Being Raped by the ones You Love

Rashae Rolle

Dr. Mctier

ENGW 300

Extra Credit Essay

11th November, 2014        

Being Raped by the Ones You Love

        The movie “For Colored Girls” an American drama film written by Ntozake Shange in 1975, was rewritten, directed and produced by Tyler Perry in 2010. This movie features an ensemble of eight beautiful ‘colored girls’ from all walks of life, who were plagued with several emotional, social and economic crisis. Each woman tells her own story, and they are all intertwined together.  Throughout the movie, we can see the pain the women endure and this makes them very angry. They have been brutalized by their, lovers, their rapists, their abortionists and they have been driven to the edge of despair. The theme I chose to discuss was one of rape and women being subjected by men. As we can see in the movie sex without consent is a big issue that is being played out, and the character that experienced this dehumanized act was “LadyIn Yellow”, Anika Noni Rose, who played the role of Yasmine. In The movie, Rose is a dance instructor who is dating a man named Bill, who raped her in her own home.

        In this film, Perry has effectively presented the issue of rape and sexual belittling of women in the movie. Yasmine lets this man into her home because this was a man she loved or at least she thought she loved more than dancing and took advantage of her. Because he raped her or others would like to say had sex with her without her consent, she ends up in the hospital and even when the police were trying to ask her questions about the rape she gives them no information but she says poem instead. Later in the movie we learned that Bill had been stabbed by another woman who he raped also.

        The theme goes on more in the movie in the scene where Alice, the mother of Tangie and Nyla, bursts into Tangie’s apartment and confronts her about advising Nyla to go to an abortionist. While they were arguing it becomes deceptive that Tangie is also a victim of rape. We learned that Tangie’s grandfather raped which can become very traumatizing for her at a very young age causing her to battle with love, and look for it in the wrong places. This caused her to live a promiscuous life where she would sleep with more than one man every night. Alice reveals as well her father had raped her and took her virginity at a very young age. Also, her father had forced her to have a baby with an old white man when she was fifteen. The men that they trusted and loved, who was supposed to protect them from all harm and danger, had portrayed and hurt them.