Sexuality In Alice Walker's The Color Purple

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Alice Walker’s The Color Purple is a good example of how black women’s sexuality is depicted in society. The film draws audience attention to the fact the black women's bodies were not desirable during slavery as we see Celie constantly being abused by the men in her life. In fact, this was the beginning of traumatic life experiences as she marries an abusive man while living in a racists environment. The turning point in her identity is when she meets her husband’s ex-lover, Shug. When they first met, they weren’t attracted to each other. Shug first words to Celie was “you sure are ugly”. As we may have noticed, Shug doesn't realise that Celie desires her sexually where she only wants to recover from her illness with the help of Celie. Despite …show more content…

After Shug discovers this, she considers Celie a virgin since she had never been sexually satisfied. Then, Celie becomes embarrassed as Shug strokes her arm. Here, this action shows their desire to be with each other. By Walker moving from the topic of female desire to male desire condenses the sensuality of the scene and implicitly refused to affirm their homosexuality. As their interaction progressed, they began kissing and each other. A diegetic music (1920s jazz song) is playing in the background, giving the scene a sense of intimacy between the women. What’s interesting about the scene is when Celie kisses Shug, she smiles like she did in the mirror. In this case, Celie’s smile signifies her liberation as a woman accepting her sexuality. This Kissing scene is so clean, in fact if you didn't watch the movie fro the start, you may not recognized it was a sexual encounter. As stated by Vito Russo in The Celluloid Closet (1996), when two women engaged in kissing, it's always “sanitized”. This prevents queer characters from engaging in realistic sexual behaviour. However, the last shot of the love-making scene does not show the character's sexual desire, but instead, a diegetic sound and close-up of a violet chandelier-like object gleaming. What’s interesting is that the color violet was used as an identification code for lesbianism (Goodin, 1995, p. 22).The shot suggested that there was a possible lesbian relationship and their sexual desires are left open for

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