Aretha Franklin was the Queen of Soul, a genius, and a powerhouse. She was also a heartbroken human who understood the power of joy.
For Black women, so often, the penalty we pay for success is packaging our pain in perfected smiles and pretending everything is alright. Because everyone else needs us to be alright. Who we are, and how we see ourselves, is so often tied to how others value us, what we have to offer, and the way we serve up happiness to others.
We all saw Aretha as the queen, but it took her a lot of faith and healing to get grace, to give grace, to meaningfully enjoy her throne for herself.
For years, Aretha wanted to see a movie materialize about her life. She wanted us to know her beyond the big voice. She handpicked Jennifer Hudson to play her. And now, three years after her death, “Respect” opens in theaters this weekend. Aretha loved us with her songs, her performances, and in the way she showed up. But she was hurting, too.
Director Liesl Tommy, making her feature film debut, did not back away from that truth. She didn’t sacrifice joy for struggle, either. Harmony.
“America loves us when we are sassy, when we are powerful, and when we are teaching them,” Tommy told me. “But what about when we are vulnerable and unsure and shy and scared and trying to overcome the trauma that white America has placed on us? What about that side of us? Aretha Franklin had a God given gift, an amazing voice, but why was she able to bring such a particular kind of ache and joy to her sound? She was also on a personal journey to find her own freedom.”
It’s a journey Tommy knows herself. As a child in South Africa, growing up under apartheid, Tommy was raised in a coloured township. It wasn’t until her family immigrated to Newton and she enrolled in Newton North that she really interacted with white folk. But she’s listened to Aretha her whole life.
In “Respect,” Tommy wanted to convey the story behind the voice that raises the hair on our arms and snatches our spirits right. She worked with another Black woman, playwright/screenwriter Tracey Scott Wilson, who makes her feature film debut, too.
“For so many decades in many mediums, a movie like this would have been written and directed by a white man. And that means they are telling us who we are and telling millions of people their idea of who we are,” Tommy said. “I think growing up in South Africa as a person of color during apartheid, it will always come across in my work because I will always talk about a journey toward freedom.”
Tommy found her own voice when her high school teacher, Beverly Logan, invited her to be in a production of “For Colored Girls,” based on Ntozake Shange’s 1975 original choreopoem for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf.
“Once I did that show I understood how to be. I had friends, I did activities that made sense to me. That one play, went from one extracurricular to my future. I would say theater saved my life and it gave me purpose. The interesting part of being a director and artist is unpacking that soul, that true love, that heartbreak, pain, and triumph,” Tommy said.
“Respect” may be Tommy’s big screen debut, but she’s a seasoned theater and television director. She’s done episodes of “Insecure,” “Queen Sugar,” and “The Walking Dead.” She’s returned to Huntington Theater here in Boston many times with productions of “A Raisin in the Sun,” “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” and “Top Girls.” And in 2016, she became the first woman of color to be nominated for a Tony for best direction of a play for her work in “Eclipsed.”
She continues to shine, having directed a “Frozen” adaptation for Disneyland’s Hyperion Theater with more Disney work coming, and will direct the movie adaption of Daily Show host Trevor Noah’s book “Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood.”
But her work on “Respect” felt very much like a calling she wasn’t sure she’d get to answer.
“I never met Aretha Franklin,” Tommy said. “I didn’t see how a person like me who never directed a movie could get a movie like this, but I knew it should begin in the church and end in the church. I knew this should be a movie about the woman with the greatest voice on earth trying to find her voice. I knew I was going to do everything in my power to honor her legacy.”
It is not a perfect movie. But it is a beautiful and bittersweet one. It is as much the story of our Queen of Soul as it is a reflection on how maintaining the facade of perfection, strength, and success hurts us. It is a movie told with Black folk, especially Black girls and women, in mind.
“I made the decision that Aretha was looking down on us and taking care of her movie,” Tommy said. “She loved Black people, and I wanted to make a movie that showed my love for Black people.
“The way people are lit, and clothed, and the depth of their conversations was a way to honor Aretha Franklin’s legacy. Showing Black people in all of their complexity and beauty was important because sometimes it can feel like no one is taking care of us. I wanted people to see this movie and feel seen and cared for.”
Respect. Aretha fought for that, for herself, and for us. Her love remains sweeter than honey.
Jeneé Osterheldt can be reached at jenee.osterheldt@globe.com and on Twitter @sincerelyjenee.
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