I watched The Color Purple (it feels so wrong spelling it that way) again the other day and was shocked after watching Precious a couple of months ago by how much the latter is based on the former. Both have obviously been adapted from novels, however, Precious (from the novel Push by Sapphire) is such a blatant re-writing of Color Purple (Alice Walker) it makes me quite angry.
I have no problem with re-writings, especially if they are done well. Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea is a brilliant re-imagining of Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte) and Margaret Attwood's The Penelopiad is an outstanding sing-song version of Homer's Odyssey. Thing is, Precious is not a re-writing. It's a simple copy of a much better and much more poignant novel. If you're going to use a novel like Walker's as inspiration, at least have the decency to change the plot a little and to credit the original.
I loved Push when I read it and though Precious was a great adaptation. Now that I've watched Color Purple again (I read the book about three years ago as well) I'm just disappointed that Sapphire chose to rip off a great novel. She's an exquisite writer and the character Precious is excellently portrayed, but Celie and herself are such similar characters, even down to having the same amount of children by their fathers. Both uneducated, underprivileged, black women who overcome their oppressive parental figures (In my mind, Mr. in Color Purple still constitutes a father figure - he treats Celie just as her father treated her) and become better people for it.
Both novels are worth a read, however, I am going to have to take back any brilliant things I previously said about Push in other blogs. It is well written and an important novel to read but I think it is unjust of the writer to plagiarise Walker and receive so much credit for it.
All that said and done, Walker wrote an amazing novel and Whoopi Goldberg's debut performance as Celie in the film version (directed by Spielberg!)is really brilliant. Read and watch them both.
