Cheat Sheet

BS. That's fiction, jackass. It is both true and embellished.

who give a shit?

A snip from Mr. White's review:

"...Flashbacks to Precious' rape contain a curious montage of grease, sweat, bacon and Vaseline. Later, he intercuts a shot of pig's feet cooking on a stove with Precious being humped while her mother watches from a corner. Another misjudged scene recreates De Sica's B&W Two Women-a half-camp trashing of motherhood that compounds the problem of cultural alienation. So does the film's Ebonics credit sequence and the scene of Precious rotating amidst a bombardment of success icons-Martina Arroyo, MLK, Shirley Chisholm-to which she either relates or is ignorant.This incoherence should not pass for sociology.

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."...

Mr. White misses the larger point: this is a story of humanity's inhumanity. This story is as close to Greek tragedies as you can get, it is a universal story. Yet Mr. White seems offended by the actor's skin color and ethnicity and other "so what?" complaints about movie history, in a bad way.

Mr. White's review tells more about his mundane gripes and frustrations than about the work discussed here. Nobody cares.

It's a story; one of many, some good stories, some sad stories, some bad stories, but nevertheless just a story. No one said it was non-fiction. Mr White needs to get over himself.

As a African American this is definitely a movie I will be avoiding! Nothing make a white person feel better about themselves than a film about pathetic Negroes! Since the average white person has absolutely no social interactions white Blacks they will take this film literally! As in every black family is like this one! Miserable and dysfunctional! Next!

This is one story of many stories of the AA experience. The problem is there are so FEW black movies. It seems like this speaks for all of them.

Abuse and illiteracy crosses many cultures.

How does she know thats her daddy?

Although I have not seen the movie, I have seen enough of life in my 47 years to say that the folks on this comment thread that are upset about the depiction sound like snobs to me. How dare you dismiss this story as not being representative of black life or life in general. How can you be so dismissive on the heels of the discovery of the girl that was kidnapped and held for 20 years and similar stories. Is it the norm, no. Are there real "Prescious' of the world, yes. Just because you don't believe it does not mean it isn't true. Stop being so dismissive and start doing something proactive.

This is not a movie this is black on black exploitation-- Just another way to make a buck off some made up tragedy common to the human experience

This reviewer says:

"Excellent recent films with black themes-Next Day Air" were ignored by mainstream media.

Next Day Air? The film about 3 black guys who are unemployed, try to rob a bank and then get a shipment of drugs to sell? Besides for the film being awful....

This guy just is just angry

"Precious" is hip-hopified "Ugly Betty" for the film fest crowd.

I do not think everyone is stupid enough to think all Black families are like this one, or that there are not a plethora of white, yellow, red, and any other color of families, or any race or culture of families where this does not go on.

Prescious may be a story we all need to hear, from the standpoint of children in our country, in spite of all the money being thrown at the issues, are less protected than many other countries. The reason being that we feel they are protected.

I taught Youth Protection and heard teachers tell children not to wash their dirty laundry in public when they attempted to ask for help.

I was told by a Principal, who did not want to deal with a father who had his thirteen year old daughter sleeping in his really expensive bedroom (he said she was afraid of the dark) and continued to put lotion on her after showers because he said she did not do it properly and got rashes...........that I should mind my own business when I told her that it was her school and she needed to report it.

There is no excuse for people who are paid to protect children that are afraid to do so.

In private schools the story is even worse. Most want three documented with photos, and taped discussion with the child, before they will report. This is illegal.

They have to report the first time.

Until we make our children a priority, give jobs to enough people to make sure the teacher/child ratio is always a good one to protect the children, and make sure we have supportive parent education and just plain "got to get away from the kids" programs, we are going to continue to have the same problems.

My sons went to a very prestigious private high school. During a retreat many of the students talked about being molested by fathers, mothers, brothers, uncles, aunts, and friends of the family.

My sons came home and said, WHEW, we thought having a mom with a terminal illness was bad, we had NO idea.

These problems are not just in any type of family and we all need to start looking for resolution for all our children, not just getting in a huff over one movie and if it harms the reputation of one culture.

Maybe to avoid this aspect they needed to add in a therapeutic part where Prescious met many other youths with the same issues, rich, poor, and from all cultures...........

But I do not think Oprah meant to make a movie to put down Black people.

First of all, Beast, please go to Rotten Tomatoes and check out this man's track record of movie reviews. He gets readers and media attention by criticizing the universally praised (District 9, every Pixar movie ever) and praising absolute crap (Dance Flick, GI Joe).

Second of all, to criticize this film because it portrays an untrue or unfair view of Black life is ridiculous. I live in Baltimore and while I understand Blacks live in every social strata, there are those that see the same struggles that are depicted in Precious. This drama is not trying to make sweeping generalizations about Black culture. It is conveying the struggles of a few. It's telling a story. Nothing more.

The film would no be marred if Oprah-Harpo were not involved. If the characters were white it wouldn't be anything but "Gummo"- see the real issue is Oprah's black "respect" campaigns or one should read appropriately "public admissions". When in fact whites do the same thing- "respect my white culture"- of course they are considered neo-nazi's. Makes one wonder if Oprah's constant public portrayal of being such a good woman isn't a show- a kind of exhibition of deeds and presented for approval-its also a way to build a loyal consumer base Her T.V. charity program also made her a billionaire...most social workers aren't sure if they'll get Social Security when retiring.
None the less Oprah is convinced she's some sort genius of culture- in fact "Gummo" -"Kids" and a few other films dealing with extreme circumstances- "Tras El Cristal" (1987) all have been overlooked and don't exploit but depict the hidden truths and grim realities.