Steven Spielberg’s The Color Purple and Realization of Female Characters

Yuxuan Yang

doi:10.54254/2753-7064/43/20240154

Research Article

Open access

Published on 25 October 2024

Download pdf

Yang,Y. (2024). Steven Spielberg’s The Color Purple and Realization of Female Characters. Communications in Humanities Research,43,112-119.

Export citation

Steven Spielberg’s The Color Purple and Realization of Female Characters

Yuxuan Yang *^,1,

¹ International School of Tanganyika

* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.

https://doi.org/10.54254/2753-7064/43/20240154

Abstract

This essay delves into the transformative power of female solidarity in Steven Spielberg's The Color Purple, with a focus on how the film uses the contrast between the male and female gaze to underscore the importance of Celie’s relationships with other women. The detailed exploration of cinematic techniques, such as camera angles and lighting, effectively highlights how Spielberg underscores the importance of these connections in Celie’s path to self-empowerment, which emphasizes these crucial connections and contributes to the narrative’s portrayal of Celie’s evolution from subjugation to self-empowerment. The essay argues that the male gaze in the film serves to objectify and diminish female characters, while the female gaze offers a path to empowerment, fostering empathy, mutual respect, and self-realization. Ultimately, the film is presented as a profound commentary on the strength of female solidarity in challenging and overcoming systemic oppression, with the bonds between women playing a pivotal role in Celie’s journey toward independence and liberation.

Keywords

Female Solidarity, Male and Female Gaze, Cinematic Techniques, Female Self-awareness, Systemic Oppression.

View pdf

References

[1]. "The Color Purple." IMDb, © 1990-2024 by IMDb.com, www.imdb.com/title/tt0088939/. Accessed 26 Aug. 2024.Bootorabi, F., Haapasalo, J., Smith, E., Haapasalo, H. and Parkkila, S. (2011) Carbonic Anhydrase VII—A Potential Prognostic Marker in Gliomas. Health, 3, 6-12.

[2]. Carroll, Noël. "The Image of Women in Film: A Defense of a Paradigm." The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 48, no. 4, 1990, pp. 349-60. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/431572. Accessed 26 Aug. 2024.

[3]. Wu, Lianghong. "Reading the Color Purple from the Perspective of Ecofeminism." Theory and Practice in Language Studies, vol. 9, no. 8, Aug. 2019, p. 965+. Gale Literature Resource Center, dx.doi.org/10.17507/tpls.0908.11. Accessed 26 Aug. 2024.

[5]. "The Color Purple Film and Discussion – Chloé Leclair." University of San Diego, © 2024 Studies of Black History at the San DiegoU, 11 May 2020, sites.sandiego.edu/blackhistoryatusd/2020/05/11/the-color-purple-film-and-discussion-chloe-leclair/. Accessed 27 Aug. 2024.

[7]. Foca, Anna. "The Color Purple." Edited by René Ostberg and Encyclopaedia Britannica. Britannica, 24 Aug. 2024, www.britannica.com/topic/The-Color-Purple. Accessed 27 Aug. 2024.

[8]. Frykman, Jonas. "Space for a Man: The Transformation of Masculinity in 20th Century Culture." Reproductive Health Matters, vol. 4, no. 7, 1996, pp. 11-18. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3775346. Accessed 27 Aug. 2024.

[10]. Dixon, Henry O. "Oppression and Development: Men in the Color Purple." Children's Literature Review, edited by Lawrence J. Trudeau, vol. 198, Farmington Hills, MI, Gale, 2015. Gale Literature Resource Center, link.gale.com/apps/doc/H1420119482/GLS?u=255isot&sid=bookmark-GLS&xid=9ff79195. Accessed 26 Aug. 2024. Originally published in Male Protagonists in Four Novels of Alice Walker, 2007, pp. 47-60.

[11]. Heckmann, Chris. "What Is First Person Point of View? Definition and Examples." Studiobinder, ©2024 STUDIOBINDER, 8 Aug. 2021, www.studiobinder.com/blog/what-is-first-person-point-of-view-definition/. Accessed 26 Aug. 2024.

[12]. Hirsch, Milla, and Christiana Cino. "The Female VS. Male Gaze." The Fourth Estate, © 2024 TheFourthEstate©, 21 Mar. 2024, thefourthestate.net/17442/opinion/the-female-vs-male-gaze/. Accessed 27 Aug. 2024.

[13]. Hite, Molly. "Romance, Marginality, Matrilineage: The Color Purple." The Other Side of the Story: Structures and Strategies of Contemporary Feminist Narratives, Cornell UP, 1989, pp. 103-26. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.7591/j.ctt207g66s.7. Accessed 26 Aug. 2024.

Cite this article

Yang,Y. (2024). Steven Spielberg’s The Color Purple and Realization of Female Characters. Communications in Humanities Research,43,112-119.

Data availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study will be available from the authors upon reasonable request.

Disclaimer/Publisher's Note

The statements, opinions and data contained in all publications are solely those of the individual author(s) and contributor(s) and not of EWA Publishing and/or the editor(s). EWA Publishing and/or the editor(s) disclaim responsibility for any injury to people or property resulting from any ideas, methods, instructions or products referred to in the content.

About volume

Volume title: Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Art, Design and Social Sciences

Conference website: https://2024.icadss.org/

ISBN：978-1-83558-645-7(Print) / 978-1-83558-646-4(Online)

Conference date: 18 October 2024

Editor：Enrique Mallen

Series: Communications in Humanities Research

Volume number: Vol.43

ISSN：2753-7064(Print) / 2753-7072(Online)

© 2024 by the author(s). Licensee EWA Publishing, Oxford, UK. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license. Authors who publish this series agree to the following terms:
1. Authors retain copyright and grant the series right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this series.
2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the series's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this series.
3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See Open access policy for details).