Prominent African-American film critic eviscerates Precioius

[AC126748]

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

Updated On: 11/5/09 at 05:43 PM

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 11/5/09 at 5:52pm

"Not since The Birth of a Nation has a mainstream movie demeaned the idea of black American life as much as Precious.

Ouch. Although that seems a tad hyperbolic.

[EVIE]

Posted: 11/5/09 at 6:14pm

"(Precious steals and eats an entire bucket of fried chicken)"

Why does this strike me as so so funny? LOL!

[Borstalboy]

Posted: 11/5/09 at 6:38pm

I am not on the PRECIOUS bandwagon as of yet (movies that present black women as the bearers of all the world's sins make me feel blech-y)...but this quote didn't exactly help the critic's cause:

"Excellent recent films with black themes—Next Day Air, Cadillac Records, Meet Dave, Norbit, Little Man, Akeelah and the Bee, First Sunday, The Ladykillers, Marci X, Palindromes, Mr. 3000, even back to the great Beloved (also produced by Oprah)—have been ignored by the mainstream media and serious film culture while this carnival of black degradation gets celebrated. It’s a strange combination of liberal guilt and condescension."

Um, wait: MARCI X, LITTLE MAN and NORBIT were "excellent"? Reeeealy, now!

[MrMidwest]

Posted: 11/5/09 at 6:42pm

Slant Magazine wasn't fond of it, either.

http://slantmagazine.com/film/film_review.asp?ID=4565

[StockardFan]

Posted: 11/5/09 at 6:47pm

Who was this girl originally? Did she try out for AI? It seems I remember that.

And yeah. Whatever.

[AC126748]

Posted: 11/5/09 at 6:58pm

Borstal, those who read White regularly know that he has peculiar taste; he's often in complete opposition with most other critics. He named Beloved the second best film of 1998, behind Saving Private Ryan. (That year's list also included Babe: Pig in the City and Bulworth). So it's absolutely in line for him to say that something like Next Day Air is a better representation of contemporary African American life than Precious.

Posted: 11/5/09 at 7:15pm

Well that list proves he's off his rocker, AC: Babe, Pig in the City should have been #1.

[tazber]

Posted: 11/5/09 at 7:17pm

How can you take someone seriously who thought Norbit was an excellent film?

[AC126748]

Posted: 11/5/09 at 7:26pm

I rarely ever agree with him, but he's the only critic in the post-Pauline Kael era who I'd consider appointment reading. He has wacky taste, but read any of his reviews and he always gives an extremely detailed analysis of why he feels the way he feels. And he writes beautifully--much better than, say, Denby or Dargis or Scott.

[AC126748]

Posted: 11/5/09 at 7:33pm

White's review of Next Day Air, to give an example of counterpoint.


http://www.nypress.com/article-19791-quotidian-perfection.html

[Luscious]

Posted: 11/5/09 at 7:54pm

Personally, I think he's full of ****.

Posted: 11/5/09 at 7:58pm

Oh Brother. I have never heard of this moron and will happily avoid reading and more of his twaddle. It's hard to believe someone would pay him for a review like that.

Your comparison to Kael was dead on: Pretentious, out of touch and unreadable.

[PiraguaGuy2]

Posted: 11/5/09 at 8:07pm

He's a pretentious asswipe who I suspect may just be trying to get people riled up half the time, but he does make some interesting points from time to time.

Although I think you could argue that his taking to task of "white folk" for their "race guilt" is just as inappropriate as the race guilt itself.

[degrassifan]

Posted: 11/5/09 at 9:30pm

Personally, I think Precious looks good.

[JerseyGirl2]

Posted: 11/5/09 at 10:46pm

Hell, he LOVED Beloved. Really? Gah.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 11/5/09 at 10:51pm

He lost me with BELOVED. I can understand NORBIT and LITTLE MAN (Some people just really love bad unfunny comedies, like my younger brother who's favorite actor for years was Steven Seagal) but anyone who can claim that BELOVED is anything other than 150 minutes of garbage should never be allowed to write again.

[AC126748]

Posted: 11/5/09 at 10:55pm

Beloved has a 77% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, so by that logic there are a ton of critics who should never be allowed to write again (including Roger Ebert, Janet Maslin, J. Hoberman, Peter Travers and Todd McCarthy).

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 11/6/09 at 12:12am

I completely agree with that. They should never be allowed to write again. lol

I just can not fathom how anyone enjoyed that film.

[Roscoe]

Posted: 11/6/09 at 9:54am

White also claimed that UNBREAKABLE was unspeakably racist, too, I seem to remember...

[AC126748]

Posted: 11/6/09 at 10:00am

Here are White's comments about Unbreakable (as with Precious, he compared it to Birth of a Nation):

Unbreakable is the Birth of a Nation of our day. Not in terms of greatness or innovation; it simply embraces noxious attitudes that many people hold without question or shame. Like Birth, it is most dangerous in precisely the moments some people find "entertaining" -- when its childish story lulls their consciousness, or appeals to unexamined, seemingly unbreakable, social prejudices.

M. Night Shyamalan's newest film isn't anywhere near the work of art D.W. Griffith made at the beginning of cinematic feature history; but Shyamalan also uses dramatic manipulation -- and so primitively some viewers cannot resist him. They're suckers for Shyamalan’s logy, leading-by-the-hand technique -- snail-pacing with overemphatic compositions. But something more basic -- subliminal -- lures people to Unbreakable. It is the specter of racist fear that the story justifies even as it launches a dismaying, unlikely plot. Griffith's audience kept the secret of lynching; Shyamalan's politically correct audience holds on to its secreted suspiciousness -- and blamelessness. Unbreakable keeps an unholy faith.

[JP2]

Posted: 11/6/09 at 2:53pm

I love Beloved. :o

And Unbreakable in Syamalan's best film. :o

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 11/6/09 at 3:11pm

So really he's saying that not since Unbreakable has a mainstream movie demeaned the idea of black American life as much as Precious?
Updated On: 11/6/09 at 03:11 PM

[tazber]

Posted: 11/6/09 at 3:20pm

Seriously, off his rocker.

"It is the specter of racist fear that the story justifies even as it launches a dismaying, unlikely plot."

Has he even seen the movie, b/c I have no idea what he's talking about.

But I do agree that Meet Dave was robbed of both an Oscar and an NAACP image award.

[uncageg]

Posted: 11/6/09 at 4:29pm

He keeps referring to hip-hop. The movie takes place in the 80's when hip hop was just becoming hip hop. He also seems to be a bit out of touch.