The Color Purple 10/9/13

Queering Black Patriarchy The Color Purple by Steven Spielberg is a film and the main plot is a black man that beats and abused his wife, Celie. Celie was happy at first to get out of her house because of her abusive father that took her kids away from her but at the same time distraught of leaving her sister. The movie had originated from a book written by Alice Walker. Alice walker was accused of favoring white feminists while at the same time being very bitter to the black males. After the movie premiered, Alice was criticized from the black male population on her writings and was said that she betrayed the black family and community. Alice portrayed the black manhood in a very negative manner and took away the respect of the black male figure.
“The salvific wish is best understood as an aspiration, most often but not only middle-class and female, to save or rescue the black community from white racist accusations of sexual and domestic pathology, through the embrace of conventional bourgeois propriety.” This salvific wish was a way for the black females to get the respect that they deserve out in the community. The black race overall has had this problem ever since the end of slavery. Walker places her book in the south during the early 1900s when racial segregation was huge and whites were a constant threat to the male and female blacks. Alice then goes on to explain how the black men have always took on the role of being the ‘bread winner’ in the family. Meaning that the men have had to provide for their families and that the females have never fit that image. The women are just pictured to cook, clean, and take care of the house. She then explains that men want respect from their sons and want to shape there sons right. The male father figure must put fear in the son for the son to respect him. Harpo’s father was always dominant to him and Celie. Harpo saw this and wanted that same dominance and respect from his wife Sophia but she just throws it back