Impressions of "Precious"

In a nutshell, the praise and the criticism are overblown, IMO.

Not as graphic as I feared

It seems strange to say of a movie about a girl physically, sexually, emotionally and mentally abused, but it wasn't as raw, graphic or intense as I feared it would be. Other than brief icky flashbacks of being raped by her father and a few fights with her mother (who smacks her and throws things at her), the abuse isn't shown. Thank God. Count that as a mark in Lee Daniels' favor.

Colorism? Check.

It's there. All but one of the "nice" people in the movie are light-skinned, biracial. However, not as much as I thought from the reviews. Most of the reviewers don't mention Sherri Shepherd, who is a brown-skinned, thick chick and she's not abusive or mean to Precious. The class at Precious' alternative school where she finally makes friends is filled with a rainbow coalition of girls. And the "mean girl" is very light-skinned with long glossy hair.

Lee Daniels...WTF?

He spoke before and after the movie. Before the movie, he invited "all you beautiful white people in the audience to laugh" saying his film was dark, but also funny. Which, surprise!, it was. But I squirmed like hell at the invitation to "the beautiful white people" to laugh. 1) All filmgoers probably needed permission to laugh at the dark humor, not just white people. 2) Were there no beautiful black people in the audience?

Afterward, in a Q&A with the Denver Post film critic, he made some leaps and bounds in logic that I just couldn't follow or agree with. For example, he said he thought the political climate, having Obama in office, made this movie more palatable to viewers. Really? Having a well-raised, Ivy-league-educated president and first lady made us more open to a film about illiteracy and abuse? I don't see how. I think he was trying to make the point that black folks could relax a little because with such role models in the White House, we wouldn't feel like all media images have to be squeaky clean. I think. But was black people's objection to a ghetto movie REALLY what kept this movie from getting made before? I doubt it.

Also, he made some generalizations about blacks that make me uncomfortable. In his defense, he was exhausted and probably talking half out of his head after giving so many interviews and doing so many film fest Q&A's. He talked about how "we" don't like seeing images of women like Precious because they remind "us" of Mammy, and said something like "but this is a real part of the black community." And he said, "we" try to project to be the Huxtables, as if we're all doctors and lawyers, when "we're" not. 1) He seemed to not have any idea about WHY some blacks would rather the media focus on doctors and lawyers than welfare mothers. 2) Does he not know that many of us did grow up more like the Huxtables than Precious? 3) Does he not know how many black women supported that book and are now supporting the movie?

For a man talking about the lack of love Hollywood wanted to give his film about an overweight, dark-skinned black woman, I really wasn't feeling much of that love coming from Daniels himself.

The performances

Mo'Nique will get an Oscar. If she plays the Hollywood game (start going to those functions, girl), she will be rewarded for allowing herself to look like a real human on camera, with pimples and cellulite. On top of that, she does give a very real performance. When she cries, she almost hyperventilates. And I have cried like that, but I don't recall ever seeing anyone on screen do it. She goes to a needy, evil, dark place in this movie and she deserves the Oscar.

Gabourey 'Gabby' Sidibe has something. She's got "it." Something that makes you on her side from jump. I don't know if it's Sidibe or the character as written or both, but even while Precious' mother is hitting her upside the head with a frying pan or (constantly) telling her she's worthless, she doesn't seem like a victim. Even though we see and hear her wish she had a "light-skinned boyfriend" and wish that she herself was blond and white, she seems like someone who has something in her core that will sustain her. Precious has a sense of humor, and even though she understandably checks out at every opportunity, it's clear somebody is home in there.

It'll be very interesting to see what kind of acting career Sidibe has after this. But after seeing her in this clip on Ellen, she seems like she will be just fine thank you very much no matter where life takes her.

Finally, am I Precious?

Yes. I wasn't raped by my father and my mother never laid a hand on me, but I could relate to Precious' teenage longing to be noticed. I could relate to her daydreams about a better life, even if her idea of a better life was being on BET. Precious could barely read and I kept my nose stuck in a book. She is dark, I am light. I wasn't obese in high school. But I was surprised at how much I related to this character.

Which brings me back to a common theme: empathy and the ability to relate to people who don't look like us or who come from a different place than us, because we are more alike than we are different.

In the end though I'm left squeamish about Oprah's and Daniels' calls for us to not ignore "Precious" the next time we see "her" in public. The Precious I saw in that movie doesn't need or want our sympathy. She needs decent schools, housing, work (there's a great scene where she breaks down the pitiful hourly wage one of her schoolmates is making). Parents who actually love her wouldn't hurt either. So, yes, look for the Precious in yourself and you might be surprised to find her. Consider the uneducated, homeless and poor when you cast your votes and make your donations. But please don't be looking around the streets for some sap to feel sorry for.

Are we really all Precious?

UPDATE: ringShout has published a must-read Salon about Push & Erasure. Go here.

Wow, I haven't seen the internets this fired up about a movie in a long time. I'm talking about "Precious" of course. The movie based on the book Push, which has had readers fired up since it came out in the 90s.

Full disclosure: I haven't read the book, but I am planning to attend the premier of the movie at the Denver Film Festival Thursday. I didn't read the book because I don't do well with such intensely dark subject matter. It stays with me for too long, giving me nightmares and spiraling me into depression (For example, I haven't read The Lovely Bones or The Kite Runner, which have children raped in them. And if the movie proves too raw, I've got plans to duck out to the bar.). I also had a Percival Everett-type bias against the book. Why oh why lawd do the popular black books gotta be about slaves or girls getting raped or living in the ghetto, and why come they have to be in Ebonics? Or as Dave Chapelle might ask, Why are books about black people as slaves or living in the ghetto, strung out on drugs and having babies by their father so popular and so beloved by critics? Are white readers more comfortable with a depiction of black folks as pathologic losers? Do black victims provide catharsis for white guilt? I can't help remembering Eddie Murphy's skit on SNL about white folks applauding the prisoner-poet reciting his poem about murdering his landlord ("C-I-L-L/ kill my landlord/ kill my landlord").

But let's not forget how popular Push is with black readers, for sharing a story some feel they haven't seen nearly enough. As much as some of us feel insulted that anyone would assume that Precious is them, there are thousands of women out there who relate to Precious and feel validated by her presence in literature.

But still some people believe the movie is exploitation masked as reality. Some bloggers are concerned because all too often a movie like this comes to represent all black people's stories, which obviously it is not. (Quiet as it's kept, black people are just as bad about this as white people. I don't know how many black folks have exclaimed "There are black folks in Omaha?!" when they hear where I grew up. The number of times someone black has assumed something about me because of my blackness is equal to the number of times someone white has done it. Maybe we all need to learn that one character does not, cannot and should not represent all black people; we get to be individuals too.)

I'm not here to say that anyone should or should not read Push or see "Precious." I'm here to repeat what another blogger once said, Sometimes it's hard being an African American writer (and for this post, let's include African American filmmakers too). We're kind of damned if we do and damned if we don't.

There may be lots wrong symbolically with the movie (I've seen lots of tweets on Twitter upset because it seems the dark-skinned folks are saved by light-skinned folks). And there may be lots wrong with the book too, but for a story to generate this much interest and upset I suspect that there's something right about both too.

Here's a round-up of just some of the reviews, analysis and interviews about Push & "Precious." Would love to hear your thoughts.

Sapphire, author of Push, gives a 45-minute interview to Katie Couric.
A blogger takes on the politics of skin color in "Precious."
Author Paula L. Woods reviews the movie. (Echoing my feelings about "Slumdog Millionaire," which I only saw because it was promoted as being so "uplifting," but it didn't end with nearly enough uplift to make the pain I saw on screen worth it. I still question if this movie wasn't so popular because it helped exorcise some Western viewers' guilt about their comparative wealth.)
The Root questions if the breakout performances in "Precious" will mean breakout careers for the lead actresses.
Jezebel compares Push and "Precious" and finds hope in both (be sure to check out the "nice white lady video from Mad TV!)
Emerging Writer's Network reviews Everett's Erasure and other books.
Juan Williams includes "Precious" in a Wall Street Journal article about street lit, which I think many would argue with. From what I've heard, there's nothing in "Precious" or Push that glamorizes drugs or sex or street life as many of these books do.
Is "Precious" an "orgy of prurience" or "risky and remarkable"? (Could it be both?)
Either way..."Precious" opens big.


Finally, for all of us writers and artists who feel it's sometimes not easy being us.

Meet: Pamela Samuels Young

My friend Ella Curry gave me permission to use this great interview she did with author Pamela Samuels Young. I know readers here raved about Murder on the Down Low. Now Young is back with Buying Time.

Intimate Conversation with Pamela Samuels Young

Pamela Samuels Young is the Essence bestselling author of the legal thrillers: Murder on the Down Low, In Firm Pursuit, Every Reasonable Doubt and the newly released Buying Time. The former journalist and Compton native is the fiction writing expert for BizyMoms.com and is on the Board of Directors of the Southern California Chapter of Mystery Writers of America. Pamela served as legal consultant to the Showtime television series Soul Food. She is a frequent speaker on the topics of writing and self-empowerment.


• Where are you from? What is your favorite book?
I grew up in Compton, California, which gave me a very grounded perspective on life. When I mention my hometown, people automatically assume that I dodged bullets on the way to school every day. But it was nothing like that. I had two strong, hard-working parents, who still live in Compton today. The foundation they laid – faith in God, hard work and education – is responsible for who I am and what I have achieved.

I'm an avid reader who enjoys reading both commercial and literary fiction. I enjoy a broad spectrum of writers, so it's impossible for me to pick a favorite book. But if there's one book that impacted me more than any other, it would have to be Claude Brown's Manchild in the Promised Land. I can still remember stumbling across a copy of the book at my aunt's house when I was about twelve. It was the first book I remember reading that had African-American characters and I was thrilled to be reading about people who looked like me. It was also a very gritty and graphic coming of age story. I promptly "borrowed" the book without asking for permission for fear that my aunt would think I was too young to be reading such a sexually graphic book. After that, I developed an insatiable appetite for African-American fiction. That led me to James Baldwin, Maya Angelou, Richard Wright, Toni Morrison and many, many other great writers.


• How did you feel when you saw your first book on the shelf?
I still have a very vivid memory of seeing Every Reasonable Doubt on the shelf at the Barnes and Noble near my home in February 2006. I went to the store on the book's scheduled release date, not really expecting to find it. My stepson and I searched the shelves but couldn't find it. I was about to leave, but decided to, ask for it at the reception desk. To my delight, the clerk found it and led us to the book. I just stood there staring at it. So much blood, sweat and tears led me to this point. My stepson took out his cell phone and snapped a picture of me holding the book. And just as I started to started to tear up, he promptly warned me not to embarrass him by crying in the store.


• What is your process for creating a novel? Do the characters speak to you?
I will spend any where from a few weeks to as long as three months outlining a book before I sit down to write. I also mull over my story a lot. I'm thinking about it in the shower, while I'm standing in line at the grocery story, during my 45-minute commute to work. I can almost see each chapter as if it were a scene in a movie. Only after I have a completed outline do I start writing. And when I write, I go from page one to the last page without doing much editing. For me, it's psychologically motivating to complete that first draft, even if it's so bad I'd never dare show it to anyone. Once I have a finished first draft, then the real writing starts. I revise, and revise and revise some more. That process can last six months or more.


• How do you spend your free time?
Free time? What's that? Writing is how I spend my free time and I love every minute of it. I still work part-time as a lawyer and when I'm not at work, I'm usually someplace writing – be it at home, the library or the nearest Starbucks. Sometimes I write early in the morning before work, other times I'm up until one or two in the morning typing away on my laptop. My most productive writing time is when I can get away from home and lock myself in my timeshare in Palm Desert for a weekend. When I'm in that environment, the writing is non-stop. When I'm writing, I'm happy.


• Share with us your latest news and book releases.
I’m extremely excited about the upcoming release of my fourth legal thriller and first stand-alone novel, Buying Time, which goes on sale November 1st. In Buying Time, Waverly Sloan is a down-on-his-luck lawyer who comes to the aid of terminally ill people in desperate need of cash. Waverly finds investors eager to advance his dying clients thousands of dollars—including a hefty broker's fee for himself—in exchange for rights to their life insurance policies. Once the clients take their last breath, the investors reap a hefty return on their investment. When Waverly's clients start dying sooner than they should, both Waverly, and a high-powered lawyer who’s bucking to become the next U.S. Attorney General, are unwittingly drawn into a perilous web of greed, blackmail and murder.

You can read excerpts from all my books at my website: http://www.pamelasamuels-young.com/



To schedule a visit with Pamela, email her at author@pamelasamuelsyoung.com

Buying Time by Pamela Samuels Young

ISBN-10: 098156271X | ISBN-13: 978-0981562711

Pick up a Copy Today at Amazon
http://tinyurl.com/buyingtimeamazon

Pick up a Copy Today at Barnes and Noble
http://tinyurl.com/buyingtimebnonline


Bookclubs, select one of Pamela’s novels for your book club meeting and she will join you in person, via webcam or via speaker phone. Read more book excerpts here: http://www.pamelasamuels-young.com/books/index.html

Meet: Ravi Howard, author of LIKE TREES, WALKING

I had the pleasure of meeting Ravi Howard in Houston last year at the Go On Girl Book Club Awards Weekend. Ravi received their "New Author of the Year Award" for LIKE TREES, WALKING. He's a good writer, a nice guy and a new father!

ABOUT LIKE TREES, WALKING

When the phone rang at the home of Paul and Roy Deacon in the early morning hours, it often meant that someone had died. The brothers’ family owned the Deacon Memorial Funeral Home and had buried the loved ones of Mobile’s black families for over 100 years. On the morning of March 21, 1981, the call was different. The body of nineteen-year-old Michael Donald was found hanging from a tree on Herndon Avenue. The murder shook the citizens of Mobile, Alabama, especially the Deacon brothers. They had called Michael Donald a friend.

As the brothers navigate their teen years, they face familiar rites of passage; prom night, graduation, college life, but the family business forces them to confront the rites death brings, passages from this world to the next. As Roy and Paul Deacon search for solace, their journeys take them from church sanctuaries to cemeteries, protest marches to courtrooms, from the tree-lined streets of Mobile to the dark beach roads on the Eastern Shore. Added to the grief of a murdered friend, the brothers and their hometown face the first lynching in over sixty years.

Mobile had been as peaceful as its tree-lined streets were beautiful, but the murder gave the city its own sad chapter in the Alabama racial history. Like Birmingham’s four little girls, Selma’s Bloody Sunday, and Tuskegee’s experiment, Mobile had the murder of Michael Donald. In this riveting debut, Like Trees, Walking explores a fictional aftermath of a true story that will both haunt and illuminate. The novel examines death, faith, truth, and justice, elements that often intersect and at times collide. An old tale set in modern times, Like Trees, Walking explores the complexities and the promises of America’s New South.

The Q&A
White Readers Meet Black Authors: Describe your work for someone unfamiliar with it. What's your writing style like? What subjects/themes do you explore?

Ravi Howard: I was born in Montgomery, Alabama, and I learned about the history of the civil rights movement from books as well as personal narratives from folks who lived through that time. I always thought the personal stories were more interesting, even when the people telling those stories were not well known.

There was this vibrant chorus of folks who had small roles but big voices and I've tried to bring that street-level perspective to my work. I guess I consider myself a novelist that deals with grassroots histories.

WRMBA: What's your latest novel about?

RH: My novel, Like Trees, Walking, fictionalized the story of an actual lynching that took place in Mobile, Alabama in 1981. Although the crime was central, I wanted to explore the ways that reactions to such a crime were different--or similiar-- to reactions to such crimes in the past. (You can listen to the NPR story about him doing research about the murder here.)

One of the questions I had to answer was whether this was a contemporary or a historical novel. In many ways it's both. Certainly, we have to rely on the historical record to revisit events that happened before our lifetimes. I wanted to look at how we react to things that are within our span of memory. How does the public record differ from the recollections we hear from friends and family. I looked at how those personal stories are in some ways op-eds to the historical record that sometimes misses the mark on racial violence and history.

WRMBA: What's your goal(s) as a writer? Do you set out to educate? entertain? illuminate?

RH: I would like to say all of those things are part of the mix. I look at my work like a rendition on a jazz standard. I'm not the first to take on any of my subjects, but I hope that readers can appreciate the style and approach each writer takes to commonly told stories of black history.

As black writers and poets take on history, it shows that those moments are fluid and the light we shine on them can create a wide range of images. Once history is etched in stone, I think it becomes less interesting.

WRMBA: What's next for you?

RH: I'm working on a book inspired by the Alabama roots of Nat King Cole. It's a challenging and fascinating journey.

WRMBA: What's the best book (or whose the best writer) that not enough people know about?

RH: William Henry Lewis has a great short story collection called I Got Somebody in Staunton. (This is at least the 2nd time one of the profiled authors has recommended this book.)

News and links

Getting Ready for the Holidays

Have you noticed the countdown clock at the bottom of the page? It counts down to National Buy a Book By a Black Author and Give it to Somebody Not Black Month. Just over a month before it's here! Poets & Writers has some suggestions. Readers, got tips on good books we should be giving folks this December? Let's get the buzz started.

Bernice McFadden is about to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the release of her novel Sugar! She has an interesting idea about how to celebrate. Sugar would also make a great NBABBABAAGITSNBM gift.

New or Upcoming Releases

Rebel Yell by Alice Randall. Shelf Awareness ran an interesting Q&A with her recently. Randall is part of an interesting and acclaimed group of writers called The Finish Party.

Feminista by Erica Kennedy, which I learned about on Twitter. I loved her novel Bling so I am very much looking forward to this one. Check out Publisher's Weekly rave review of this "bitch lit" book and ask yourselves WHY HAVEN'T WE HEARD ABOUT THIS BOOK? (Drives me batty!): "This crazed black romantic comedy from journalist and author Kennedy (Bling) charts the rocky course of Sydney Zamora, a very angry single. The Cachet magazine writer decides, at 33, that she's got to get married before her eggs sour. So her rich sister hires Mitzi Berman, a successful Manhattan matchmaker, to

find Sydney's Mr. Right. Mitzi's challenge, as she sees it, is transforming fierce feminista Sydney into a dress-wearing girly girl (says Mitzi: If you don't make some radical changes in your behavior, you will die alone). Catching Sydney's eye is the fabulous Max Cooper, the spoiled playboy heir of a department store fortune, but can her politics mix with his background? Truly, their path to connubial bliss is barbed with obstacles, charted with sarcastic glee by Kennedy, a pioneer of chick lit's naughty stepsister—bitc

h lit."

Wench by Dolen-Perkins Valdez due in January. Here's the Publisher's Weekly review: "In her debut, Perkins-Valdez eloquently plunges into a dark period of American history, chronicling the lives of four slave women—Lizzie, Reenie, Sweet and Mawu—who are their masters’ mistresses. The women meet when their owners vacation at the same summer resort in Ohio. There, they see free blacks for the first time and hear rumors of abolition, sparking their own desires to be free. For everyone but Lizzie, that is, who believes she is really in love with her master, and he with her. An extended flashback in the middle of the novel delves into Lizzie’s life and vividly explores the complicated psychological dynamic between master and slave. Jumping back to the final summer in Ohio, the women all have a decision to make—will they run? Heart-wrenching, intriguing, original and suspenseful, this novel showcases Perkins-Valdez’s ability to bring the unfortunate past to life."

Attention Book Clubs

In the November issue of Essence a black book club is pictured reading The Help by Kathryn Stockett. (I don't have any problems with them reading a white author, btw.) Anybody know of any white clubs reading a black author? If so, send me pictures! I will post them here.

And is there such a thing as interracial book clubs?

The Writer's Life

Junot Diaz talks about the moment he really became a writer (giving hope to every writer I know).

I recently experienced a dream that many writers have: seeing a book turned into a movie. I just got back from Vancouver where I visited the set of "Sins of the Mother" (based on Orange Mint and Honey), which will air on the Lifetime Movie Network, and met the cast (Jill Scott and Nicole Beharie) and crew. Pictures are here. I'll post a link to an essay I'm writing about my adventure soon.

The Cybils: Children's bloggers literary awards

The Happy Nappy Bookseller reminds us to vote in the Cybils (The Children's and Young Bloggers Literary Awards.)

Author Elyse Singleton's guest post in defense of "real writers"

Bestseller on Arrival

Until recently I had never given much thought to the Mamas and the Papas. After seeing the first Oprah interview with Mackenzie Phillips, I told a friend, “Yeah, I’ve heard of them. They sang Sunday, Sunday.”

“No,” he said. “Monday, Monday.”

“Oh,” I said. What I knew about the Mamas and the Papas was “Sunday, Sunday, da da da da da da” or “la la la la la la,” and with that failed bit of expertise exhausted, I had not much else to say.

Phillips, the daughter of lead singer John, has led a less harmonious life even than my personal rendition of their famous song. Her High on Arrival─an autobiography that details child sex abuse, consensual adult incest, and the shenanigans of people who took illicit drugs Sunday, Monday, every other day of the week, and would have invented an eighth day to take yet more drugs were that possible—is making the electronic tongue of the TV and Internet media wag quite a bit.

But I should state I have not read Phillips’ new book and do not plan to in any situation devoid of someone coaxing me to with an assault rifle. That means for all I know, it could be Shakespearian in quality and wisdom and an experience no human being interested in literature and living a better life would want to miss. For argument’s sake, I am going to assume it is not.

What I do know about works like Phillips’ is that their easy access to huge media promotion is the bane of better but less publicized works. And I have a direct interest because I (and three or four of my friends) write less publicized but presumably better works. Of course I understand that in a free market society people take their wares to the open mart and the most effective, not necessarily the best person, wins. If Phillips had declined to mainline the media, as she has done, from a capitalist perspective, it would have been silly, like leaving money on the table. But what are the rest of us to do? I, and many of my peers, routinely grapple with ideas about self-promotion. When my novel came out in 2002, one fellow I know suggested that to draw more attention to myself I should go and find Osama Bin Laden. Also, there are savvy agents, consultants, and how-to guides that can provide instruction about low-cost ways to promote one’s book that do not require a grisly death in a mountain cave in Pakistan.

I am not proposing that writers comprise an elite magical club, nor that anyone in this life gets to choose the competition. But I wonder if it would be OK to make a special pitch for ourselves, to say, hey, folks we are real writers, who have worked and struggled years to strengthen our grasp of the art. We apologize if you are disappointed that we are not the mistress of the serial killer, not the prostitute who slept with the famous politician, not the celeb who snorted an avalanche of cocaine. We may not have solid credentials in crime, scandal, and self-degradation, but we know how to do a damn good job of telling a story, fiction or nonfiction.

And the thing is . . . absolutely any subject treated in the scandal texts has been covered by real writers, even great ones. A high-nourishment-yet-fantastically-entertaining work that, like Phillips’ bio, takes a look at the 60s-spawned drug scene, is Joan Didion’s (a great American author whose company I would never consider myself in) Slouching Toward Bethlehem. Many actual writers have weighed in on the excesses of the counter-culture, from Didion to Tom Wolfe to Sara Davidson. Unless works by such people were lost in some nuclear mishap, I cannot imagine turning to an ex-sitcom star for insight and information about a weighty social problem.

Still, good arguments exist in favor of high-profile books: They bring people into book stores, and the avid reader may make more purchases than planned. Also, as my dear friend Carleen Brice reminded me, many non-writers employ professional writers as ghosts, throwing a bit more income at our lot.

In interviews Phillips’ says she has opened a dialogue on incest. It is a subject “not talked about,” she claims. Not talked about where? In Saudi Arabia? Maybe I am suffering from false memories, but I cannot recall a time in the last thirty years when the subject was not a media hit in America.

And I do not think books are the best answer to people who rape and/or drug children. The most intelligent response is simply—prison.

What public action speaks more eloquently to child sex abuse is the recent move toward extradition of globe-trotting felon Roman Polanski. After more than 30 years, the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office decided it had tired of playing patty cake with rich Mr. Short Eyes, who pleaded guilty to having relations with a 13-year-old girl.

I wish Phillips well. But I do not wish to see her book fare better that its betters. No kid deserves to experience sexual assault or to have a psychopath for a dad. In a saner world she would not have been victimized, but also she would not have a book out.

Elyse Singleton is author of This Side of the Sky and a winner of the Colorado Book Award for fiction.