Hello Everyone,
Evelyn Here,
I am not usually one for specking out on the political side of religion. By this I mean, I believe that no matter what a person religious beliefs might be, if he/she believes in God and tries to live their lives by following His will, who would I or anyone else to say that his/her religious beliefs and ways of delivering God’s message is any less than mine.
Why do I bring such a hot topic up?
I just watched the 2004 movie, “Women Thou Art Loose”, which is based on the Bishop T. D. Jakes’ book of the same name. As with other human interest nature stories I wanted to know more about the film’s background. I was surprise at what I found. I discovered that some online reviews of the film read more like attacks on the Bishop T. D. Jakes and his ministry than writing honest appraisals of the movie’s storyline and the message that the bishop was trying to get across to the viewers.
In my opinion it is high time that people accept that sexual and physical abuse against children and women occur at an average of one in every thousands beginning at the age of twelve here in the US (U.S. Department of Justice - Office of Justice Programs Bureau of Justice Statistics for the year 2004: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/cvictgen.htm ). The movie “Women Thou Art Loose” was released in the same year as this statistic, which seems to punctuate the important of seeking ways of stopping and of helping victims of such crimes. I believe the Bishop T. D. Jakes found one way of reaching people and informing them of these horrors and I believe he should be afforded greater respect than what some reviewers gave him.
The movie is based on the fictional account on a young black woman named Michelle Jordan, who is the product of a single parent environment. At the age of twelve, Michelle is raped by Reggie, her mother current boyfriend who is the last of a long line of "uncles" to Michelle. Years later and as a parolee, she tries to change her life after having leaded a g life of drug addition, prostitution, and physical abuse. She is seeking answer to a better way of life and discovers that by laying her burden down at the foot of God’s altar at the ministry of Bishop T. D. Jakes’, she will finally be free of what has crippled as woman.
The movie is done with each of the main characters in the film has an aside where he or she speak his or her relationship with of Michelle. Through each character aside, one can see where saving Michelle has failed. Most of the characters so badly flawed that the eventual shooting of Reggie by Michelle is all to clear.
Everyone Michelle know fails her. They either used her for their own gain, such as Dupree the pimp, or were not able to cope with their own demons like Cassie who knew the truth but preferred to believe Reggie’s lie.
To understand how Cassey failed Michelle, we must understand that she was not ready for motherhood, and we later discover that Cassey was also sexually abused by her father and that her own mother who cares so little about Cassey‘s pain as to tell her something like, “Welcome to the sisterhood. It happened to me before you, so deal with it.” When Cassey is confronted with Michelle’s rape, she accuses her daughter of laying to breakup her relationship with Reggie. Cassey even goes so far as to wait for him with a butcher knife.
There is a history of sexual abuse and each woman learned to cope with it in her way. They either avoid the subject and/or try escaping it with self-denial. However, each woman is torn by it, and her interrelationship shows it.
Michelle is shown as a brave but desperate young woman who is willing the fight off the evils of her past such as her relationship with Dupree. She even finds without looking the chance for true love and a family with Todd her childhood friend. Each day is a trial that she must find the enter strength to conquer, and each day she wins a little more.
Nevertheless, the one demon to which Michelle believed she has overcome proves to be her ultimate downfall. The morning that she feels ready to free herself of what the rape that changed her life proves too much when she see that one who raped her, Reggie, who too is seeking forgiveness and salutation by letting loose of what binds him. What has bound Michelle is the rape and she for years she has held on to the blood stained dress from that crime. She wanted to place it at the altar as proof of her conversion. For Reggie was the marijuana. However, his conversion was not real until he seeks forgiveness from Michelle. She in turn is horrified the see Reggie in the church and in her torment, she can not forgive him. Instead, she turns from the new life she has been building with Todd to kills Reggie. His conversion came too late and as he said about his death, “I didn’t see it coming”.
This destroy Michelle, we understand why she is in prison and on death row. As she relates her story to Bishop T. D. Jakes (plays by Himself), we see her building a house out of tissue paper and glue. She is very good at it and the Bishop point out to her that she never put a door on the house. She states “Why when no one living in it.” The Bishop tell her that without a door no one every will. She understood and at the closing of the film we see her empty cell but her little house remains with an open doorway.
One can conclude that Michelle did not get a stay of excursion. The makers of “Women Thou Art Loose” state that although Michelle Jordan’s story is fictional her story is a composite of thousands of women out there.
For additional and information help contact the Florida Council Against Sexual Violence as listed below.
Florida Council Against Sexual Violence
1311 North Paul Russell Road, Suite A204
Tallahassee, FL 32301
Phone: 850-297-2000
Toll-Free: 1-888-956-7273
Fax: 850-297-2002
Website: www.fcasv.org
Email: information@fcasv.org
For all other states, use the following link to find your state.
http://www.usdoj.gov/ovw/statesexual.htm
Rape - No Joking Matter
Below is a link to an article entitled, “Why Are Men Still Joking About Rape?” by Sara K. Gould, on the AlterNet. This article is so intense that it has drawn some 316 responses. The article was sparked by a recent episode of "Rescue Me" on the F/X channel and dramatized one of the main characters raping hiswife as punishment for talking back.
http://www.alternet.org/story/38334/#comments
Evelyn Out.
