I just realized that a film adaptation of a very influential play is currently running in movie theaters and very few members of the NYC blogosphere seem to have written about it, seen it, or noted it with much interest.
Is it because of the reviews? Tyler Perry snobbery? Is marketing sooo segregated that we're all more interested in The Walking Dead than this film of a famous play?
I'm not an exception. I haven't seen it either. This post isn't some veiled way to take the high road on the issue. I'm just curious why we've largely skipped this, even just weighed in on it? Unless there's some blog post I missed about this somewhere?
About Me
- Freeman
- Matthew Freeman is a Brooklyn based playwright with a BFA from Emerson College. His plays include THE DEATH OF KING ARTHUR, REASONS FOR MOVING, THE GREAT ESCAPE, THE AMERICANS, THE WHITE SWALLOW, AN INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR, THE MOST WONDERFUL LOVE, WHEN IS A CLOCK, GLEE CLUB, THAT OLD SOFT SHOE and BRANDYWINE DISTILLERY FIRE. He served as Assistant Producer and Senior Writer for the live webcast from Times Square on New Year's Eve 2010-2012. As a freelance writer, he has contributed to Gamespy, Premiere, Complex Magazine, Maxim Online, and MTV Magazine. His plays have been published by Playscripts, Inc., New York Theatre Experience, and Samuel French.
4 comments:
It's a loose enough adaptation that its connection to the original play is tenuous at best. (I should have transcribed a talk I had in a bar with a director I know: "Look, I actually AM a black woman, AND TYLER PERRY IS NOT THE VOICE OF MY PEOPLE!"
Me: "Oh, so it's cool that I think he sucks, too?"
Her: "YES.")
I get the impression it's because the reviews of the film have been pretty negative, because those that *have* responded to it in the blogosphere have been pretty scathing toward it and toward Tyler Perry...
...and because of the ethnic makeup of the blogs you - and most of us - follow: every single black playwright and actor I'm friends with on Facebook has complained about the movie in their status at some point in the last two weeks.
I read one blog post about it. I thought this was a pretty smart assessment (although I, also, have not seen it):
http://feministspectator.blogspot.com/2010/11/for-colored-girls.html
(Sorry, I posted this under the wrong entry, above!)
Hi Matthew, as Leigh noted, I actually wrote about the film on my blog, THE FEMINIST SPECTATOR, at www.feministspectator.blogspot.com. I think it's an important effort to do justice to Shange's play, and the performances are terrific. A completely different piece than the play, of course, but definitely worthy of notice and attention. I'm glad that the film might resurrect some interest in the play. And most importantly, Shange's feminism remains intact, so by my lights, it does good work. My best, Jill Dolan
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