What's "Precious" About Self-Hate?

Without even seeing the demeaning, new black film, “Precious,” I learned in one, cold-blooded sentence in a recent issue of the Wall Street Journal what the whole movie, based on a fiction by a former, Harlem-based, remedial reading teacher, was about, and why it was in the theatres in the first place.

According to the first sentence in Journal reporter Lauren A.E. Schuker’s story, “Precious," based on the novel, "Push,"” is a “raw movie about an obese, black teen growing up in an abusive Harlem household.”

To learn how a film with such a distasteful premise had been made, at all, I had to move quickly to the second part of that same first sentence. It was there that Schuker wrote that the movie: "...got off the ground with some unlikely angels: A wealthy Denver couple, new to the film business." As Schuker explains, the couple included a woman named Sarah Siegel Magness, whose family started the Celestial Seasonings Tea Company (A brand that I will not touch again with a ten–foot pole), and her husband, Gary Magness, whose parents started a powerful cable company. The two of them invested about $12 million to finance the film.

Hey, I wonder if the Magnesses ever seriously considered putting up 12 million other dollars to finance the definitive movie about obese teens of European descent who grew up in abusive, incestuous, white households.

Probably not.

In any event, the Magnesses apparently thought that sharing the story of “Precious” was a wonderful idea; and when African-American director Lee Daniels bought the rights to the fictional story, “Push,” from the author, Sapphire (I’m not making this up), the Magnesses pressed him to make the film as soon as he had completed another movie, “Tennessee". I read, somewhere, that Sapphire had been concerned that if she had not written the story, no one else would have done so. She was probably right.

The frightening thing about all of this is that once Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry lent their names and reputations to the project, "Precious" instantly became a “household word” and immediately became more palatable to trusting black audiences across the country.

Primarily with Oprah’s support, the movie has “crossed over” into the mainstream entertainment community. Subsequently, it’s been very unsettling, but not surprising, at all, to read that "Precious" received a 15-minute standing ovation from people at the Cannes Film Festival (each of whom, I’m sure, have a deep and supportive understanding of life in the African-American community), that it took down major awards at the Sundance Film Festival and that there is, now, “Oscar buzz” for the film.

In its opening weekend, "Precious" was released to just 18 movie screens and generated $1.9 million. But, by its third week, this poisonous cinematic vehicle had been spread by its distributors, like H1N1, into a total of 629 movie screens and had generated $21.9 in box office revenues. The plan, now, according to the distributor, Lions Gate, is to further expand the number of theaters beyond the Thanksgiving holiday.

For those of you who think "Precious" is “just a movie” and that we should just “get over it” and let it run its course in this free country of ours, let me remind you of something that Stephen Balkaran, author of "Mass Media and Racism," wrote in 1999: “The mass media have played and will continue to play a crucial role in the way white Americans perceive African Americans.

"The history of African Americans," he continued," is a centuries-old struggle against oppression and discrimination. The media have played a key role in perpetuating the effects of this historical oppression and in contributing to African Americans’ continuing status as second-class citizens."

In my opinion, there are clearly other factors – lack of economic access, educational opportunity, etc.-- that contribute to these circumstances. At the same time, however, the perception that conditions such as those found in "Precious" accurately define the norm in black communities is spread and sustained by movies, and by print and broadcast news outlets.

According to researchers in the Communications Department at the University of Oklahoma, “Viewing a single movie or exposure to a specific media message may be sufficient for effects on people’s beliefs, thus forming a perception.”

Audiences that watched “The Day After," a television movie about nuclear attacks, were more likely to believe the possibility of a nuclear war, and audiences that saw the movie “JFK” believed there had been a conspiracy to assassinate the president of the United States.

According to the Media Awareness Network, “Many movies still perpetuate common misconceptions about groups of people. Such oversimplified and inaccurate portrayals can profoundly affect how we perceive one another, how we relate to one another and how we value ourselves." The absolute proof of that lies in the fact that more than 70 years after the height of his mainstream movie popularity and nearly 25 years after his death, the name and image of Lincoln Perry, the first black millionaire movie star, who played the lazy, "coon" character, Stepin Fetchit, are still remembered--by blacks and whites-- and still poison the image of black people in this country.

Within that context, we now have "Precious," which may very well rank among the most damaging films about black life ever made. In fact, after seeing "Precious," one reviewer called it the worst film depiction of black people since D. W. Griffith’s Ku Klux Klan-sympathizing film, “The Birth of a Nation.”

In another review of the movie, Evann Gastaldo, of the online news outlet,"Newser," described the film as a story of “A big, black sullen-faced, illiterate girl who lives in the depths of the ghetto and, in all likelihood, will stay there.”

Gestaldo went on to say that “Precious stands in for all the blacks who have looked in the mirror and wanted “better" hair, less body mass, lighter skin, more confidence, more assurance that we’re worthy ….”

What is there about Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey that causes them to believe that what the world needs now is the narrow, fictional, stereotypically negative, black images of the movie, "Precious?"

Has it not occurred to them that they really do have the capacity to finance and promote film projects that depict the achievements of African-American people? Or, in their opinion, have there already been too many Hollywood films about the greatness of Africa, of African civilizations and kingdoms? Or, has it been acceptable to them, so far, that virtually every Egyptian in films, including Cleopatra, has been played by people of European descent, speaking in clipped British accents? Were they satisfied that the great African general, Hannibal, who brought elephants across the Alps to invade Rome, was played in the movie carrying his name by Victor Mature, an actor of European descent?

When Steven Spielberg, who is himself Jewish, wanted to show the strength of the Jewish people and their dignity under oppression, he produced a movie called Shindler’s List. A similar route was taken by Leon Uris, also Jewish, when he wrote the pro-Zionist and sympathetic book that became the movie, "Exodus."

In that same vein, when Francis Ford Coppola directed "The Godfather,” one of the most popular and successful movies of all time, he was careful to make Italian organized crime figures appear to be heroic, kind, loyal, religious, business-like and family-minded.

With the rare exception of Spike Lee, the current crop of black film makers seems to have little or no appreciation for the tremendous power of the medium in which they participate. What's wrong with us?

Unquestionably, there are tremendous numbers of yet-untold, compelling stories about Africans and African-Americans. Unfortunately, "Precious" ain’t one of them.

The next time you see Tyler and Oprah, please mention that to them.

Oh, and do yourself, and our community, a big favor, don’t, under any circumstances, spend even a dime to see the movie, no matter how many times Oprah tells you to do so.


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