For Colored Girls (2010)

Phylicia Rashad: Gilda

Photos 

Quotes 

• [opening lines; all in voiceover] 

  Yasmine : [as she dances]  Dark phrases of womanhood, of never having been a girl. Half-note scattered without rhythm.

  Juanita : [as she waters her plants]  ... without rhythm. No tune distraught. Laughter falling over a black girl's shoulders. It's funny...

  Gilda : [as she cleans dust away with her broom]  ... funny. It's hysterical. The melodylessness of her dance. Don't tell nobody, don't tell a soul. She's dancing on beer cans and shingles.

  Jo : [as she readies herself for bed]  She's dancing on beer cans and shingles. This must be the spook house. Another song with no singers, lyrics no voices and uninterrupted solos, unseen performances. Are we ghouls? Children of horror?

  Alice : [as she prays in her closet]  Children of horror? The joke? Don't tell nobody, don't tell a soul. Are we animals? Have we gone crazy?

  Kelly : [as she looks at a pregnancy test]  ... gone crazy? I can't hear anything but maddening screams and the soft strains of death. And you promised me. You promised somebody. Anybody. Sing a black girl's song.

  Nyla : [as she walks to the stage for her diploma]  ... a black girl's song. Bring her out to know herself. To know you, but sing her rhythms caring...

  Tangie : [as she reads over unseen documents]  ... caring, struggle. Hard times, sing her song of life. She's been dead so long, closed in silence so long.

  Crystal : [as she has sex with Beau Willie]  ... so long.She doesn't know the sound of her own voice, her infinite beauty. She's half-note scattered without rhythm, no tune. Sing her sighs... Sing the song of her possibilities. Sing a righteous gospel. Let her be born.

  Yasmine , Juanita , Gilda , Jo , Alice , Kelly , Nyla , Tangie , Crystal : [simultaneously]  Let her be born and handled warmly. And this is for colored girls who have considered suicide but moved to the ends of their own rainbows.

• Gilda : Sleeping with all these men, thinking it's just sex. It ain't just sex, honey. It all has a root. And you got to find that root to pluck it. He placed the rose behind your ear, now cry yourself to sleep. I used to be you.

• Gilda : Ordinary, brown-braided woman with big legs and full lips... you become yourself.

• Juanita : Now, how many times have you heard your man say it don't feel the same? My love is too beautiful to have it thrown back on my face.

  Yasmine : I like that.

  Juanita : Try one.

  Yasmine : What?

  Juanita : Well, I do it all the time in my class. You just say, "My love is too ____," and you just fill in the blank.

  Gilda : My love is too sanctified to have it thrown back on my face.

  Kelly : My love is too magic to have it thrown back on my face.

  Tangie : My love is too "Saturday Night" to have it thrown back on my face.

  Jo : My love is too complicated to have it thrown back on my face.

  Yasmine : My love is too music to have it thrown back on my face.

  Juanita : Yes, and you remember that when a man tries to walk off with all your stuff!