As the stage version of The Color Purple arrives in Britain, writer Candace Allen recalls the upset and uproar the novel caused among African Americans
The first page took your breath away: a mortified 14-year-old girl has started writing letters to God because she can tell no one else that, although "he never had a kine word to say to me", "he" [her putative daddy] has raped her and warned that she "better … git used to it". Page two, letter two: her mama dead and she "big" with her second baby. He "kilt" the first. "Kill this one, too if he can." Letter three: the letter-writer has a little sister she will protect "with God help". Letter four: sister Nettie has a friend named Mr ___. Letter seven: Mr ___ wants to marry Nettie but he carries a picture of a beautiful, worldly woman named Shug Avery in his wallet. The letter-writer is mesmerised by Shug Avery.
The first page took your breath away: a mortified 14-year-old girl has started writing letters to God because she can tell no one else that, although "he never had a kine word to say to me", "he" [her putative daddy] has raped her and warned that she "better … git used to it". Page two, letter two: her mama dead and she "big" with her second baby. He "kilt" the first. "Kill this one, too if he can." Letter three: the letter-writer has a little sister she will protect "with God help". Letter four: sister Nettie has a friend named Mr ___. Letter seven: Mr ___ wants to marry Nettie but he carries a picture of a beautiful, worldly woman named Shug Avery in his wallet. The letter-writer is mesmerised by Shug Avery.
- 7/16/2013
- The Guardian - Film News
Influential African Americans have attacked Quentin Tarantino's film for what they say is an inappropriate tone. Author and director Candace Allen explains why she disagrees
In the mid-1990s when my sister and I were nursing an A-list star's film project through what I came to term "Hollywood Nightmare No 1" and I, the writer, became daunted by the madness, my sister sought to steel my nerve by quoting sacred text from the La-la Land bible: "Remember, it ain't show art. It's show business."
As we consider the trajectory of Quentin Tarantino's much-anticipated Django Unchained this is a, if not the, salient thought to keep in mind. Irreverent, B-movie and grotesquerie devotee, n-word bandying, sometimes brilliant, usually outrageous, Tarantino directs his talents towards slavery. Cue the claque and all the usual suspects. From the film's announcement in early 2011, when copies of the 166-page Qt-annotated script first began to circulate in the film blogosphere,...
In the mid-1990s when my sister and I were nursing an A-list star's film project through what I came to term "Hollywood Nightmare No 1" and I, the writer, became daunted by the madness, my sister sought to steel my nerve by quoting sacred text from the La-la Land bible: "Remember, it ain't show art. It's show business."
As we consider the trajectory of Quentin Tarantino's much-anticipated Django Unchained this is a, if not the, salient thought to keep in mind. Irreverent, B-movie and grotesquerie devotee, n-word bandying, sometimes brilliant, usually outrageous, Tarantino directs his talents towards slavery. Cue the claque and all the usual suspects. From the film's announcement in early 2011, when copies of the 166-page Qt-annotated script first began to circulate in the film blogosphere,...
- 1/11/2013
- by Candace Allen
- The Guardian - Film News
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