Seeing Red In 'The Color Purple'

I cringe, however, at its portrait of Black men—without even the most remote sense of balance—which only perpetuates prevailing racist stereotypes seared into the American consciousness

(Photo: Background, Shutterstock; Design: John Fountain)

By John W. Fountain

THIS IS A STORY. Call it, for argument’s sake, “The Color Red.” …Under the cover of their apartment’s darkness from the outside world, amid a well-documented history of maternal abuse and neglect, a Black mother committed the final heinous act against her three-year-old Black son in the presence of his younger brother:

She hung him by electrical cord until he was dead.

Finally making good on a promise to murder her innocent son, she left his brother forever scarred by the Black woman who was supposed to protect him.

What if that story, written as a book and turned into a film then into a musical movie, also included the narrative of a pregnant Black woman who used heroin and cocaine while in labor and birthed a crack-addicted son, who lay swaddled in a blanket in a hospital nursery shortly after taking his first breath? Only to be abandoned by his mother who fled the hospital a day later without naming him, thereby making her newborn a ward of the state, which named him Joseph because, “he would have much to forgive.”

And what if that story depicted only cruel and unhealed Black women in a graphic tale of pathology, fatalism and familial destruction—devoid of a single portrait of any Black woman of redeeming value?

I doubt seriously that sisters would be running to theaters to celebrate that film. In fact, I suspect that they—and many of us brothers—would boycott it, and with good reason. I know I’d surely be canceled if I authored such a story and that many a sister would want to rise up to slap my shiny baldhead.

Honestly, I could never write it, nor celebrate it. And I found it difficult, painful, in fact, to have written even “for argument’s sake” the scenarios that top this column, which happen to be true stories I covered as a journalist.

My point here is simple: To try and get those who see “The Color Purple”—released recently as a movie musical—as a celebration of “sisterhood,” to see it from the other side of at least one brother who sees it as a powerfully assaultive force in the continued systemic propaganda machine aimed at the destruction of the Black man and the Black family.

Oh, for the record: I do not hate “The Color Purple.”

John Fountain's grandmother Florence G. Hagler who exhorted her grandson to remember the “family prayer” lifts her hand in a worship service. She is among the women who were the church “prayer warriors” with whom Fountain once prayed on Tuesday and Friday mornings and who he says helped save his life. (Family Photo)

Boycotted

I CRINGE, HOWEVER, AT its portrait of Black men—without even the most remote sense of balance—which only perpetuates prevailing and longstanding racist stereotypes seared into the American consciousness and that are transmitted across the world.

This single rendering of Black males, none of them in the film decent, might not be so detrimental were it not for the historic vacuum of positive African-American male images in the mass media; were it not for the rampant depiction of Black males as thugs, rapists, murderers and abandoners.

Or were it the case that Black males in the breadth of our lives—as lovers, fathers, producers, protectors and providers—vastly outnumbered those negative images in the mass media that cause us all as Black men to be seen as the terrorizing and troubled men of “The Color Purple.”

That this latest rendition of Alice Walker’s 1982 novel, which won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, has reemerged on the big screen to a new generation of celebrants leaves me feeling no less disturbed as I was upon release of the 1985 film directed by Steven Spielberg. The film was boycotted by the NAACP. Some Black male leaders, including the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan criticized it for its negative depiction of Black males as misogynistic and brutal to Black females, and for its negative portrayal of the Black family.

“It is a very dangerous film,” the Washington Post in 1986 quoted Leroy Clark, a law professor at Catholic University. “The men are raping, committing incest, speaking harshly, separating people from their families or they are incompetent, they can't fix a house or cook a simple meal. That is a lie to history… It reinforces the notion of black men as beasts.”

As a writer, I believe in the right to tell the story as every writer sees fit. To pull no punches in the sometimes-uncomfortable revelations of human relationship and interaction, and even in the unearthing of inhumane abuses and secrets that have debilitated women and left little girls to cower in the shadows long after they are grown.

I also understand as a writer that what I write for good can also be used for bad.

This is at the core of what ails me about “The Color Purple.” It is the absence of a single Black man of decency, goodness and character. The perpetuation of a harmful stereotype of Black men as domestic terrorists, as rapists, as monster. Though for the record, let me say for the record that the acts and behavior of the Black men in The Color Purple—and in real life—is damnable and near unforgivable.

Recently, I happened upon a video on social media of Esther Rolle’s declaration that she had refused to play the role of Florida Evans in Norman Lear’s “Good Times” unless the creators gave her character a husband, the portrait of a wholesome Black family. Rolle clearly understood the power of the media and the importance of the presence and portrayal of good and decent Black men, even in fiction, and the potential exponential harm in our absence, or in our depiction as cultural and societal menace.

I also understand. As a Black writer, I also know that it is critical and in the best interest of my people to not paint with too broad a stroke, even when telling heart-wrenching tragic tales in which our human depravity is glaring and unpardonable.

John Fountain (with cap in hand on the right) as a little boy with his grandmother, cousins and some of the women in his West Side clan on a family outing circa 1960's (Family Photo)

‘Red, Not For My Anger’

INDEED WERE I EVER to undertake the writing of such a narrative as hypothesized at the beginning of this column—without Black women of redeeming value—it would cause me to denounce my deep love for and memories of the countless beautiful Black women who have poured selflessly into my life. Black women who have nursed, nurtured, and infused me with life, laughter and love from the time my own dear Black mother cradled me in her sweet brown arms up until this very moment.

As a journalist for nearly 40 years, I have promoted the posterity and wellness of Black women in my stories, books and columns. From tributes to my grandmother and mother, to columns defending Gabby Douglas against the barrage of criticism (mostly by black women) over her hair; to remembering the glamour of Harriet Tubman; writing in praise of single black moms who hold it down; of my own daughter; and in praise of Black women in general, publicly and privately.

I have done so, not because I want a cookie, lol. Or a pat on the back. I do it because the stakes are so high. Because I realize that promoting prevailing negative stereotypes about Black women harm us all.

I do it because I was kissed into existence by good and decent Black women. And finally, I do it because none of their human frailties or failings could ever make me portray Black women in their totality as anything less than beautiful—in the color red. Red, not for my anger, but for my passion and love for the Black woman.

Email: Author@johnwfountain.com

John Fountain and Mom Gwendolyn Marie Hagler Clincy dance at his wedding reception in 1992 She died in August 2014 after a long illness..