DREAMGIRLS II

First posted: February 4, 2007

Last week I was discussing Dreamgirls with an acquaintance. I said that as much credit as I give to Jennifer Hudson and Eddie Murphy, I thought that Beyonce Knowles' performance was underrated. She is a very talented singer. I've never paid much attention to her – for no particular reason, she just never came my way. But after I saw Dreamgirls – and was blown away by Jennifer Hudson – after thinking it over, I realized that Beyonce had done everything a director can ask of a performer: she played the role. She submerged herself. She held her superb voice in check, because the role demanded that she do so. Until she let it loose on "Listen."

It takes talent to give the performance that all 8 of the primary actors gave in Dreamgirls, but it takes craftsmanship to give the performance Beyonce gave. Please don't think I am taking anything away from Jennifer Hudson, Eddie Murphy, Jamie Foxx or any of the other actors. Their roles did not call for them to do what she did. I would hope and expect them to do it, too. But they didn't have to – and she did.

Jamie Foxx's character, Curtis Taylor, Jr., told Beyonce's character "Deena, you know why I chose you to sing lead? Because your voice... has no personality. No depth. Except for what I put in there." Then she proved that she did have depth, a style she had perhaps grown into, when she sang "Listen." She, the actress, had that ability all the way through the movie, but she sang as the no-personality singer the role required. She submerged her natural ability in order to play the part. Outstanding acting.

My acquaintance said that Curtis said that just to hurt Deena. Well, yes, he said it to hurt her, but not just to hurt her; he said it because in the context of the story, it was true. As a writer, I know that this was an important point because earlier in the movie, Deena's mother said that she never thought Deena had much of a voice. Why would she say that? At the time, it seemed an expression of the opposition to demoting Jennifer Hudson's character, Effie White, from the lead position, -- albeit from a peculiar source --but it also foreshadowed Curtis' statement.

My training as a writer and my limited experience as a director gives me a different perspective from an ordinary fan. I notice comments that are slightly out of place. I pick up on foreshadowing. I think it is important for aspiring writers to look for the application of writing techniques in order to apply them to their own work. In this movie, the writers carefully crafted a story to support their premises. Going into the movie, I thought, based on what I had heard, that the lead singer was replaced by the prettier, slimmer singer. And I'm sure that was part of it, but the story is much more complex, much richer, much more layered.

Dreamgirls is about choices. It is about the choices people make and about how the choices make them. Curtis Taylor, Jr., chose to shape a group to give black performers a shot at the "big time," the kind of money and fame that equally, or dare we say it, less talented white performers could command. When that wasn't enough, he chose to spread a little payola around. It worked. His group made it. Along the way, he sacrificed a talented performer who was not pretty enough, too heavy, and too black. Perhaps at one time he even loved her, or perhaps he merely used her, an available body.

Then it became easy for him to use payola to squash the song writer who defied him and the singer who had resisted him. His choice shaped him. He did the expedient, perhaps the only, thing he could have achieved an admirable goal. But when a situation arose again where he could use payola to achieve a not so admirable goal, it was easy for him to do it again. Because he was successful in breaking the rules for an admirable goal, he got the idea that any goal he pursued was admirable because he pursued it and thus it was okay to break the rules. The choice shaped him.

It is no accident that the group's breakout hit is "Steppin' to the Bad Side."

I liked Jennifer Hudson on American Idol. I think she deserves every accolade that has come her way for her role in Dreamgirls. I hope she adds the Oscar to her collection of Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards. I don't really enjoy most comedians, but I understand the reasons that cause talented singer/actors like Jamie Foxx and Eddie Murphy to emphasize the acting part of their talents. There aren't many good roles for singers. Jennifer Hudson has the acting ability on which to base her career, but there won't be many more roles like Dreamgirls for any of them.

So let's not forget that even the greatest performance doesn't take place in a vacuum, that Jennifer Hudson and Eddie Murphy couldn't have given their great performances without the backup performances of Beyonce Knowles, Jamie Foxx, Danny Glover, Anika Noni Rose, Keith Richardson and Sharon Leal.

Particularly Beyonce Knowles. Without her convincing performance, if she had not done an excellent job of playing a singer who could sing on key and not much more, Jennifer Hudson couldn't have shone as the "singer with the voice" as she did. We would have been scratching our heads going "What's the big deal?" Credit Beyonce with her share of the films success. She deserves our regard.