Prometheus 6

A film as lost as the girl it glorifies
By Courtland Milloy
Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Now that I have seen the movie "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire," I'm all the more bewildered by its enthusiastic reception, especially in the white media....Maybe there is something to the notion that when human pathology is given a black face, white people don't have to feel so bad about their own. At least somebody's happy.

Sexual abuse is certainly an equal-opportunity crime, with black and white women similarly affected. But only exaggerated black depravity seems to resonate so forcefully in the imagination.

White suburban boys are so fascinated by it that they fueled an explosion of gangsta rap -- misogynistic lyrics against a backdrop of booty-shaking black women.

Of course, "Precious" would not have received nearly as much media buzz if Oprah Winfrey and Tyler "Madea" Perry had not signed on as executive producers. Oddly, neither has made a movie about rising above a challenging background and becoming a wealthy and influential entertainer....

I watched the movie at a theater in Alexandria where showtimes are nearly around the clock, from 10:15 a.m. to 12:15 a.m. The audience was mostly black women and teenagers. When the lights came up, all of the moviegoers appeared sullen and depressed.

After escaping the abuse of her home life, Precious ends up in a halfway house. She is still functionally illiterate and has two babies to care for, one with Down syndrome.

Strangest of all, many reviewers felt the movie ended on a high note. Time, for instance, wrote that Precious "makes an utterly believable and electrifying rise from an urban abyss of ignorance and neglect."

Excuse me, the movie ends with the girl walking the streets, babies in her arms, having just learned that her father has died of AIDS -- but not before infecting her.

The story is set in 1987, before AIDS treatment became widely available. Precious is as good as dead.

At the Cannes Film Festival, members of a mostly white audience gave "Precious" a 15-minute standing ovation.

I guess they can hardly wait for the sequel.