Alice Walker’s Pulitzer prize-winning book The Color Purple follows the central years of Celie, a Black girl in 1900s Georgia who survives abuse at the hands of her father and husband, Mister.
There’s a surgical balance in how to depict Celie: someone deprived of love and compassion, but never passive, never weak. Unfortunately, the most recent big-screen musical remake, directed by Blitz Bazawule and written by Marcus Gardley, doesn’t live in the fullness of Celie’s life, notably Celie’s queerness.
