What is the VirtueVigil score for The Color Purple?

VirtueVigil scores The Color Purple as WOKE LEAN with a margin of -8 WOKE. Traditional score: 9.94, Woke score: 18.34.

What woke content appears in The Color Purple?

Woke content identified in The Color Purple: Feminist liberation from patriarchal abuse as the film's entire purpose; Black men depicted as primary abusers of Black women; Lesbian relationship as primary source of Celie's liberation and self-discovery.

Would conservatives enjoy The Color Purple?

Probably -- The Color Purple leans traditional with minor progressive elements. Most conservatives will enjoy it with minor caveats.

WOKE LEAN

The Color Purple

Name: The Color Purple
Item: The Color Purple
Rating: 35
Author: VirtueVigil Editorial Team

The Color Purple (2023) is a well-made musical adaptation of a story that VirtueVigil readers should understand before purchasing a ticket.

Full analysis below

Film · Theatrical May 2, 2026 Analyzed by Debra Ducane 15 min read

Woke Score

18.34

Traditional Score

9.94

Authenticity Index

35%

Score Margin

-8 WOKE

✅ NOT A WOKE TRAP

The Color Purple (2023) is not a woke trap. Its ideological content is visible from the source material, the marketing, and the film's cultural lineage. Alice Walker's 1982 novel is an explicitly feminist text. The 1985 Spielberg film, the 2005 Broadway musical, and this 2023 adaptation all operate within the same ideological framework: Black women's liberation from patriarchal abuse is the story's purpose and its resolution. Conservative audiences who attend this film in 2026 do so with full knowledge of what it is. The woke content is not concealed past the 50 percent runtime threshold. The margin is negative, which is a prerequisite, but the transparency condition is not met. No trap.

Creative Team

DirectorBlitz Bazawule

Lead ProducerOprah Winfrey / Scott Sanders / Steven Spielberg (Amblin Entertainment / Warner Bros. Pictures)

ComposerBrenda Russell / Allee Willis / Stephen Bray (songs) / Kris Bowers (score)

Top Cast

Fantasia Barrino as CelieDanielle Brooks as SofiaTaraji P. Henson as Shug AveryColman Domingo as MisterHalle Bailey as Nettie

Our Verdict on The Color Purple

The Color Purple (2023) is a well-made musical adaptation of a story that VirtueVigil readers should understand before purchasing a ticket.

Alice Walker's 1982 novel is an explicitly feminist text. Its thesis, stated clearly and never qualified, is that patriarchal abuse of Black women by Black men is a systematic horror, that the liberation from that abuse comes through female solidarity, self-love, and spiritual reclamation, and that romantic love between women can be transformative and redemptive in ways that male-female love, within the story's universe, has not been. The 1985 Steven Spielberg film adapted the novel. The 2005 Broadway musical adapted the film. The 2023 film adapts the musical. The ideology has been consistent across all four iterations.

Blitz Bazawule directed a film that is better than some critics credited and more ideologically committed than others admitted. The musical sequences are excellent. 'Hell No,' Sofia's refusal song, is directed with the kind of physical kinetics and emotional force that lifts an adaptation above its source. 'I'm Here,' the finale ballad, depends entirely on Fantasia Barrino, and Barrino delivers something close to what the song needs: a voice so committed to the emotional journey that the audience surrenders to it regardless of intellectual reservation about the surrounding narrative.

Fantasia Barrino is the film's undeniable achievement. She was born for this role. She played it on Broadway in 2007. She has spent nearly two decades living with Celie. The result is a performance of unusual physical and emotional specificity. Danielle Brooks as Sofia is her equal: funny, fierce, and ultimately heartbreaking when the system destroys Sofia's freedom and joy in a way the film refuses to soften.

The failures are real. The film is too long. The narrative connective tissue between musical numbers is occasionally thin. Colman Domingo's Mister never quite transcends cruelty to achieve the complexity the film's conclusion requires of him. The timeline spanning decades is compressed in ways that require the audience to do work the film doesn't do for them.

For VirtueVigil's VVWS scoring: the film carries a -8 WOKE margin and a WOKE LEAN verdict. The woke signals are structural and intentional, not incidental: feminist liberation from patriarchal abuse (severity 5), depiction of Black men as primary oppressors (severity 4), lesbian relationship as the primary source of Celie's self-discovery (severity 4). These are not peripheral elements. They are the story.

The traditional elements are also real. Celie's faith, the film's spiritual framework, is genuine and central. The concept of community as sustenance is real. Perseverance through suffering has traditional resonance. But these elements exist within and serve the feminist liberation framework rather than operating independently of it. The WOKE LEAN verdict reflects a film where traditional values are present but subordinated to a progressive ideological structure.

For conservative audiences: go in informed or don't go. The quality is there. The ideology is also there. Neither is subtle.

Woke Tropes & Content Analysis

Trope Audit — VVWS Weighted Scoring

Formula: Weighted Score = Severity × Authenticity Multiplier × Centrality Multiplier

🔴 Woke Tropes

Trope	Severity	Authenticity	Centrality	Score
Feminist liberation from patriarchal abuse as the film's entire purpose	5	High	High	6.3
Black men depicted as primary abusers of Black women	4	High	High	5.04
Lesbian relationship as primary source of Celie's liberation and self-discovery	4	High	Moderate	2.8
Anti-patriarchal messaging - marriage and men as instruments of oppression	3	High	Moderate	2.1
Female solidarity and sisterhood as primary redemptive force	3	High	Moderate	2.1
TOTAL WOKE				18.3

🟢 Traditional Tropes

Trope	Severity	Authenticity	Centrality	Score
Spiritual faith as the ultimate source of strength and resilience	4	High	High	5.04
Family reunion as the story's emotional resolution	3	High	Moderate	2.1
Perseverance through suffering - Celie's endurance	3	High	Moderate	2.1
Community as sustenance and support	2	High	Low	0.7
TOTAL TRADITIONAL				9.9

Score Margin: -8 WOKE

Creative Team Deep Dive

Director: Blitz Bazawule

WOKE. Blitz Bazawule (born Blitz The Ambassador) is a Ghanaian-American artist whose previous major film credit was co-directing 'Black Is King' (2020) with Beyonce, a visual album project celebrating Blackness, African heritage, and diasporic identity through an Afrofuturist lens. His selection to direct The Color Purple is ideologically coherent: he is a Black artist with an explicitly Afrocentric cultural framework and a track record of centering Black identity and liberation in his work. The Color Purple is a project built to celebrate Black female resilience and freedom from patriarchal abuse. Bazawule was the right directorial choice for the material on its own ideological terms.

Bazawule brings a visual language shaped by music video and concert film production. The musical sequences in The Color Purple (2023) are often the strongest parts of the film: kinetic, emotionally direct, and staged with genuine visual imagination. Where the Steven Spielberg 1985 version was a prestige drama that happened to have music, Bazawule's version is a genuine musical where the songs are the primary expressive medium. 'Hell No' and 'Miss Celie's Pants' are directed with more energy and craft than most of the dramatic scenes surrounding them. His weakness is the narrative connective tissue between musical numbers, where the film occasionally loses momentum and emotional specificity. As a whole-film director he is developing. As a musical sequence director he is already very good.

Content Breakdown

Adult Viewer Insight

The most honest thing to say about The Color Purple's ideological architecture is this: it is consistent. Alice Walker wrote a novel with a specific thesis. That thesis has been adapted faithfully across three subsequent iterations. The 2023 film is not betraying its source. It is honoring it. Conservative critics who attack the 2023 film for its feminist and same-sex romantic content should understand that they are attacking Alice Walker's 1982 novel, the 1985 Spielberg film, and the 2005 Broadway musical simultaneously. The ideology has not changed. The production quality and musical craft have improved significantly. The more interesting conservative engagement with The Color Purple is not 'this is woke propaganda' but rather: what does this story's specific feminist framework say about Black family structure? The film's depiction of Black men as primarily abusive is the most contested element in academic and cultural discussion of Walker's novel. The film inherits that contestation without resolving it. Adult viewers who can engage with both the craft and the critique will have a more interesting experience than those who reduce it to ideology.

Parental Guidance

Rated PG-13, recommended 16+ due to thematic content including sexual abuse, domestic violence, same-sex romantic relationship as central narrative element, and depictions of racial violence. Not appropriate for younger teens. The film's values are explicitly feminist and the lesbian relationship between Celie and Shug Avery is the story's primary liberatory arc, not incidental. Families should discuss the film's ideology before and after viewing with older teenagers who do see it.