Award Snub: The film was nominated for eleven Academy Awards, but won none of them. Even worse, Steven Spielberg didn't get nominated for Best Director. There was a lot of speculation that it was a deliberate snub out of pure spite, after he showed he could make an Oscar Bait movie and still make just as much money as his previous work. note Industry insiders have also pointed out that as one of the director’s most important jobs is getting the right performances out of the actors, a movie with three acting nominations should have meant an automatic directing nomination as well. Regardless, it's tied with The Turning Point (1977) for most Academy Award nominations without a win. The consensus view these days is that The Color Purple has aged a lot better than the big victor Out of Africa. Whoopi Goldberg is still convinced that the boycotts by the NAACP for the depiction of rape and Black men as abusive scared Academy voters into the snub in the hopes of avoiding controversy. She herself was competing with Geraldine Page, who'd been nominated eight times without a win, and her collecting the trophy for The Trip to Bountiful was seen as a Consolation Award.
Hollywood Homely: Celie is supposed to be ugly, and, while maybe not as conventionally attractive as most examples, is played by Whoopi Goldberg. This may be a case of Values Dissonance, since in the 1930s (and, still currently in some forms) darker skinned girls with 4c textured hair were seen as unattractive.
Periphery Demographic: Even though the only white female character is antagonistic, the movie is very popular among white women, as they can identify with the central message of women rising above domestic abuse and supporting one another. After all, women regardless of race had next to no recourse from unhappy marriages in those days.
Gayle King cameos as a background parishioner in the church scene. Gayle had met Oprah Winfrey on the set and became friends.
She Really Can Act: Whoopi Goldberg was only known as a stand-up comedian at the time and, although she'd received rave reviews for her comedy, audiences were astonished at her powerful performance as Celie. Even to this day, viewers who know her better for her lighthearted roles are shocked to see her in such dark subject matter.
Tear Jerker: THE Eighties example. To the point where's become Memetic Mutation how it's the one film that is 100% likely to make a black person cry. Parodied in shows like The Boondocks. In an interview with People magazine, Jesse L. Martin noted that his first date was to see this movie; he still isn't sure whether he was crying because of the movie, or the fact that he was stood up.
The Woobie: Celie goes through hell within the first half-hour of the film.
