This is a story I came across and felt the need to address this.
*Writer, Armond White had some very harsh things to say about the movie, “Precious” in an article in the New York Press. He blames Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry.
"SHAME ON TYLER PERRY and Oprah Winfrey for signing on as air-quote executive producers of Precious.
Perry and Winfrey naively treat Precious’ exhibition of ghetto tragedy and female disempowerment as if it were raw truth. It helps contrast and highlight their achievements as black American paradigms—self-respect be damned.
He goes on to compare the movie to the “Birth Of A Nation,” the 1915 movie which portrayed Africans Americans as evil and stupid and the KKK as heroes.
Not since The Birth of a Nation has a mainstream movie demeaned the idea of black American life as much as Precious. Full of brazenly racist clichés (Precious steals and eats an entire bucket of fried chicken), it is a sociological horror show. Offering racist hysteria masquerading as social sensitivity, it’s been acclaimed on the international festival circuit that usually disdains movies about black Americans as somehow inartistic and unworthy.
Birth of a Nation glorified the rise of the Ku Klux Klan as a panicky subculture’s solution to social change. Precious hyperbolizes the class misery of our nation’s left-behinds—not the post- Rapture reprobates of Christianity’s last-days theories, but the Obama-era unreachables—including Precious’ Benetton-esque assortment of remedial school classmates. One explanation is that Precious permits a cultural version of that 1960s political controversy “benign neglect”—its agreed-upon selection of the most pathetic racial images and social catastrophes helps to normalize the circumstances of poverty and abandon that will never change or be resolved.You can think: Precious is just how those people are (although Cops and the Jerry Springer and Maury Povich shows offer enough evidence that white folks live low, too)."*
When I read this, all I could do was shake my head and wonder, when will black people stop sweeping their dirt under the rug? I wish we would address what goes on within our families and our communities then maybe we could come up with solutions.When the movie was first released, there were all types of reviews; some positive and a lot negative. The positive came from movie critics; the ones who are paid to do so. The majority of the negative was spewed from the mouths of black critics; some paid to do so, others just ordinary people offering their opinion. The gag is a lot of the negative opinions came from people who refused to watch and support the movie saying it was modern day buffoonery. How can one critique something they've never seen?
By now, everyone knows the basis of the movie; when I asked my niece who happens to be a social worker if she thought this was realistic she said "It was so real, a few times I almost had to leave the theater...I see cases like this or really similar all the time." The truth of the matter is, we all know or know of a Claireese "Precious" Jones.
We try to pretend we have it all together, as if everything is perfect. We don't wanna give "them" anything else to talk about, don't want "them" all up in our business so we sweep it under the rug. Molestation, Rape, Suicide, Abuse, just sweep it all under the rug and forget it's there, pray that it goes away! That's what we've been doing for centuries and the reality is, that's why so many of us are messed up inwardly. Situations of the past that have been left unsaid has caused so many of us mental turmoil.
It's time to talk about it, release it and work it out! For a lot of people criticizing this movie, I'm sure they're viewing this as a mirror being held up to them and they're afraid of facing their truth. What do you all, the readers think? please chime in on this one.
*= story courtesy of News One for Black America.
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