How much power do we have as individuals over the relationships we keep? Whether it is between men and women or friends, we all tend to submit in some way or another. After watching Tyler Perry’s For Colored Girls for the URI Multicultural Center Dialogue Group, my eyes opened to the different ways we, as women, friends, daughters, sisters, and peers, submit to the pressures of the relationships that we carry. This movie showed the extremes that women go through with their marriages and the relationships that they keep. Now I am much more aware of the different power struggles that I have with friends and family members.
After watching the movie with the group, we were asked to sit and talk about how we felt about it; and to be quite honest, I was not ready. My mind was racing through the situations that were portrayed before me--"What would I have done if put in the situations presented? Have I ever focused on myself and not taken the opportunity to make a major difference?"--All this while processing the poetry that resounds within my mind today. A few days later, I was able to put the array of emotions, questions, and thoughts I had together. It was a truly enlightening and empowering feeling.
With friends, we either submit to the decisions made by the group without much of an argument, or are the ones making the decision for the group. In the case of male-female relationships, women tend (note I said the word ‘tend’) to submit to the needs of their counterpart. After watching the extreme situations that the characters of the movie went through I realized that everyone experiences this on one level or another. Despite the severity of the experiences (violent or not), we need to be aware that these issues affect us, and we all need to find the power to be who we are and have equality within the relationships that we keep.
I would recommend that everyone to go and see this movie, I plan on reading Ntozake Shange’s book from which the movie was based to gain more insight into the power we all have within us and I hope you get as much from this as I had!
After watching the movie with the group, we were asked to sit and talk about how we felt about it; and to be quite honest, I was not ready. My mind was racing through the situations that were portrayed before me--"What would I have done if put in the situations presented? Have I ever focused on myself and not taken the opportunity to make a major difference?"--All this while processing the poetry that resounds within my mind today. A few days later, I was able to put the array of emotions, questions, and thoughts I had together. It was a truly enlightening and empowering feeling.
With friends, we either submit to the decisions made by the group without much of an argument, or are the ones making the decision for the group. In the case of male-female relationships, women tend (note I said the word ‘tend’) to submit to the needs of their counterpart. After watching the extreme situations that the characters of the movie went through I realized that everyone experiences this on one level or another. Despite the severity of the experiences (violent or not), we need to be aware that these issues affect us, and we all need to find the power to be who we are and have equality within the relationships that we keep.
I would recommend that everyone to go and see this movie, I plan on reading Ntozake Shange’s book from which the movie was based to gain more insight into the power we all have within us and I hope you get as much from this as I had!
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Addendum: FOR COLORED GIRLS brings to the screen Ntozake Shange's Obie Award-winning play, "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf," a poetic exploration of what is to be of color and a female in this world. --Rotten Tomatoes Synopsis
The URI Multicultural Center Sustained Dialogue Project meets every Monday at 6PM at the Multicultural Center. This is an open event where all individuals are welcome to join in.
Denise Dujon, Staff Writer, is a senior undergraduate student at the University of Rhode Island majoring in Biology.
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