A Film as Lost as the Girl It Glorifies
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By Courtland Milloy
 Now that I have seen the movie “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire,” I’m all the more bewildered by its enthusiastic reception, especially in the white media. The fictional story revolves around a black teenager, Claireece “Precious” Jones, who is raped by her father, gets pregnant by him — twice — and endures the depravity of her psychopathic mother.
The Huffington Post raved: “This is a film that doesn’t shy away from the depths to which human beings can sink. . . .” You’d think the movie was a documentary.
The independent film, directed by Lee Daniels and adapted from a 1996 novel by the poet Sapphire, raked in an impressive $6 million during its weekend debut. Little wonder, though, given all the media buzz.
The New York Times Magazine featured the movie as a cover story last month and declared: “Precious is a stand-in for anyone — black, white, male, female — who has ever been devalued or underestimated.”
Let’s see: I lose my job, so I take in a movie about a serially abused black girl and I go, “Oh, swell, she’s standing in for me.”
Maybe there is something to the notion that when human pathology is given a black face, white people don’t have to feel so bad about their own. At least somebody’s happy.
Sexual abuse is certainly an equal-opportunity crime, with black and white women similarly affected. But only exaggerated black depravity seems to resonate so forcefully in the imagination.
White suburban boys are so fascinated by it that they fueled an explosion of gangsta rap — misogynistic lyrics against a backdrop of booty-shaking black women.
Of course, “Precious” would not have received nearly as much media buzz if Oprah Winfrey and Tyler “Madea” Perry had not signed on as executive producers. Oddly, neither has made a movie about rising above a challenging background and becoming a wealthy and influential entertainer.
Asked by Entertainment Weekly magazine why she got involved with the project, Oprah said: “I realized that, Jesus, I have seen that girl a million times. I see that girl every morning on the way to work, I see her standing on the corner, I see her waiting for the bus as I’m passing in my limo, I see her coming out of the drugstore, and she’s been invisible to me.”
Instead of making a movie about how she beat the odds, Oprah has taken to divining ugly life stories from black girls she passes in her limo. Maybe the Obama girls should stay off the sidewalk for a while.
In “Precious,” Oprah and Perry have helped serve up a film of prurient interest that has about as much redeeming social value as a porn flick. In it, we glimpse a sweaty, faceless brute of a black man raping the girl while her mother watches from a doorway. Two children are conceived in incest.
“The Jones family home is an amber-lit hell, and we’re not initially sure whether Precious is a prisoner or a participant in it,” says Time magazine. “The movie allows moments of judging Precious . . . then begins to roll out a series of nightmares that last the whole day long: rape, incest and a mother so lacking in human decency that she not only aided in a father’s lust for a child but also considered the child as a witting rival.”
Rolling Stone gave “Precious” 3.5 stars out of four. Three X’s would be more like it.
I watched the movie at a theater in Alexandria where showtimes are nearly around the clock, from 10:15 a.m. to 12:15 a.m. The audience was mostly black women and teenagers. When the lights came up, all of the moviegoers appeared sullen and depressed.
After escaping the abuse of her home life, Precious ends up in a halfway house. She is still functionally illiterate and has two babies to care for, one with Down syndrome.
Strangest of all, many reviewers felt the movie ended on a high note. Time, for instance, wrote that Precious “makes an utterly believable and electrifying rise from an urban abyss of ignorance and neglect.”
Excuse me, the movie ends with the girl walking the streets, babies in her arms, having just learned that her father has died of AIDS — but not before infecting her.
The story is set in 1987, before AIDS treatment became widely available. Precious is as good as dead.
At the Cannes Film Festival, members of a mostly white audience gave “Precious” a 15-minute standing ovation.
I guess they can hardly wait for the sequel.
Courtland Milloy is a columnist for The Washington Post
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i watched precious and blind side the same day. for me the victory wasnt the once in a lifetime rags to riches saving grace of some good hearted person outside of the black community. it was rather, a small sliver of hope for a girl who got as far and as good as she could coming out of depraved circumstances. she had a rare opportunity to redefine normal. life will never be good but she was empowered to make it better through education, hard work, and support because someone met her where she was and let her individual self actualization be enough.
> kairis burt
I agree. There are enough “rags to riches” stories out there. That story has been told a billion times. I think it was about her redefining her life and rising above the terrible life she had. Life isn’t all about money and what society defines as “success.”
> Shun
Thanks great information.:)
> online film indir
I’m offended that people would like a rag to riches story inspite of Precious. Whether or not people admit to it there are still a lot of Precious’ out there & movies like this may give someone the strength to run, walk, or some way to exscape did no one see the little girl that was kidnapped & assaulted for almost 30 yrs in California/JC Dugart
> Derese
I am really not sure of the point that was trying to be made by the author of this piece. Precious was disturbing, shocking, and depressing, but it was a story that needed to be told. People go through horrific events, and Precious shows that even in the most daunting times, there are people that will help you and that you have the power to redefine your “norm”. Yes the ending was haunting in that Precious no doubtably would have a tremendously hard road ahead of her, but she was able to free herself from the bondage of her mother’s power and abuse. She was able to create a more peaceful world for herself and her children despite the fact she was in a halfway house…she was safe, which is something she never experienced. She may not ever be rich, but she found an inner strength that some of us never achieve. That was the hope that the director and author left us with…Success comes in lots of shades, and very few of us achieve the rags to riches blessing (like Oprah and Tyler)…but we can all get to where Precious got…she found peace!
> Alicia Booker
Seems pretty typical, nothing that hasn’t been written before. I’m all for the “first black swim team” or etc, but “first black girl to be raped twice etc etc” seems a little over the top. Oh well.
> YEAH YEAH YEAH
Well that seems a little insensitive to say… dont you think?
> Ashley Andrews
Man, this article sucked. All the reviewer suggested was that every Black film should be some happy bullshit and that depictions of sexual abuse, poverty and illiteracy in the community should not be portrayed. I can understand disliking it from a personal preference, but when analysed thematically, anyone who has adverse reactions to the portrayal of it comes across like a twat.
“Oh no, they’re depicting sexual abuse in our community! And White people are loving it!”
“Oh no, they’re depicting the poverty we so often campaign to alleviate ourselves from in our community! And what’s worse White people will love it!”
“Oh no, they’re depicting a realistic and gritty rape scene that left me slightly turned on- call the pastor! It’s pornography! Oh, and White people will love it!”
“Oh no, the film doesn’t have a conventional Forrest Gump-esque success story at the end, but insteads appears to be tragic! Shit, our films must only be positive- heaven help us if we portray the Black folk who DON’T end up financially successful. White people enjoy our realistic stories!”
“Holy shit, White people are enjoying our movie that was Black made (which on another day I’d probably be advocating for more Black films). Don’t Oprah and Perry know that even when a film is released globally and with the intention that many people should view it that for some inexplicable reason only the Black community should be able to comment on it! DUH! Jesus Christ I hate it when White people enjoy the stuff we market broadly. BTW, I think I need to put more White bashing bullshit in this article”
- Courtland.
> Pilgrim
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