You’re probably wondering why I would write a post about Mama Mia on a site dedicated to sisters. Well, as I sat in the movie theater the other day watching the delightful Meryl Streep sing and dance her way through this story I thought to myself. “This could never be a black story.”  Why? Well, its the plot. Young girl is getting married and finds out that her father could be one of three men. And that in itself is the cause for nearly two hours of singing and dancing. As Steve Harvey says, “Stop right there!”

Don’t get me wrong the movie is a totally satisyfing experience—especially because we never get to see Streep, who America considers a ’serious’ actress, in such a light-hearted way. Okay, so even though the movie was supposed to take place a decade ago it still seems implausible for us.  Why? We very rarely sing and dance about being an unwed mother who has no idea who the father is. In fact, that might be a depressing story, albeit entertaining. (Of course, if you saw The Color Purple on Broadway you know that the cast even sang about incest and it was totally heart-wrenching. More the stuff of tears then delight).

But I digress. And now that those ubiquitous Maury Povitch paternity tests constantly show us women (primarily those of color) who bring up to 10 guys in to search for the father of one baby it seems that a black story is even less likely to have a joyous end. 

But less imagine it anyway. Our ’serious’ actress, Angela Bassett, has a child and doesn’t know who the father is and she’s singing about it. Finding it hard? Me too,  so never mind. Think instead about Meet the Browns,  where our Oscar-winner has three children all with different fathers. There was no singing, instead there was a lot of hand-wringing. Streep was equally evasive to her potential baby’s fathers who all adored her. Bassett fixated on one of the three fathers and he treated her (and his son) like crap. In other words, no reason for a big production like Dancing Queen. Plus all the built-in baggage about the perception that black women are sexually promiscious. Definitely not funny and certainly loaded with cultural and political discussion.

But I bring this up to say that it’s actually too bad that we don’t have light-hearted stories of our own.  Actually, I would love the leave the theater exuberant after seeing an all-black musical.Maybe one day.  I’m pretty sure it won’t be Mama Mia.