For Colored Girls is a purposeful sharpening of the audience’s attention to the problem of women’s lack of freedom. For Colored Girls is about gender relationships at its most poignant, African-American version (Elias, 2021). Greater relevance of the problem is possible only in the context of its development in the countries of the Muslim world (Musambira & Jackson, 2018). Perry’s film serves as a potential response to the neglect of the struggles of black female heroes (Conley, 2019). Perry successfully combined gospel elements with patriarchal themes of the family, thus creating a unique formula at the heart of his films and stage productions (Alsanafi et al., 2019). He skillfully portrays black women’s self-fulfillment, racism, identity, alienation, and sexism, which are still significant themes in today’s world (Hamlet, 2019).
Each of the women portrayed in the film is one of the characters presented in the collection of twenty poems (Miller & Shange, 1977). The poems reflect various issues affecting women in general and women of color in particular (Copeland, 2017). Crisis situations, broken hearts, and crime – in the end, all this will lead the heroines to the space where they will find mutual understanding (Cruze & Jackson, 2017). Each will speak the truth to the other like never before (Keleta-Mae, 2019). In addition, each will know that it is self-sufficient and divine in all its manifestations.
The title of the play, written by American playwright and poet Nozak Change back in 1975, which was made into a film, is For Colored Girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf. The performance based on her motives turned the theatrical world of America upside down (Veselá, 2018). Having received the prestigious Off-Broadway Award for her play, Change, being a convinced feminist, revealed a manifesto of women of color to the world.
References
Alsanafi, I. H., Noor, S. N. F. M., & Kadir, Z. A. (2019). “Judgemental category‟ is the major concept in Ntozake Shange‟s “For colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf.” International Journal of Engineering and Advanced Technology (IJEAT). Web.
Conley, J. A. (2019). Using for colored girls as a creative way to help me understand how empathic I am. Journal of Creativity in Mental Health, 14(2), 243–257. Web.
Copeland, K. J. (2017). From new black realism to Tyler Perry. The Journal of Men’s Studies, 25(1), 70–91. Web.
Cruze, B. J. S., & Jackson, R. L. (2017). Interpreting Tyler Perry: Perspectives on race, class, gender, and sexuality. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.
Elias, S. (2021). The interlocking matrix of oppression: A reading of The nameless women in Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls and Dina Soliman’s al-ʾarayis. Cairo Studies in English, 2021(1), 164–180. Web.
Hamlet, J. D. (2019). Tyler Perry. Interviews. University Press of Mississippi.
Keleta-Mae, N. (2019). The black girl thought in the work of Ntozake Shange. Girlhood Studies, 12(2), 32–47. Web.
Miller, L. F., & Shange, N. (1977). For colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf. Educational Theatre Journal, 29(2), 262. Web.
Musambira, G. W., & Jackson, N. E. (2018). A preliminary analysis of Tyler Perry’s ‘house of payne’ and ‘meet the browns’: Effect on the Black Identity, African Americans’ frequency of exposure, perception of accuracy and affective evaluation. Journal of Creative Communications, 13(3), 212–231. Web.
Veselá, J. (2018). Human rights expressed by voices of the characters in Ntozake Shange’s plays (thesis). Masaryk University, Faculty of Education, Department of English Language and Literature.