PinkerInk

Dear Prof. Bernard,

My name is Emelyne. I don't know if you remember me, but I was in your Black Child class in Fall 2006.

This article was the gospel truth. Precious is the new millenium's version of blaxploitation. We work so hard to fight the pervasive and negative stereotypes about Black people, only to have our efforts dismantled by movies like this.

What makes matters worse is that we have two of the most highly respected and visible members of our community endorsing this travesty, thus serving to validate these already deeply entrenched beliefs.

Thank you, Oprah and Tyler Perry, for setting us back fifty years

Omg I was waiting for this one. I read the book, well the first four or five chapters. So you know I read all the gory stuff. First, She was not described as morbidly obese, which the actor playing precious is. Second, all though I didn't see it yet myself the article helps to affirm my idea that its incredibly racist. Sorry to say but the actor looks like a monkey, shes so dark and ugly and it looks like they put extra make up and pounds on her. Its just a smack in the face really that after all this time our own people would depict us in such a way. But lets look at who its is. Oprah who has about one black person in the audience a show and Tyler perry who i think is so damn ignorant. His shows have such stupid stereotypical premises. Like "bringing down the house", the father has a son who's mother is crack head and runs away every once in a while. The grandparents are loud and obnoxious. The grandfather dresses like a clown and the grandmother weighs over 300lbs. The aunt use to be a druggie and the cousin act ghetto as hell. They all hold down middle class jobs. Its just a family full of addicts and screw ups and yet no one has made it. At first i thought when push would become a movie it would be realistic like part of the book was. The article also points out how all the other films the media could have focused on that were black themed yet still realistic and non degrading, they chose to focus on precious. I can't wait to sneak into this one, it doesn't deserve my money.

Hey Professor Bernard,

I had your Women of Color class last fall and I knew you might ask about possible positions on "Precious," so I thought I'd share mine.

I'm always fascinated by our people, but I guess not just folks of color--but people in general. I've seen people give so much gripe about this movie, about how it's setting us back as a people--how, especially with a black first family--we can't afford to have images of us floating around in anything less than a stellar portrayal (especially in this alleged "post racial society" right?) To that, we must be on a cumulative high on some really good stuff, because how else can we believe this? It's like one of Dave Chappelle's skist "When Keeping It Real Goes Wrong"--is "Precious" simply poverty porn or blaxploitation, if you will, or does it speak to greater issues?

I remember when "Push" came out, everyone in my seventh and eighth grade were reading it. I read a bit and thought "what kind of book is this? it can't be a real book--doesn't read like one anyway..." I guess that was ignorance on my part for thinking if a book wasn't on a B&N shelf and accepted as "proper literature" by society at large, but was instead sold on street corners in Harlem, it couldn't possibly be a real book. That was my fault for not reading it for what it was.

I've seen the movie a few weeks ago, and I was taken aback--especially seeing all the places I've sought out when I was alone, didn't know who to go to or just wanted to make sense of my thoughts. I thought Mo'nique and Gabourey Sidibe did great jobs, and I think people might be hung up on appearances (the fact that they aren't small or aesthetically pleasing) or have some feelings on Lee Daniels portrayal (director of Monster's Ball.) I've heard Paula Patton wasn't true to the teacher in the book (e.g., she doesn't have dreads)--but are we that trite and trivial? Precious' story is happening ladies and gents, perhaps not in the exact fashions and with the same looks--but it is, and perhaps movies like these piss us off because we'd rather think they didn't.

Last year some folks were pissed at "Slumdog Millionaire" saying it wasn't a true portrayal of Mumbai and focused on the poverty, on the negative--it didn't hold true to their idea of growing and bustling city. And perhaps there's a point in that...it wasn't a movie for Indians BY Indians, and had an air of the festishized exotic. And there is a valid point to all those--and some of those can be applied to "Precious" as well, but within a coherent discussion. But if we're using it as an outward outlet of our insecurities and own self-hate, as yet something else to tear us down just as society as a whole tears us down and belittles us--a threat, we will get nowhere.

I was, and am at times, Precious--maybe not to the disheartening degree she is...but I am. You start to believe others when folks tell you you'll amount to nada, that you don't look like so & so, and "why aren't you this-this-&-this, do you know how simply marvelous you'd be?" You'd want to believe that if only you WERE those things that life would somehow pick up and things would get brighter. I'm just happy that my outlet is writing, it gives me somewhere to let my mind simply be.

I am glad that "Precious" is getting folks pissed off--hopefully enough that we'll do something. The lackluster and crumbling education system, our own complacency in promoting this idea of us as "less-than," the fact poor are scorned and pushed to the sides--all as we chase this "American Dream" that never really included us...

Okay, enough for now--peace.