“…And this is for colored girls who have considered suicide but are moving to the end of their own rainbow…” (Perry: For Colored Girls, 2010). For colored girls was first written and performed as a play by Ntozake Shange in 1977. It was then called “for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow was enuf”. Tyler Perry adapted and transformed it into a movie in 2010. For colored girls is centered on nine women as they encounter their fair share of neglect, abuse, pain and harassment both physically and emotionally. They slowly but surely recover from such abuse and discover joy in themselves. The movie begins with the characters as strangers but at the end, they become good friends.
I watched this movie because it was directed by Tyler Perry. I thought the movie was about women and their struggles to overcome them. Not much of that thinking has changed except now, with critical attitudes like the intrinsic and feminist literary theory analysis, the text has a broader meaning. For colored girls does not mean for black women only, it means for all women with beauty and different shades as they rise and take power.
I am going to analyze this text using the intrinsic and feminist literary theory analysis. With the intrinsic analysis, I will brood mostly on the style and characterization of the text. According to Eaglestone, 2009, intrinsic analysis is a look into the text for meaning and understanding, assuming it has no connection, whatsoever, to the outside world. “Style is said to be the way one writes as opposed to what one writes about and is that voice that your readers hear when they read your work” (Wiehardt, n.d). The text uses mostly colors, poems and songs to deliver its messages. The main characters in the movie are each represented with a color; red, green, yellow, orange, blue, white, purple and brown. These colors are distinctly and carefully chosen to represent the parts played and to confirm the title “for colored girls”. When one first watches the movie, one may quickly judge that the characters are in direct contrast to the colors they represent. In the movie, Tangie (orange) which means vitality with endurance plays the part of a promiscuous girl whose hatred for her mother drives her to do what she does. On further look at her character, I realize she is a true reflection of the color orange. She endures sexual abuse from her grandfather and faces abortion at a tender age but is still strong enough to overcome it and bring out her true beauty. The text also employ poems and songs to show the intensity of pain and emphasize the strength of each character and women in general.
Characterization is how the characters in the text are viewed and developed as the text expands. For this, I will consider the character, Nyla (purple). Nyla is an innocent girl with dull eyes and voice. Her innocence is revealed as tells of her first time sex encounter and also in her lack of understanding of her mum and sister’s...
