Shug Avery: Escaping the Rural South

In our reading of the Hearts of Darkness, Omolade describes the Black woman at the beginning of the 20th century being independent, and defying "the restrictions on their womanhood and sexuality" in many ways. From Alice Walker's novel, The Color Purple we see this particular face of Black womanhood through Shug Avery who is rumored to have children that she does not take care of with different fathers, who sings and dances "sexually" (for the time period), is lusted after by many men, and seems not to care that the men are drooling so. I think the directors of The Color Purple captured Walker's characterization of her perfectly as she represents exactly the woman Omolade describes,



"These black women lived lives of explicit sexuality and erotic excitement with both men and women. As they broke away from the traditional paternal restraints within the black community, they were castigated for seeming to reflect the truth of the white man's views of black women as whorish and loose. But these 'wild women' did not care, modeling for Southern rural black women a city life full of flashy clothes, fast cars, and access to sophisticated men."



This is dead on as in Walker's later novel, The Temple of My Familiar it is revealed that Miss Celie and Shug Avery live together until their death and make a life with one another as women of this time often abandoned their situations and lived with one another. In the film as well as in the clip, Miss Celie, the "Southern rural black woman" admires and reveres her. Miss Avery is no doubt flashy and is seen as degenerate, especially by her father, who is a pastor at the church  "just down the road" (Lol) from the Juke Joint.