There are no two more beautiful people in Hollywood who go out of their way to play colorful and sometimes ugly roles. From Halle Berry playing a loud-mouthed drug addict in the 1991 film Jungle Fever to Michael Ealy‘s role as an abuser flinging kids over a balcony in the 2010 film For Colored Girls, these two are like-minded in avoiding “cute” roles. Eventually, their professional and personal goals interlinked, and the two ended up dating for a short time. When Oprah Winfrey described their love scenes in Their Eyes Were Watching God as “reinventing the whole idea and notion of kissing,” moviegoers who saw the 2005 film undoubtedly agreed.
In the 1937 book by Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God differed in several ways from the movie though, mainly being that Ealy’s character Vergible “Tea Cake” Woods was far less charming and way meaner than the screenplay co-written by Misan Sagay, Suzan-Lori Parks and Bobby Smith, Jr. While no one lost any sleep over the death of Joe Starks (played by Ruben Santiago-Hudson) after Berry’s character Janie Starks was left as a widow, the “freedom” of 38-year-old Janie was all the more enjoyable by the end of the film.
What Happened At the End Of ‘Their Eyes Were Watching God’?
Janie wasn’t known for making the best decisions with men, although she was bullied into becoming the significant other of Logan Killicks (played by Mel Winkler) before leaving him for a more exciting (and mentally and physically abusive) man-turned-mayor Starks. Becoming the first lady of Eatonville, the first Black township of freed men and women in America, may have sounded honorable. But for a woman who would rather jump fully clothed into lake water than wear a corset and stand pretty, Janie may as well have been in jail. When Tea Cake popped up in town, she could sit backward on a chair, let her hair fly free while she played Checkers with a group of men, eat pound cake and lemonade on a porch swing, sharpen her shooting skills, and go fishing in the dead of night.
And while neighbors assumed that Tea Cake was only after Janie because of the money and land that the mayor left her, her 12-year-younger boyfriend actually wanted none of the above. In fact, he demanded that she keep it out of his sight and to herself, living off the land and his own earnings. Although he meant what he said, the economy got the best of him. While he certainly had a major gambling and minor liquor problem, he eventually did find work picking cucumbers. The happy couple lived off the land, no longer arguing about money and his other vices.
But when a hurricane happened and a rabid dog attacked him, Tea Cake was never the same. Even after fighting off the dog, the animal still gave him rabies, and he soon died. When Janie returned home, battered and heartbroken, the locals in Eatonville assumed Tea Cake took advantage of her. In reality, Janie came back a better person, confirming love could be just as she imagined it.
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