For Colored Girls by Tyler Perry: Reflections of One Fan About This Movie

People who go to see Tyler Perry's latest movie For Colored Girls without doing a little homework might be like folks dressed for a warm, cloudless day when it rains. They just won't be prepared.

I'm one of those who went to see For Colored Girls without taking my rain coat. I don't usually read movie critics or trailers before going to see movies, and particularly not one of Tyler Perry's movies. I've enjoyed everything he's put on the big screen thus far. I enjoyed For Colored Girls too, but it's the after effect of the movie that has troubled me. The big question most of my friends and family members who've seen the movie are asking is what was Tyler Perry thinking?

For Colored Girls was Perry's adaptation of Ntozake Shange's play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf. In the stage play, seven women perform 20 poems. These women don't have names. They are given colors. Each poem deals with the varying love and life experiences of women of color.

As the movie opens with Yasmine played by Aniki Noni Rose reciting verse and performing a choreographed dance, many who didn't do their homework were already unprepared. You expected to figure it out as the storyline played along. The problem is things become more and more complicated as the plot unfolded.

The movie portrays seven women whose paths are interconnected, although when the movie starts, most of them are not aware of each other. These women deal with their life issues in a suspense building melodrama unlike any other Perry's ever done. There was Crystal (Kimberly Elise) with her two young children living with an abusive boyfriend. Crystal just happened to be assistant to Jo (Janet Jackson), a successful entrepreneur who seemed to have no heart and plenty problems at home with her man. Then there's Kelly (Kerry Washington), the social worker who visits Crystal's apartment on official business. Looking in on Kelly's visit and everything else that goes on in the apartment building is Gilda (Phylecia Rashad) Crystal and Gilda lived on the same floor with Tangie (Thandie Newton). Tangie is the free-spirit who seemed to thrive on intimacy more than food. Tangie's mother, Alice (Whoopi Goldberg) was very religious and in opposition to her loose lifestlye. Yet she has to visit Tangie asking for money. Alice has a younger daughter - Tangie's baby sister - named Nyla (Tessa Thompson), a young woman with a bright future and a dark secret she's not willing to share, even when she visits big sister Tangie. Nyla is one of the dancers at the community center where Yasmine teaches dance. Yasmine has to pass the apartment building on her way to and from the community center. The seventh of the women is Juanita (Loretta Devine) whose man is a resident in the same building as Tangie, Gilda and Crystal.

It seems that what connects the women in For Colored Girls is this apartment building where Crystal, Gilda and Tangie live. I can't count how many times I remember seeing those ragged brown doors that led into or out of one of these three women's apartments. It's like, each one of the seven women had to either pass there, visit there or live there at some time or another in this movie.

As one horrendous event unfolds after another, you get the picture that Tyler's trying to send a strong message. But to whom? To other women of color? How could he possibly tell us what we already know? Dealing with day to day issues of love and pain and betrayal knows no colors. Is it to say that white women have never been abused or used or cheated on? Was it a message to men of color? Many of them have accused Perry of throwing them under the bus in For Colored Girls, since only one of the men in this movie had any kind of positive role.

If you look at the movie from that standpoint, people of faith were not just thrown under the bus. They were thrown into the little short yellow bus. The yellow bus of which I speak is a metaphor used by Tyler Perry's Madea for anyone considered crazy. Thankfully, all believers are not that extreme. Likewise, all black men are not rapist, thieves, murderers and down low brothers.

Although I didn't understand all the poetry and got lost more than once while watching For Colored Girls, I don't think Perry's intent was to alienate any group of people. Even the women who were damaged by their men had to take responsibility for their bad decisions. And when some of them witnessed or became involved with the most horrific highlight of the movie, where did they go for comfort, but to their men.