why r oprah & tyler perry biggin up this film- precious

**Yuriatin** · 11-10-2009, 10:28 AM

Re: why r oprah & tyler perry biggin up this film- precious

Have you seen the film?

**jah_yout** · 11-10-2009, 10:54 AM

Re: why r oprah & tyler perry biggin up this film- precious

have not seen the film- i've seen an ad or two and heard about mariah carey's rave reviews for her performance, but what drew my attention was a discussion of the film i heard on pacifica radio this morning...i read some synopsis and reviews by those who have seen it...although i did see some eye-openers there in the trailer-
like when the main character says "i wish i had a light-skinned boyfriend with good hair"...;
plus i'm already skeptical when i find out it's the same filmmaker who did 'monster's ball'...
and i'm no fan of some of the movies that oprah & tyler have thrown their weight behind...they seem obsessed with this victimization genre with brutal dark-skinned villains and thoughtful light-skinned saviors; this movie seems to follow the same formula- maybe i'll catch a bootleg copy somewhere and give my personal review...
found this interesting though:

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">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. All the terrible, depressing (not uplifting) things that happen to 16year-old Precious recall that memorable All About Eve line, “Everything but the bloodhounds nipping at her rear-end.”
It starts with the opening scene of Precious’ Cinderella fantasy. Tarted up in a boa and gown, walking a red carpet light years away from her tenement reality, Precious (Gabourey Sidibe) sighs, “I wish I had a light-skinned boyfriend with nice hair.” 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.</div></div>http://www.nypress.com/article-20554...-precious.html
ouch
but i think the film has gotten mostly rave reviews from mainstream critics...predictably if you ask me;
after all this same filmmaker got halle berry her oscar for selling her body on film in 'monster's ball'...
hollyweird also gave the first rap song an oscar for a song called 'it's hard out here for a pimp'...so i know how illuminati uses hollyweird to carry out their agenda more time

**halfwaytree** · 11-10-2009, 10:57 AM

Re: why r oprah & tyler perry biggin up this film- precious

I haven't seen the film but I am hearing that it is suppose to be Oscar worthy.

**Yuriatin** · 11-10-2009, 10:58 AM

Re: why r oprah & tyler perry biggin up this film- precious

Oh - ok.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: jah_yout</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><span style="font-weight: bold">have not seen the film</span></div></div>

**jah_yout** · 11-10-2009, 11:15 AM

Re: why r oprah & tyler perry biggin up this film- precious

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Curmudgeon_Milo</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I haven't seen the film but I am hearing that it is suppose to be Oscar worthy. </div></div>

i'm sure

it seems movies/shows that show a great deal of negativity with black characters easily get great acclaim...read "monster's ball" halle berry oscar instead of "dorothy dandridge"...or "training day" getting an oscar for denzel instead of "malcolm x"...

**Gen** · 11-10-2009, 11:29 AM

Re: why r oprah & tyler perry biggin up this film- precious

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Yuri_</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Oh - ok.

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: jah_yout</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><span style="font-weight: bold">have not seen the film</span></div></div> </div></div>

**seemiyah** · 11-10-2009, 11:50 AM

Re: why r oprah & tyler perry biggin up this film- precious

Its the film adaptation of the book Push which is supposedly more graphic and raw than the movie, so the author is who you should be questioning.

<span style="font-size: 14pt">Sapphire's Story: How 'Push' Became 'Precious'</span>

November 6, 2009 Even though the film Precious packs quite a wallop, <span style="font-weight: bold">the gritty realism of the novel upon which the movie is based is even more intense</span>. Originally called Push (but recently renamed Precious to coincide with the film), the book, by the writer known simply as Sapphire, tells the story of a dark-skinned, heavy-set, illiterate African-American girl who has survived multiple pregnancies by her father.

Sapphire tells Michele Norris that she began the book in 1993, just as she was about to leave her job as a remedial reading teacher in Harlem to attend Brooklyn College's MFA program: "I had the intense feeling that if I didn't write this book no one else would."

The author says that she encountered girls like Precious while teaching — overweight girls who didn't fit into the confines of our society's beauty paradigm, girls who were essentially "locked out" of the broader culture

<span style="font-weight: bold">"I wanted to show that this girl is locked out through literacy. She's locked out by her physical appearance. She's locked out by her class, and she's locked out by her color," says Sapphire. "I encountered this. I had a student who told me that she had had children by her father."</span>

Almost as soon as the book was published, Sapphire received proposals to turn it into a film. But she turned them all down — including an offer from director Lee Daniels. But then she saw Daniels' films Monster's Ball and Shadow Boxer and reconsidered:

<span style="font-weight: bold">"I just knew this was the person who could do this, although none of his films dealt with the issues in the book," she says. "But because he had gone over the edge with his own work ... I thought, 'This is someone who will not back up from the material and will present something true and vital to the public.'"</span>
Though she initially worried that allowing her work to be adapted to film would reinforce negative stereotypes about the black community, Sapphire says that times have changed in the 13 years since her book was written.

"In 2009, we have a tremendous range of black families in the media, form the Cosbys to the Obamas, so now, I think, we are safe enough and secure enough to show this diseased situation with the hope that we can see it as something that needs to be healed, as opposed to something that we need to hide from the public's view," she says.

And, Sapphire says, she hopes that her film will inspire people to have more understanding and compassion for girls like Precious. Recently she was approached by a white woman in Utah who told her that after seeing the film that she would never look at an overweight black woman again with the same judgment:

"After seeing this film, she had to deal with an obese black woman as a feeling, intelligent person as a person who dreams, as a person who wants the things that she wants. So we brought up a stereotype, and we cracked it open, and a human being comes forth."

Sapphire's Story: How 'Push' Became 'Precious'

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120176695

The gritty realism of the film Precious is even more intense in the novel Push, upon which the film is based. Author Sapphire discusses the inspiration for her work — and her initial reluctance to allow her work to become a film.

**diabolical_Tanya** · 11-10-2009, 11:53 AM

Re: why r oprah & tyler perry biggin up this film- precious

**jah_yout** · 11-10-2009, 12:13 PM

Re: why r oprah & tyler perry biggin up this film- precious

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: seemiyah</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Its the film adaptation of the book Push which is supposedly more graphic and raw than the movie, so the author is who you should be questioning.

<span style="font-size: 14pt">Sapphire's Story: How 'Push' Became 'Precious'</span>

November 6, 2009 Even though the film Precious packs quite a wallop, <span style="font-weight: bold">the gritty realism of the novel upon which the movie is based is even more intense</span>. Originally called Push (but recently renamed Precious to coincide with the film), the book, by the writer known simply as Sapphire, tells the story of a dark-skinned, heavy-set, illiterate African-American girl who has survived multiple pregnancies by her father.

Sapphire tells Michele Norris that she began the book in 1993, just as she was about to leave her job as a remedial reading teacher in Harlem to attend Brooklyn College's MFA program: "I had the intense feeling that if I didn't write this book no one else would."

The author says that she encountered girls like Precious while teaching — overweight girls who didn't fit into the confines of our society's beauty paradigm, girls who were essentially "locked out" of the broader culture

<span style="font-weight: bold">"I wanted to show that this girl is locked out through literacy. She's locked out by her physical appearance. She's locked out by her class, and she's locked out by her color," says Sapphire. "I encountered this. I had a student who told me that she had had children by her father."</span>

Almost as soon as the book was published, Sapphire received proposals to turn it into a film. But she turned them all down — including an offer from director Lee Daniels. But then she saw Daniels' films Monster's Ball and Shadow Boxer and reconsidered:

<span style="font-weight: bold">"I just knew this was the person who could do this, although none of his films dealt with the issues in the book," she says. "But because he had gone over the edge with his own work ... I thought, 'This is someone who will not back up from the material and will present something true and vital to the public.'"</span>
Though she initially worried that allowing her work to be adapted to film would reinforce negative stereotypes about the black community, Sapphire says that times have changed in the 13 years since her book was written.

"In 2009, we have a tremendous range of black families in the media, form the Cosbys to the Obamas, so now, I think, we are safe enough and secure enough to show this diseased situation with the hope that we can see it as something that needs to be healed, as opposed to something that we need to hide from the public's view," she says.

And, Sapphire says, she hopes that her film will inspire people to have more understanding and compassion for girls like Precious. Recently she was approached by a white woman in Utah who told her that after seeing the film that she would never look at an overweight black woman again with the same judgment:

"After seeing this film, she had to deal with an obese black woman as a feeling, intelligent person as a person who dreams, as a person who wants the things that she wants. So we brought up a stereotype, and we cracked it open, and a human being comes forth."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...ryId=120176695 </div></div>

yes i have issues with the author too, but movies are more visible, but i have issues with all of them...
i just think a teenager who gets raped by her father, gets pregnant, gets AIDS, who is big fat & darkskinned and dreams of lighstkinned good hair boyfriend & a big vulgar abusive mother is not the type of vehicle i like to see so-called mega moguls like oprah & tyler throw their weight behind;
it subliminally sends messages around the world of what 'black life' is...especially with oscar talk;
anyway i'm not surprised she liked monster's ball- an atrocious movie where halle berry whored herself to get their precious graven image called the oscar...
i want tyler and oprah to bring more balanced views of black life in america and around the world than this poor-ting pickney propoganda they have been feeding the world through the movies they make and promote...

**Dyoll_73** · 11-10-2009, 12:31 PM

Re: why r oprah & tyler perry biggin up this film- precious

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: jah_yout</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Curmudgeon_Milo</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I haven't seen the film but I am hearing that it is suppose to be Oscar worthy. </div></div>

i'm sure

it seems movies/shows that show a great deal of negativity with black characters easily get great acclaim...read "monster's ball" halle berry oscar instead of "dorothy dandridge"...or "training day" getting an oscar for denzel instead of "malcolm x"...</div></div>

I agree.

The Oscar for Best Actor in a leading role should have gone to Russell Crowe for his performance in <span style="font-style: italic">A Beautiful Mind</span>. But that would have meant that Crowe would have gotten the oscar two years in a row - he had gotten it the previous year for <span style="font-style: italic">Gladiator </span>over Denzil for his portrayal of Rueben Carter in <span style="font-style: italic">The Hurricane</span> - a powerful performance by Denzil by all accounts, but not as commanding as Maximus in <span style="font-style: italic">Gladiator</span>, in my view.

So Russell Crowe and Denzil Washington were up against each other for best actor two years in a row. The first time, Denzil lost to Crowe. There were charges of racism by Hollywood; Denzil was reportedly mad as hell. What would Hollywood do this time? Well, it decided to give the oscar to Denzil. He played the formidable Malcolm X - his greatest performance to date, in my view - and was passed over. But they decided to give it to him for his portrayal of a dirty cop. I'm not one to cry racism for everything, but to me, the real racism here was when he was awarded the oscar for that performance. Of course, black America celebrated, not surprisingly. I lost some respect for Denzil around that time, considering how he and 'his people' were almost campaigning for the award. It was as if he was going to get a stroke if he didn't get the oscar that year.

As to Halle Berry, her taking that role didn't surprise me. That role was offered to Angela Basset and she rejected it after reading the script. Again, black America celebrated for Halle's light-porn performance.

**Wendy** · 11-10-2009, 12:55 PM

Re: why r oprah & tyler perry biggin up this film- precious

With all due respect J_yout, I think some of these criticisms are a little harsh.

Why is it that White actors/directors/producers can portray the dark side of their culture/race without getting this kind of black lash when black entertainers do the same?

The premise of the movie might be too edgy and deplorable for you but it is REALITY for some <span style="font-weight: bold">poverty stricken abused </span>BLACK young women. You are in essence criticizing the director for shoving the reality of inner city life in our faces. I am sorry but these are the hideous truths Hollywood usually gloss over. I would much rather be provoked by these complex characters than the usual shoot ‘em up gang bangers dying over a piece of @$$ or drugs

From what I can see the film's power is how it provokes discomfort and pushes the audience to see people that are mostly invisible in the AA culture and humanizes them ...many of whom struggle every day to transcend their personal hell.

I am seeing it this weekend.

**diabolical_Tanya** · 11-10-2009, 12:58 PM

Re: why r oprah & tyler perry biggin up this film- precious

Wendy

**jah_yout** · 11-10-2009, 01:30 PM

Re: why r oprah & tyler perry biggin up this film- precious

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Wendy</div><div class="ubbcode-body">With all due respect J_yout, I think some of these criticisms are a little harsh.

Why is it that White actors/directors/producers can portray the dark side of their culture/race without getting this kind of black lash when black entertainers do the same?

</div></div>

-for the same reason that al jolson got acclaim for performing in blackface when black actors were mostly barred from major hoolyweird releases;
- for the same reason that the first black actress to win the graven image 'oscar' in hollyweird played a mammy character from the south- sympathetic figure to the slave-holding society;
-for the same reason d.w. griffith's 'birth of a nation', a movie glorifying the klu klux klan & demonizing black americans was hailed as the greatest film of a generation by president woodrow wilson;
- for the same reason that hollyweird chooses stories showing black depravity to push for oscar consideration

in other words for the reason that hollyweird can not be seen at face value but in historical context...

why was "malcolm x", a great film in my opinion, not given the same oscar push as this movie with the brutal rapist incestual black father, poor-ting pickney darkskin black girl & near-white saviors who appear to set the world right again;

they keep pounding these messages into the mind of my youth suh mi haffi bun fire!

**jah_yout** · 11-10-2009, 01:35 PM

Re: why r oprah & tyler perry biggin up this film- precious

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Humano</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: jah_yout</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Curmudgeon_Milo</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I haven't seen the film but I am hearing that it is suppose to be Oscar worthy. </div></div>

i'm sure

it seems movies/shows that show a great deal of negativity with black characters easily get great acclaim...read "monster's ball" halle berry oscar instead of "dorothy dandridge"...or "training day" getting an oscar for denzel instead of "malcolm x"...</div></div>

I agree.

The Oscar for Best Actor in a leading role should have gone to Russell Crowe for his performance in <span style="font-style: italic">A Beautiful Mind</span>. But that would have meant that Crowe would have gotten the oscar two years in a row - he had gotten it the previous year for <span style="font-style: italic">Gladiator </span>over Denzil for his portrayal of Rueben Carter in <span style="font-style: italic">The Hurricane</span> - a powerful performance by Denzil by all accounts, but not as commanding as Maximus in <span style="font-style: italic">Gladiator</span>, in my view.

So Russell Crowe and Denzil Washington were up against each other for best actor two years in a row. The first time, Denzil lost to Crowe. There were charges of racism by Hollywood; Denzil was reportedly mad as hell. What would Hollywood do this time? Well, it decided to give the oscar to Denzil. He played the formidable Malcolm X - his greatest performance to date, in my view - and was passed over. But they decided to give it to him for his portrayal of a dirty cop. I'm not one to cry racism for everything, but to me, the real racism here was when he was awarded the oscar for that performance. Of course, black America celebrated, not surprisingly. I lost some respect for Denzil around that time, considering how he and 'his people' were almost campaigning for the award. It was as if he was going to get a stroke if he didn't get the oscar that year.

As to Halle Berry, her taking that role didn't surprise me. That role was offered to Angela Basset and she rejected it after reading the script. Again, black America celebrated for Halle's light-porn performance. </div></div>

i feel you;
it seems we are so happy just to be recognized and talked about by the 'mainstream' that any depiction of us is OK as long as it gets recognition from white audiences;
what halle berry did was a disgrace...
i applaud angela basset for standing up to a higher principle & not selling her soul for hollyweird's idol...
there are enough out there to sell without our most famous & rich doing it too

why r oprah & tyler perry biggin up this film- precious

why r oprah & tyler perry biggin up this film- precious

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