'The Color Purple' actor Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor slams film for 'sanitizing' lesbian romance

Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor is calling out her own movie for straying from its source material and "sanitizing" a Black, lesbian romance.

While it was met with wide acclaim from critics and audiences, The Color Purple movie musical has also received criticism for glossing over the relationship between Celie and Shug Avery, which is featured more prominently in the original book and stage musical adaptation than in either of the story's screen adaptations.

Now, one of the 2023 film's actors is weighing in on the debate. Ellis-Taylor, an out bisexual woman and Oscar nominee for her performance in the 2021 biopic King Richard, recently told Buzzfeed that she was disappointed with the most recent adaptation for focusing more on the "sisterhood" aspect of the story over the Black, lesbian relationship.

"The Color Purple is a book about Black lesbians. Whether the choice was made to focus on that or not in the cinematic iterations of The Color Purple, it's still a movie about Black lesbians," she said. "People can try to say the story is about sisterhood, but it's a story about Black lesbians. Period."

One such example is a moment in the Broadway musical where Celie sings the powerful number “I’m Here” after learning that Shug is leaving her for a man. In the newest movie, the argument is replaced with Celie’s discovery that her long-lost sister is alive. The movie's creators previously defended the change to The Los Angeles Times as turning the moment into one of triumph instead of heartbreak, but Ellis-Taylor views such alterations differently.

"What is hard for me is that when we have those spaces where we can honor the truth of that, we walk away from it. We suppress it. We hide it. We sanitize it," she continued. "In the sanitizing of it, someone like me — knowing that The Color Purple is a book about Black lesbians — looks at that and thinks, 'You're sanitizing me and my friends, and other people who I love and adore. Why?' [If] you don't want to be offensive, then you're saying to the world that I'm offensive."

The actor, who plays Celie’s mother in the film, continued to say that she wants that part of the story "to be portrayed in the films with intention, instead of it being incidental." She also noted that "it's hard seeing so much about the film" being discussed when its queer romance is "the least discussed" aspect.

"Somebody has to be brave," Ellis-Taylor continued. "Alice Walker wrote a book about Black lesbians, and we're still telling that story today. The Color Purple is one of the most important books in the canon of world literature. People are still buying the book. There is business in bravery."

Some of it lies with who creates the film, as she added that "you have to have Black women and Black queer women in the making of it." Ellis-Taylor noted that "neither one of the cinematic iterations of The Color Purple" did, despite the story's significance to Black, queer women like herself. The actor continued to say that she has deep ties to the story, as it showed her "possibility."

"The first time that I saw The Color Purple, it [was] before I understood who I was. I knew that watching Margaret Avery kiss Whoopi Goldberg was astonishing, exciting, and affirming," she said. "It showed me the possibility of myself and the possibility to love a woman who loves me in return. I'll never get over that. It lives with me."