For Colored Girls (2010)

Janet Jackson: Jo, Red

Photos 

Quotes 

• Jo : Save your "sorry." One thing I don't need are anymore apologies. I got sorry greeting me at the front door. You can keep yours. I don't know what to do with them... I can't even... I have to throw some away. I can't even get to the clothes in my closet for all the sorries. I'm not even sorry about you being sorry.

• Jo : I went to my gynecologist, and before you, every level in my body was fine.

  Carl : Baby, are you sick? Talk to me.

  Jo : Tell me the truth, Carl. Who have you been sleeping with?

  Carl : Jo, I promise you since... Since you and I have been together, I have not slept with another woman, and I promise you that.

  Jo : What about a man?

  Carl : What the fuck did you just ask me?

  Jo : I see the way you look at them when you think I'm not paying attention. I see it. The pool boy in the Hamptons, my driver, the guy the other night at the opera. I see it all, Carl.

  Carl : You have no idea how much I hate coming up into this motherfucking house sometimes. Every day, Joanna, if it ain't you telling me what to wear, how to look, calling the shots over my head.

  Jo : Are you gay?

  Carl : How you gonna ask me a question like that?

  Jo : How did you marry a woman, and then turn around and let a man bend you over?

  Carl : Ain't nobody bending me over.

  Jo : So you doing the bending? Is that what it is?

  Carl : I don't wake up holding another man, walking down the street holding some man's hands. That's gay, okay? That ain't me.

  Jo : You're saying a lie, Carl. You're saying a lot without saying nothing at all.

  Carl : I'm saying that your husband is a man, Jo. I'm a man every day of the week. I'm a man. I'm just a man who enjoys having sex with another man, Jo. No attachments, no fucking... No relationship, just sex, you know? That's what I'm saying, and I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Jo, for my truth.

• [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.

• Jo : Another song with no singers, lyrics... no voices. Unseen performances...

• 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!

• Juanita : [enters the office]  Hi! I'm Juanita Sims, and I'm so glad

  [shakes hands with Jo] 

  Juanita : you took this meeting. Now I'll be quick, because I know you're very busy.

  [sits on the chair] 

  Juanita : I read in your magazine about your upbringing. I just knew that this would be a program that you would respond to. First of all, I'm a nurse, and I have just opened a free health and wellness clinic in a community center in one of the poorest neighborhoods in this city. Oh, forgive me. I'm just a little nervous. As you know...

  Jo : Where do I come in?

  Juanita : Well... It's a little non-profit, and everything I do I do out of my own pocket and...

  Jo : Let me stop you right now. I give to cancer, I give to Africa, I give to education. Those are my charities of choice.

  Juanita : Well, those are all very good charities, but there is so much need in our own community.

  Jo : 'Our?' We are all afforded the same opportunities in 'our' community. What they do with theirs, it is not my issue. Your answer is no. End of conversation.

  Juanita : End of conversation?

  Juanita : Crystal, show Miss Simmons out.

  [Crystal comes in] 

  Jo : It's Sims. Miss Juanita Sims.

  [leaves Jo's table] 

  Crystal : [to Juanita]  Right this way.

  Juanita : [stops and turns back to Jo]  No. I've been waiting out there in that damn lobby of yours for over an hour for you. Now, it's cool, you don't want to give any money, I get that. But this attitude, this blatant disrespect for other people's time and feelings, well, honey, that's just ridiculous. Does it take all of this for you to be that? Then, honey, if it does, then you may be paying just a little too much. And I can see myself out of this tacky-ass place. Ain't got no color up in here, all this white. No color up in this place, including you.

  [walks out of the office] 

  Juanita : Tacky-ass heifer. Wait till I tell everybody how tacky you are. I can show my own self out, thank you very much.

  [tries to open the door] 

  Juanita : How do I open this damn door?