#1
Posted: 11/5/09 at 5:43pm
Iconoclastic film critic Armond White offers a fascinating review of presumptive Best Picture Precious, taking to task its director and big-name producers Tyler Perry and Oprah. An extremely entertaining read and a voice of dissent in the chorus of (mostly white) film critics who are praising the film's veracity.
"After this post-hip-hop freak show wowed Sundance last January, it now slouches toward Oscar ratification thanks to its powerful friends.Winfrey and Perry had no hand in the actual production of Precious, yet the movie must have touched some sore spot in their demagogue psyches. They�ve piggybacked their reps as black success stories hoping to camouflage Precious� con job�even though it�s more scandalous than their own upliftment trade. 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."
_____________________
"Winfrey, Perry and Daniels make an unholy triumvirate.They come together at some intersection of race exploitation and opportunism. These two media titans�plus one shrewd pathology pimp�use Precious to rework Booker T. Washington�s early 20th-century manifesto Up From Slavery into extreme drama for the new millennium: Up From Incest, Child Abuse,Teenage Pregnancy, Poverty and AIDS. Regardless of its narrative details about class and gender, Precious is an orgy of prurience. "
_____________________
"Her ideal smacks of selfhatred�the colorism issue that Daniels exacerbates without exploring. He casts light-skinned actors as kind (schoolteacher Paula Patton, social worker Mariah Carey, nurse Lenny Kravitz and an actual Down syndrome child as Precious� first-born) and dark-skinned actors as terrors. Sidibe herself is presented as an animal-like stereotype�she�s so obese her face seems bloated into a permanent pout.This is not the breakthrough Todd Solondz achieved in Palindromes where plus-size black actress Sharon Wilkins artfully represented the immensity of an outcast�s misunderstood humanity. Instead, Sidibe�s fancy-dressed daydream looks laughable; poorly photographed, its primary effect is pathetic."
_____________________
"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 clich�s (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."
____________________
"Worse than Precious itself was the ordeal of watching it with an audience full of patronizing white folk at the New York Film Festival, then enduring its media hoodwink as a credible depiction of black American life. A scene such as the hippopotamus-like teenager climbing a K-2 incline of tenement stairs to present her newborn, incest-bred baby to her unhinged virago matriarch, might have been met howls of skeptical laughter at Harlem�s Magic Johnson theater. Black audiences would surely have seen the comedy in this ludicrous, overloaded situation, whereas too many white film habitu�s casually enjoy it for the sense of superiority�and relief�it allows them to feel. Some people like being conned."
Armond White--Pride and Precious
"After this post-hip-hop freak show wowed Sundance last January, it now slouches toward Oscar ratification thanks to its powerful friends.Winfrey and Perry had no hand in the actual production of Precious, yet the movie must have touched some sore spot in their demagogue psyches. They�ve piggybacked their reps as black success stories hoping to camouflage Precious� con job�even though it�s more scandalous than their own upliftment trade. 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."
_____________________
"Winfrey, Perry and Daniels make an unholy triumvirate.They come together at some intersection of race exploitation and opportunism. These two media titans�plus one shrewd pathology pimp�use Precious to rework Booker T. Washington�s early 20th-century manifesto Up From Slavery into extreme drama for the new millennium: Up From Incest, Child Abuse,Teenage Pregnancy, Poverty and AIDS. Regardless of its narrative details about class and gender, Precious is an orgy of prurience. "
_____________________
"Her ideal smacks of selfhatred�the colorism issue that Daniels exacerbates without exploring. He casts light-skinned actors as kind (schoolteacher Paula Patton, social worker Mariah Carey, nurse Lenny Kravitz and an actual Down syndrome child as Precious� first-born) and dark-skinned actors as terrors. Sidibe herself is presented as an animal-like stereotype�she�s so obese her face seems bloated into a permanent pout.This is not the breakthrough Todd Solondz achieved in Palindromes where plus-size black actress Sharon Wilkins artfully represented the immensity of an outcast�s misunderstood humanity. Instead, Sidibe�s fancy-dressed daydream looks laughable; poorly photographed, its primary effect is pathetic."
_____________________
"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 clich�s (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."
____________________
"Worse than Precious itself was the ordeal of watching it with an audience full of patronizing white folk at the New York Film Festival, then enduring its media hoodwink as a credible depiction of black American life. A scene such as the hippopotamus-like teenager climbing a K-2 incline of tenement stairs to present her newborn, incest-bred baby to her unhinged virago matriarch, might have been met howls of skeptical laughter at Harlem�s Magic Johnson theater. Black audiences would surely have seen the comedy in this ludicrous, overloaded situation, whereas too many white film habitu�s casually enjoy it for the sense of superiority�and relief�it allows them to feel. Some people like being conned."
Armond White--Pride and Precious
"You travel alone because other people are only there to remind you how much that hook hurts that we all bit down on. Wait for that one day we can bite free and get back out there in space where we belong, sail back over water, over skies, into space, the hook finally out of our mouths and we wander back out there in space spawning to other planets never to return hurrah to earth and we'll look back and can't even see these lives here anymore. Only the taste of blood to remind us we ever existed. The earth is small. We're gone. We're dead. We're safe."
-John Guare, Landscape of the Body
Updated On: 11/5/09 at 05:43 PM
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