I’m not a Tyler Perry fan, but Shalema McGhee is. Shalema, who blogs at Truself, did some more digging on the For Colored Girls situation and found some interesting facts. Here’s what she discovered:

Everyone is going crazy because Tyler Perry is going to write and direct the film adaptation of “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow is Enuf.” I’ll admit to clutching my pearls along with everyone else. I’m late putting this post up because I really don’t know what to say. I don’t like Perry’s work. I find Madea offensive. I also feel that his gender politics are a disaster. And he’s corny.
“For Colored Girls…” is sacred ground for me. I remember that I was about ten years old and my mother went to see it. My mom wasn’t a person to go out much; this is probably why I remember it. She said it was “powerful.” I snuck and read the book but I didn’t get it, but I remembered that it moved my un-moveable mother.
Later, as a student at Spelman College, I read the text and I got it, or I thought I got it. (I mean at 18, what did I know about “Someone Almost Walked Off Wid Alla My Stuff.”? Still, Toussaint Jones stole my heart, only for Beau Willie Brown to stomp it at the end.) At 38, I more than understand the lives that Ntozage Shange was bad enough to commit to writing. (And let me tell you, alla my stuff has almost gotten away from me, more than once.)
As a writer, I understand, too, what Ntozake Shange went through to tell those truths. If you thought that backlash against The Color Purple was bad, imagine that times 50. Ntozake Shange was called all kinds of man-hater and accused of being a pawn of the white man in a diabolical plot to destroy the black race. As you can see from her beautiful novels, Ntozake Shange is a community-loving woman. To be accused of being its enemy was a crushing blow. (And when you think of the black women writers who have been accused of high treason– Ntozake Shange, Gloria Naylor, Alice Walker, Gayl Jones, Michelle Wallace– where are they now?)
While I was looking for more information on this Tyler Perry story, I found this interview with Nzingah Stewart, a young sister filmmaker. In 2007, she did a Q&A with Clutch:

Clutch: What projects are you currently working on?
Nzingha: Finishing up a video for Jill Scott and preparing to shoot my first feature film an adaptation of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide: When The Rainbow Is Enuf, starring Angela Bassett, Alicia Keys and Sanaa Lathan.

It seems that Hollywood is walking off wid alla our stuff.
(Photos: Orginal Broadway poster, Ntozake Shange, Tyler Perry, Nzingah Stewart, “Madea”)