By Odeisel

We  humans connect to things that touch us to the core. Sometimes these things are overt and directly identifiable, like a favorite scent connected to a lost love or your grandmother’s secret cookie recipe. Others are more subtle and intangible. Art touches us in that ethereal manner. The conversion of such art into a physical presence generally leaves much to be desired. You usually see this with books being brought to life on the big screen.

Call me silly but I count myself lucky waiting for May 2011 when the movie adaption of The Mighty Thor hits the big screen. To some, comics are for kids but for many of us who remain fans, it’s our mythology and the source of many dreams. I learned to read from comic books and Walt Simonson’s Thor run in the early 80s kept me captivated and motivated to read more. From all accounts it looks like I’m going to get the movie that Thor fans have been waiting for since the early 1960s. Others, it appears, may not be so lucky.

In 1975, Ntozake Shange wrote a play entitled For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf. The play featured 7 women, each characterized by a color, and dealt with key issues that strike at the heart of the experience of Black women, a group that has been historically marginalized. For the rest of the world, this play is powerful and in 1977 it was even nominated for a Tony Award. But for Black women this work spoke to their very existence and for many, it reflected emotions and thoughts that they hold close and rarely ever get to speak on in any public arena.

In a world where Black people are often mischaracterized, Black women have a heavier cross to bear, and Shange’s work dealt with those feelings of abandonment, isolation and love, as well as themes of homosexuality, anger and rape in ways that resonated in the souls of Black woman. These things you hold close. They aren’t subject to the interpretation of others or even open to barbershop discussion. You aren’t going to hear, “Man that book wasn’t all that.”

But now the work, and its projection is in the hands of media giant Tyler Perry, more known for gun toting grandmas and caricatures of the Black experience than for highbrow cinematography or a serious approach to movie making. And the Black women who once supported his brand of histrionics now cringe at the idea that something they hold so close to their hearts is now subject to the whims of someone who, while productive, doesn’t have a track record for producing serious movies.

Perry, to his credit, has assembled an all-star line-up of serious Black actresses including Whoopi Goldberg, Phylicia Rashad, Anika Noni Rose and Thandi Newton. There’s no Beyonce or Nia Long or for that matter Halle Berry. The cast has depth to spare and yet…the detractors are many. Perry is not a master of his craft. I’m sure that there will be issues with cinematography and editing and a bunch of film related things that are immaterial to the story itself. We often find fault with critics for harping on things that we as the audience could care less about, yet Perry, who has certainly enjoyed the other side of the argument, is now subject.

Have his detractors ever stopped to think that perhaps he was the only producer with the temerity to even touch this work? In the 35 years since the original screenplay, no one, to my knowledge has ever attempted to bring this work to life. It is a very hard story. The intimacy of the stage doesn’t always translate to the screen and this work is impossibly intimate. For Perry to bring this to light, with the star power and credibility of his cast is something to be commended, not crushed. At what point is the story teller more important that the story itself?

If you love this work, and it speaks to you, then see this movie. If you hate Tyler Perry and all he stands for then stay home or watch something else. But think of resonance and think of your own story, and how wonderful it would be if your dreams came to light. Next may I’ll have Mjolnir and frost giants and the god of thunder. I hope the many Black women who have been saved by Shange’s words get to see and embrace their rainbow.

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