by
Black Girl With Long Hair
The Color Purple is a canonical film in many African American households. The adaptation of Alice Walker’s novel of the same name is a heart-wrenching tale of black womanhood in the American South at the turn of the century, with a star-studded cast including Oprah Winfrey, Whoopi Goldberg and Danny Glover. Virgin Islands native Desreta Jackson was dazzling as a young Celie, aptly capturing the character’s innocence and naivete in the midst of physical and sexual abuse. But afterwards she seemed to disappear from Hollywood. 30 years later Jackson is back to discuss the film and why she vanished from Hollywood.
“To be very honest with you Chris I had to leave Hollywood because as a young child it didn’t seem to flourish my mind very well. I’ll give you an example coming here from the islands, I didn’t even know that I was dark-skinned, there wasn’t a color issue in my head. I always thought I was beautiful. And it wasn’t moreso until I got in Hollywood that I started understanding that there were dark-skinned blacks and light-skinned blacks and there were roles for this character and roles for that character based on a color. So I left Hollywood and in the process of leaving it, I think it actually changed and developed myself more into a woman. And so now coming back into Hollywood I am a different force.”
You can watch Jackson’s full interview here.
Ladies, what are your thoughts?
2 Responses
I’m happy that she is back. Even with black Hollywood there is colorism with the man being dark and the woman always always always being light or at least lighter then him. I look forward to the day black women stop having to see themselves in racially ambiguous women and instead put their money where their mouth is and not support such nonsense.
I question her claim that TCP was the first movie with an all-black cast made by a major studio but other than that, it’s good to see her again after all these years and to know why we haven’t seen her on the screen.
I saw TCP when it first came out, in a theater with an audience that was almost exclusively black. Every single time Young Celie appeared on the screen people laughed and made fun of her. Even in the scene where she was being dragged down the stairs…I was so disgusted by the behavior around me. Desreta Jackson looks (then and now) like she could be a cousin of mine. Two big saving graces for me were 1) I was watching this as an adult and 2) I was an adult who had been taught to love my dark skin and African features.
A few years later, when Whoopi Goldberg accepted an NAACP Image Award — after some NAACP branches urged boycotts of TCP — she said flat out: “I love my people, but sometimes y’all make it really hard.” I couldn’t have said it better. I’ve lost all tolerance for ignorant colorist bullshit from my people. I look forward to seeing Desreta progress on her OWN terms.