Purple Hearts is a movie that we love, but we also know that it doesn’t come without controversy and it does have some very big issues. The movie has been taking a lot of heat, for some of the language, racist remarks, and situations, as well as some considering it to be military propaganda.
One of the biggest being that the movie centers around two people – Cassie and Luke – who get married for the wrong reasons. Their fake marriage is illegal, because they are doing it for benefits (the extra money one gets for being married) and healthcare (for Cassie, who has diabetes).
We definitely could have done without the racist lines in the movie. We didn’t consider it to be a propaganda movie, but we do respect that some may see it that way.
“I hope that people understand that in order for characters to grow, they need to be flawed in the beginning. So we very much intentionally created two characters that had been bred to hate each other,” director Elizabeth Allen Rosenbaum said to Variety. “They are flawed at the beginning and that was intentional. In order for the red heart and the blue heart to kind of turn purple, you have to have them be kind of extreme.”
She continued, “Some of the people that they’re surrounded with are even more flawed than they are. They both have been neglected by the system; he’s hurt in a war that doesn’t seem to be ending and she’s slipping through the cracks of the healthcare system. So they’re both neglected by the system, and then they live under one roof, and in these extreme circumstances, they learn to become more moderate and to listen to each other and to love.”
Sofia Carson added to Elizabeth’s statement by saying, ““Why I fell in love with the movie is that it’s a love story but it’s so much more than that. It’s two hearts, one red, one blue, two worlds apart, who are really raised to hate each other. Through the power of love, they learn to lead with empathy and compassion and love each other and turn into this beautiful shade of purple. We wanted to represent both sides as accurately as possible. What I think I’ve learned to do as an artist is separate myself from all of that and just listen to what the world is feeling and reacting to with the film. That has been so beautifully overwhelming and so many people have felt seen or are comforted by this movie. That’s all we could want filmmakers and as artists.”
What did you think of Purple Hearts? Sound off in the comments. Let us know!
