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Hamilton, Cynthina. "Alice Walker's Politics or the Politics of The Color Purple." Jornal of Black Studies 18 (Mar., 1988): 379-391. JStor.Depaul University, IL.www.jstor.org

in this context we can begin to see clearly Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize winning novel that takes us back into the black psyche, a return visit to the cultral poverty, where families passon the pathologies of life to succissive generations. In this atmosphere it is safe to return to the Moynihan thesis; it is safe for white American to exonerate the black matriachy and for black men to denounce it; safe to look at deteriorating black family life and proclaim its cause as the historically mounting antagonism betewwn black men and women.
Like Susan Brownmiller in the 1960's she explains rape in terms of men; she explains black women's oppression as a result of patriarchy, and the answer to the problem of exploitation is the successfful embracing of middleclass ethics that allow for the fulfillment of the American dream; home ownership and entrepreneurship. Only through individual initiative, she implies, can the solutions be found: women must fing their solutions outside the home and motherhood, in enterprise, entertainment, and education.
There is no doubt that many experiences of the characters in The Color Purple are real for many readers and moviegoers. In fact, that may be the very issue that ought to be addressed. The facts of life today allow us to identify completely with a lonely, isolated, alienated young woman, a woman left without a family because of the meanness of the significant men in her life- stepfather, father, husband.

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Shifting Through The Controversy: Reading The Color Purple


Both works (book and film) present a negative portrait, proclaim some critics, of black men in particular and the black family in general. The primary difference in the critisim of the contemporary film is that the outrage over the works is not unamimous. Black women and black men, for the most part, are split, and at times, at odds over the effect of the works on the condition of black people in this country. The narure of the debate over The Color Purple and the way it affected how the public received the film and produced a reading of it are the subjects of this investigation. The film reached an audience in several stages and each time induced a strong reaction. When The Color Purple is referred to as controversial the inference is that the content of the work is incendiary rather than that the reaction to it has been negative.

marriage was produced is relevant for this assessment of the film The Color Purple in that the 1920s film and the 1980s film were both caught up in "power relations" between several disxoures, at a particular historical moment, "over the conditions under which the film was to enter the public domain." The black woman's discourage, as spoken by the black women, has been less publicized than have the other two untill recently. The broader debate over The Color Purple is about the authority of black women writhers to set the agenda for imagemaking in fiction and film.