The Queer Love Story At the Heart of The Color Purple Has Been Restored

This Christmas, we’ll all be watching The Color Purple.

Starring Fantasia Barrino as Celie and Colman Domingo as Mister, the cast of the upcoming movie musical adaptation of Alice Walker's 1982 novel of the same name also includes Taraji P. Henson, Danielle Brooks, Corey Hawkins, H.E.R., Ciara, Aunjanue Ellis, Halle Bailey, Jon Batiste, Louis Gossett Jr., and David Alan Grier. It’s an all-star list of actors who are going to bring one of America’s classic stories to life.

One aspect of the story that fans have been hoping will be prominently featured in the new movie is the lesbian love story between Celie and blues singer Shug Avery (Henson), which was present in the book, but was relegated to subtext in the 1985 film, which starred Whoppi Goldberg, Danny Glover, and Oprah Winfrey.

Screenwriter Marcus Gardley, who is queer, talked to Queerty about the love story central to the tale and how it has been interpreted in different adaptations, saying that the queer romance “was very important” to his vision for the film.

“That’s part of the reason I got the job. My pitch led off with, ‘This is a love story between two women’. It was the most important thing to Alice Walker,” Gardley said. “In the original film, there was not enough of the romantic love between Celie and Shug. I wanted the love story to be prominent and didn’t want to brush over that these two women are in love.”

Gardley feels that Shug is bisexual, and Celie, despite being married to a man, is a lesbian. “Celie says she hates having sex with Mister,” Gardley said. “And Shug says, ‘You still a virgin’.”

Gardley has been a lover of the book since he was 13 when he stole the book from his local library after his family watched the 1985 film.

“We all have a person like Celie in our lives,” he said. “Resilient, perceived as quiet, is in the shadows. They all have power.”

The Color Purple debuts in theaters on December 25. Check out the trailer below.