Ordinary, brown-braided woman with big legs and full lipsyou become yourself.

Let her be born and handled warmly. And this is for colored girls who considered suicide but moved to the ends of their own rainbows.(Ntozake Shange). For Colored Girls, a film produced and directed by Tyler Perry, became famous for its rendition of the stage play For Colored Girls Who Considered Suicide When Rainbow Is Enuf written by Ntozake Shange. The all-star cast was a note-worthy aspect when choosing to go to the theaters to watch the film, but it was the films message that had a major impact. The film is about the universal issues of women of color, not only in the sense of being African American, but each characters troubles represents a color in which all women can relate to. In addition to Tyler Perry portraying the life of women of color to be full of pain, identity crises, sexual exploitation, expectations and power, he uses various film techniques to make this portrayal more realistic and emotion provoking. He achieves this through the lives of the various characters, and with the use of narration, narrative form, mise-enscene, sound, and cinematography. The aspect of pain in colored womens lives is revealed through the troubles of all of the characters, but most prominently the character Crystal. This aspect is made realistic and emotional through the use of the zooming techniques, framing techniques, acting, and sound. The lives of the characters contribute to the universal idea of pain in colored womens lives. This is true because their troubles and lives are undesirable. In the movie, Jo was dealing with an extreme case of adultery, Juanita was dealing with loving someone who didnt love her, Yasmine was raped, Tangie was having sex to fill a void in her life, Alice was molested as a child, Gilda had to learn from it all, Nyla got pregnant at eighteen, Kelly could not have children, and Crystal was in an abusive relationship and lost her children. No rational human being would want to be in any of these characters shoes. The zooming techniques and the framing of the emotional scenes accentuates the pain in each characters lives by every time a painful moment is presented in the story, Tyler Perry chose to zoom in on the actress creating a close up shot where the frame even excludes some of the actress face. By gradually zooming in and changing the focus onto the actress as they get to the most emotional parts of their monologues Tyler Perry enthralls the viewer Crystals story illustrates the pain in colored womens lives the most due to how extreme her troubles were and how many troubles she had. Crystal deals with domestic abuse, loving someone who hurts her, and the murder of her two children, which is arguably the most painful story in the movie. This decision to use the characters as carriers of the different, extreme issues unlocks each type of pity in the viewer; this reveals Tyler Perrys attempt to display their lives as painful. The film construction decisions put the audience inside of the film, making the scene into a more realistic and more emotional one by provoking the viewers to feel as though we were there experiencing the pain with the characters. Identity crises are other factors that shape the lives of the women of the movie. Tangies story contributes to the idea of identity crisis in that she searches for herself in her relationships with others. The costumes contribute to the identity crisis of Tangie by most of her clothes being very revealing and short. Her clothes

reflected how she felt about herself, that all she had was her body and looks. Gildas story contributes to the portrayal of identity crisis by her already have found her identity and helping others like Tangie and Crystal in finding theirs. The dramatization of Gilda reflects the identity security she has. This is shown when she speaks to the other characters and helps them find who they are. Tyler Perry portrays his characters identity crises realistically and emotionally to show how struggles with identity relate to all colored women. He does this through the use of the characters Tangie and Gilda, and by the use of two aspects of mise-en-scene, costumes and dramatization. One of the major themes exhibited throughout the movie is sexual exploitation. This idea was presented through the lives of the women whether they caused it themselves or the men around them caused it. This theme is universalized for women of color through the characters, Juanita, Yasmine, Tangie, Kelly, and Joe. The theme is made more realistic and emotional through the usage of zooming, monologues, and the duration of the takes. In the movie, Juanita struggles with her love for a married man, who only used her for sex. Kelly and Joe are similar in that they are both given a sexually transmitted disease by someone they loved, who got it from someone they cheated with. Yasmine is taken advantage of in her own home and is raped. The zooming in to the sexual aspects of the scenes emphasizes the horror in Yasmines case. Tangie exploits herself by using other men for what she thinks is just sex. The zooming in on her while she performs such tasks as ripping the mens clothes off emphasizes the desire she feels. Also in these same shots the takes are very short and they tend flash to all the different aspects of the moment. This suggest that the moment was very frantic and not intimate at all. In the lives of the colored women in the movie, they respond traits that are expected of them and traits that they expect from others. These expectations are made more realistic and emotional through the use of their relation to other characters in the frames. The character Nyla reacts to the expectations set by her mother. In the movie, Alice, Nylas mother, repeatedly calls Nyla her angel and tells her that her sister is jealous of her because she is better than she is. Nyla struggles with the expectations of her being a good girl. Nylas attempt to keep the image that her mother wants of her to be an angel are tested after Nyla loses her virginity and gets pregnant. In an attempt to keep her image she goes to get an illegal abortion and everyone finds out anyway. The character Yasmine reacts to expectations of friends being trustworthy. She does this through her interaction with her rapist; she thought she could trust him because he had become a friend to her. Yasmine gets raped because of her expectations. Before any of the trauma happens, Yasmine and Nyla both spatially very close to those involved. Nyla tends to stay right next to her mothers side when they are in scenes together. After the abortion, her mother distances herself from Nyla. Yasmine tends to be closer to her rapist but still wary. Afterwards, she becomes wary and distances herself from all men. This technique of using the spatially relations between characters emphasizes in a viewers mind the psychological distance each character felt from the other making the portrayal more realistic and emotional.