine that the new movie displays some of those horrific themes, but in my early opinion, Colman Domingo’s “Mister” does not project the same vicious menace that Danny Glover's version of Mister depicted back in '85. And while both film versions finish on a rather positive note, the new film hits a much happier coda in my opinion!

I was totally blown away by Danielle Brooks’s version of Miss Sophia, one memorably played by Oprah Winfrey (below) in the 1985 version…

Second, as far as the "man bashing" goes, well, I have always disagreed with this criticism of The Color Purple because truth be told, there were (and still remain) real life "Misters," "Old Misters" (Mister’s misogynistic father played by the great Adolph Caesar in the original—and the equally great Lou Gossett, Jr. in the latest), "Harpos," and variations of the same all across these United States.

The faces of “Mister:” Danny Glover (1985) and Colman Domingo (2023).

Of course, there are many Black men who do not mimic the physically abusive and sexist tropes displayed by these characters, but some did during the Jim Crow era in which the films are set—and still do—thus, the creative license to tell those stories in the light that Alice Walker and the films’ directors and producers saw (and see) fit. As I often say and write, there are many thousands of uplifting stories about strong Black men that have been told and are still needing to be told in various media forms; I do my own part in lauding positive Black men in my own sphere, and there's nothing stopping other Black men, especially those with larger platforms, from doing the same!

But I'm not so obtuse as to think that the fictional "Mister" doesn't exist in real life, as a day spent in any courthouse in any city or town across America will show wayward Black men who are beating and raping women—mostly Black women—with little to no remorse!

Having said all of the above, again, if you have two hours to spare during this holiday season, by all means go and support The Color Purple, a film that earned $18 million on Christmas Day—the second highest ever behind Sherlock Holmes— which earned $24.1 million on Christmas Day in 2009. 

Enjoy!