# The Colour Purple (movie vs book)

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-colour-purple-movie-vs-book/176345>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [May 20, 2003, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-colour-purple-movie-vs-book/176345 "2003-05-20T16:45:47Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![irishgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/8edcca/32.png) [@irishgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/irishgirl)\
**Post date:** [May 20, 2003, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-colour-purple-movie-vs-book/176345/1 "2003-05-20T16:45:47Z")

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Ok, I finally watched the movie the other night.  
I know, it’s almost 20 years old. But I loved the book (and Possessing the Secret of Joy, and The Temple of my Familiar) and couldn’t bring myself to watch it before now.

I didn’t like it.

The acting was great.  
The cinematography was stunning.  
It all looked wonderful…and therein lies the rub. It wasn’t supposed to.  
This was not a Southern chocolate box idyll. There was rape, lynching, incest, betrayal, spousal abuse, alcoholism, social injustice and racism. And it all looked too damn pretty.  
The finale should have been a joyful relief after bleakness and tragedy. And it wasn’t. It was just some pretty icing.  
Oh yes, it minimised the lesbian relationship of the main characters, made Mister too nice, and left out major parts of the story.

Or am I being fussy here?

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**Author:** ![lissener](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lissener/32/6139_2.png) [@lissener](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lissener)\
**Post date:** [May 20, 2003, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-colour-purple-movie-vs-book/176345/2 "2003-05-20T19:40:21Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by irishgirl \*  
> **. . .  
> The acting was great.  
> The cinematography was stunning.  
> It all looked wonderful…and therein lies the rub. It wasn’t supposed to.  
> This was not a Southern chocolate box idyll. There was rape, lynching, incest, betrayal, spousal abuse, alcoholism, social injustice and racism. And it all looked too damn pretty.  
> The finale should have been a joyful relief after bleakness and tragedy. And it wasn’t. It was just some pretty icing. . . .**

Welcome to Steven Spielberg’s world. Wait till you get around to _Schindler’s List_; all the same objections apply, only MOREso.

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**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\
**Post date:** [May 20, 2003, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-colour-purple-movie-vs-book/176345/3 "2003-05-20T19:49:14Z")

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I loved both the book and the movie. I didn’t think it made Mister too nice so much as it made him nice too soon. (Remember that in the book

he and Celie become close friends after his religious conversion.

I agree with the frustration on minimizing the lesbianism, though. Supposedly, the original person offered the role of Shug was Tina Turner, who was hot from Mad Max and “What’s Love (etc.)” at the time, and she turned it down for fear that a lesbian scene might stall her very-hard-fought-for comeback, so perhaps that’s why they downplayed it.

To me, the last scene where the African robes blow into the air did come across as incredibly moving, and the “Sophia’s home now” dinner table scene is one of the most tense, hysterical, and dramatic I’ve ever seen in a popular movie.

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**Author:** ![Ellen\_Cherry](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellen_cherry/32/3600_2.png) [@Ellen\_Cherry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellen_Cherry)\
**Post date:** [May 20, 2003, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-colour-purple-movie-vs-book/176345/4 "2003-05-20T19:54:10Z")

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Question … it’s been a while since I’ve read it, but I thought …

…it wasn’t really incest because the man Celie thought was her father turns out NOT to be her father. Therefore, her children weren’t the products of incest.

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**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\
**Post date:** [May 20, 2003, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-colour-purple-movie-vs-book/176345/5 "2003-05-20T20:02:41Z")

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True, but Celie thinks it was until she’s middle-aged and learns the truth.