Spielberg’s Decision to “Soften” the Lesbian Sex Between Celie and Shug.
One thing we didn’t discuss in our presentation on The Color Purple is the lesbian relationship between Celie and Shug. We decided to leave this out due to time-constraints and the fact that the film barely even touches on their relationship. The movie diminishes this relationship to a single kiss, whereas their relationship is much more developed (both physically and emotionally) in the original book that the movie is based on. The reason I felt the need to bring this up now is because The Advocate just posted (this afternoon, actually) an article on Steven Spielberg’s decision to diminish Celie and Shug’s relationship due to the fact that they wanted to keep their PG-13 rating. Here is a link to the article (it’s really short): http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2011/12/05/Steven_Spielberg_Says_He_Softened_Lesbian_Sex_in_The_Color_Purple/
Anyway, I just thought it was interesting that Spielberg decided to essentially ignore this relationship so as to keep the movie more appropriate for a certain audience. Now, to his credit, the climate on gay issues in 1985 when this film was released was much different than it is today. However, Spielberg still says that he would still make the same decision today. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? How would this have changed the movie? What does this decision and Spielberg’s statement that he would make the same decision today tell us about the discourses surrounding the topic of LGBTQ people and relationships both then and now?
