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Thumbs Down to Critics of For Colored Girls

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By Erica Rose

Image from onlinemovieshut.com

The movie “For Colored Girls” is about the lives and struggles of Black women. It originally was a play created by Ntozake Shange in the 1970’s in response to what was going on in “colored” women’s lives at that time. The movie depicts some of the same issues in current times, such as rape, abortion, and AIDS. Many may argue that these are issues that all women face.

I have been reading several reviews of the movie “For Colored Girls” and have been left thoroughly disappointed.  One critic said:

“…this film is just not very good.  The actresses try their hardest — too hard at times — with great performances from Loretta Devine and Thandie Newton.  But a film that is about so many difficult things like abuse, abortion, rape, HIV has to be able to hold up.  You have to be able to make the tough stuff palatable so people can swallow it, and this whole movie is a long slog that stops dead in its tracks every time the women break into the beautiful poetry of Ntozake Shange.”

In response to this critic’s view that the movie needed to “make the tough stuff palatable so that people can swallow it…”,I say that I don’t think issues such as HIV or rape should be made “easy to swallow”. So many women deal with these issues that they need to be addressed in a way to get through to people.

Another review says the movie is a male basher. My response to that critic is that this movie was never advertised as being about men and their successes, but rather about how the female characters have overcome tragic situations. Also, just because it deals with women’s’ issues, doesn’t make it “male bashing”.

 These reviews have left me wondering if their critics watched the same movie as I did because the movie I saw was powerful, insightful, and moving.