Boosie Says He Walked Out of 'The Color Purple' Over Lesbian Storyline: 'Whoever Wrote the Script is Pushing the Narrative Hard'
Boosie thinks there's a homosexual agenda behind new musical drama The Color Purple.
One week after the clip made its nationwide theatrical debut, Boosie said that he went to spot the film with two of his daughters, but ultimately "HAD TO Amble OUT." The rapper wrote on X that he was offended that the plot "SEEMED LIKE A [rainbow emoji] LOVE STORY."
"GOOD ACTING BUT WHOEVER WROTE THE SCRIPT IS PUSHING THE NARRATIVE HARD. AS A PARENT I WILL NOT LET MY Tiny GIRL WATCH THIS FILM," he added.
For background – and a quick spoiler alert – Color Purple protagonist Celie (Fantasia Barrino) has a love affair with Shug Avery (Taraji P. Henson), although their kissing scene is terse and intercourse between the two is implied. The scene pulls inspiration from the Broadway musical and the inaugural 1985 Color Purple film, although both lesbian storylines are watered down in comparison to Alice Walker's epistolary Color Purple novel, where the women have a sexual relationship.
It seems like Boosie mi
The latest adaptation of ‘The Color Purple’ strips away Celie’s powerful love story
The cynical read on Hollywood reboots, retreads and remakes is that it’s an easy money grab for an IP-obsessed industry. But I love them for their possibilities: the chance to revise, rethink, and restore, with the tribute of hindsight, what was lost to “the times.” This is the pleasure of readaptation.
Enter director Blitz Bazawule’s 2023 musical production adaptation, The Color Purple.
Premiering in theaters on Christmas day, more than 40 years after Alice Walker’s seminal book in 1982 and nearly 20 years after its Broadway debut in 2005, Bazawule’s The Color Purple promised us a “bold new hold on the beloved classic.”
And yet, The Shade Purple’s musical film revival is less progressive and less faithful to the source material than Steven Spielberg’s 1985 film, enable alone the Broadway musical.
The Color Purple, one of our greatest pieces of literature, follows Celie, a poor Black lesbian miss from Georgia and her decadeslong journey through racism, domestic violence and misogynoir, to self-love.
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I know that a lot of Autostraddle readers have likely come to this review looking for one question to be answered: Will this iteration of The Color Purple be gay?
It’s unbiased to ask. Alice Walker’s 1982 novel of the equal name is the first, and remains the only, Pulitzer Prize winner with a Black homosexual woman protagonist. Celie, an abuse survivor with whom we travel from her girlhood in twist of the century rural Georgia through her late adulthood, quietly explores her lack of attraction to men (who’ve also been the source of her abuse) and her deep attraction to Shug Avery, a bisexual Blues singer. In the novel, Shug and Celie’s intimate relationship opens up a fresh confidence in Celie, ultimately allowing her to break past the cycle of what she’s endured. They are sisters, yes, but also lovers — all encompassing in the way that only happens when Ebony women are given space to plunge in love with each other’s wholeness. They are each other’s healers, protectors, source of pleasure. But in Steven Spielberg’s 1985 Oscar-nominated film, Shug and Celie’s relationship is instead played off as platonic.
During a 2011 retrospective of his work with Entertainment Weekly,
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The Color Purple is a lesbian story. So why isn’t it seen that way?
Despite her insistence on centering these aspects of the novel, adapting the queer elements of Alice Walker’s 1982 book has been difficult work. Celie is based on Walker’s grandmother, who was abused by her grandfather and felt a connection to his glamorous lover. “In giving Celie the cherish of this woman, in every way love can be expressed, I was clear in my intention to demonstrate that she too, like all of us, deserved to be seen, appreciated, and deeply loved by someone who saw her as whole and worthy,” Walker said in a statement in 2019.
In her 1997 novel The Same River Twice: Honoring the Difficult, Walker explained her intention in writing the book. She “wanted to give my family and friends an opportunity to see women-loving women — lesbian, heterosexual, bi-sexual, ‘two-spirited’ — womanist women in a identifiable context. I wanted t
Seyi Omooba: Sacked anti-gay post actress loses tribunal appeal
Asha Patel
BBC News, East Midlands
Getty Images
Seyi Omooba was due to act as Celie - a lesbian role - in a stage production of The Color Purple, but was axed over the send, from 2014.
Miss Omooba, a Christian, was ordered to settle costs to her former agency and Curve in Leicester, where she was due to accomplish, after losing a tribunal.
Now she has lost an appeal against that tribunal ruling in the High Court.
Miss Omooba's Facebook share referenced Biblical texts and said: "I do not consider you can be born gay, and i do not believe homosexuality is right, though the law of this land has made it legal doesn't mean its right."
The post came to light on 15 March 2019, when it was tweeted by another player, who was unconnected to the play.
In the tribunal, Fail to catch Omooba had claims for discrimination, breach of contract and harassment turned down.
She was ordered pay costs of £53,839 and £259,356, but the tribunal heard she could pay less, subject to an analysis.
Getty Images
Celie, the role Miss Omooba had been due to play, is a woman who has a sexual relationship