Purple Haze

Chuck's wife insists that he sit and watch The Color Purple over and over again.

By Chuck Nice

Every woman has a deal breaker when it comes to relationships. Maybe it's love me, love my cat, or love me, love my child, or love me, love the fact that I'm into all five incarnations of Star Trek--including Star Trek Enterprise--even though it's not that good. Okay, the last example is my own little idiosyncrasy. Regardless of the passion or interest, even if it's not an actual deal breaker, there is something we all love and that we want our mate to love as well. That brings us to my wife's favorite movie, The Color Purple.

I receive movies from WE tv to view for Cinematherapy, and this week I received a copy of The Color Purple. Normally I would see this as a routine occurrence, but this movie creates a unique set of problems for me. My wife can watch The Color Purple any time of the day or night, no matter how many times she has seen it, and I can't take it! Now that we own a copy, I'm afraid that it will be the only thing on our television and, by the way, we only have one TV. Now if I were to insist on watching something else, it would only lead to her recount the myriad of shows that she watches with me, even though she hates them. Most of these shows are chock-full of foul humor and juvenile themes. "I don't stop you from watching that stupid Family Guy eight times a day. I can't believe you can't just sit here and enjoy this great movie with me," she'd say. And she's right on both accounts; without protest, she let's me watch shows that I have seen a gazillion times, and The Color Purple (or Colored People as I call it) is a great movie. I know it was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, and it's been an extremely successful Broadway show, and Whoopi Goldberg is one of my favorite entertainers. None of that is my problem. It's so damned depressing! The main character is sexually abused, sold to another man who treats her like dirt, loses her children, is beaten up, beaten down, and generally lives a life that sucks mud through a dirty straw. But in the end she represents a triumph of spirit; at least that's what my wife calls it, and that's why it's her favorite movie.

I totally understand that the movie shows us that no matter what happens to you in life, no one can destroy the light that resides within each of us--unless you let them. Hey, that's a great message...once! After the fifth time the message makes me feel like a leap from a tall building looks pretty good. So now I will tell you the true reason why I hate watching The Color Purple: Every time I see Celie reunited with her estranged children, I have to fight back tears and then get up to go into the bathroom to cry like a baby. Who needs that? I have enough problems to make me depressed; I don't need Whoopi and company joining the party...and making things even worse. So when my wife starts talking about the triumph of the indomitable human spirit, I can't help but think "Hey! Stars Wars has the same message, but you never see a theater full of geeks watching it and crying." They're too busy crying about their lack of a girlfriend.

I truly love that my wife feels the way she does about the film because she always looks for the best in people--and the best to come out of any situation. I'm pretty sure that's why we've made it this far. So I am resolved to watch this most depressing movie as many times as she wants...and shed a lot of bathroom tears. That's just the deal, and I don't want to see it broken.