For Writers Who Have Considered Rewriting When Gender is Enuf

http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/09/for_colored_girls_trailer.html

http://clutchmagonline.com/newsgossipinfo/tyler-perrys-for-colored-girls-gets-november-release/

For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow is Enuf

I was 16, maybe 17, when I was first introduced to this choreoplay by Ntozake Shange. When the rainbow is enuf...how powerful those words were to a 16-year-old girl struggling to find acceptance within herself can't even be described. One of the resident writers that I was fortunate enough to have as a teacher in one of my classes at Young Chicago Authors first introduced me to the book, and later gave it to me as a present. I was touched. I was moved by it. The way that the play is written is just simply amazing.

So when I heard that a movie was going to be made from an adaptation of the book, of course I was excited. When I heard that the director was Tyler Perry, my happiness decreased. Not because of his past work...that is a whole different blog post. I was upset because yet again, a man was chosen over a woman to direct a movie that is about women. Whether it was done deliberately or not, this has happened more times than it should.

THen that made me think--is it wrong for Perry to direct this story just because he is a man? Would a woman be more qualified to direct it solely based on her gender alone? Although For Colored Girls isn't a creative nonfiction piece, the same decisions about whose story is it to tell, and WHO should tell it still remain across mediums.

The story will of course be different since Perry is a man.

Or will it be? Gender isn't a degree in a sense that it doesn't reward one a higher level of intelligence. I don't think that it is in my place to come to the conclusion that Perry's version of the story would be different and, I'll admit, inferior to Shange's simply because he's a man. I think that their own personal experiences will determine how the story is interpreted, but Perry may relate to Shange's characters better than she can if he has experienced it firsthand and she didn't--he'll not only understand it, he'll feel it.

Storytelling is an art form, one that I think anyone can possess. Great storytelling does take time to develop, and I am very interested to see the result of Perry's development.