The politics of adaptation: Steven Spielberg's appropriation of the color purple

This essay explores potential political and social implications of filmic adaptations using Spielberg's adaptation of Alice Walker's The Color Purple as a case study. Besides enjoying a strong popular response at the box office, suggesting powerful resonance with viewers, the film “The Color Purple” touched on two issues salient in American society: sexism and racism. We explore the relationships among Spielberg's film as text, the novel as work, and the American viewing public. Adapting Kenneth Burke's language, we argue that Spielberg's film becomes a “terministic screen “for Walker's novel; it selects out and reflects certain elements in that work, but it also deflects our attention from other themes and aspects. While Walker's story is that of a woman's empowerment and liberation through her own self‐discovery, Spielberg's adaptation reframes her story through the lens of comforting American mythologies.