I love this article even if I don’t agree with all of it. I’ll not see “Precious” in the movie theaters either because I read the book by Sapphire and I’m not a huge glutton for punishment in a dark theater for an hour plus when I read the news all the time and still get pummeled. I try to do what I can by writing and encouraging people to be their best and to give my opinion when I think people are in the wrong (I expect the same in return most times when I’m not being defensive - Ha!). “Push” is too much for me. I know it’s a situation that happens because I read the news. Going on that journey in a book upset me. When I was younger, I was all for pushing through the discomfort for the sake of support. But I have to remember a great story I had with my dad. When “Sankofa” came out, I asked my dad if he’d see it and he asked me what it was about (it was an indie movie and Detroit was not the epitome of indie film back then). When I told him, he surprised me. “Naw,” he said, “I don’t to get pissed off.” I was incredulous! How can you not watch an original take on slavery?? Well, I get it now that I have age. I feel the pissed off feeling regularly. It’s inside me and it’s come with age. That’s how i feel about Precious. That’s how I feel about little Shania who’s mom pimped her out and now her body was found in North Carolina. It’s how I feel about Jaycee Duggard since she’s lost her 11 years to a psycho.
And, by the way, I hated “Monster’s Ball” so that probably will give you some context. I felt it didn’t do anything revolutionary about race and human emotion. I just wanted to beat Halle Berry’s character in the head for abusing her son. I felt she was weak and alone in a community and that didn’t make me have any sympathy at all for her. If you have that story in the news, it wouldn’t be celebrated at all.
So this article from TheRoot.com I find interesting, probably more so that I do the movie “Precious.”
How ‘Precious’ Is Like Palin’s ‘Going Rogue’
Nope, I didn’t see the movie, and I’m not going to read the book. I’m tired of being played by over-hyped productions.
It is the focus of a heated media controversy—a wrenching tale of horrific abuse by a father figure, teenage sex and out-of-wedlock birth, the pathological breakdown of social norms in an oft-neglected corner of society.
And I’m going to take a pass on this one.
Gotcha, didn’t I?
You thought I was referring to Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, the hot movie about an overweight Harlem girl who overcomes the horrible abuse inflicted on her by her parents to gain a new lease on life. But no, I actually was writing about Going Rogue: An American Life, the hot autobiography of a former Republican vice-presidential candidate who overcomes horrific abuse from the staff of a man old enough to be her daddy to gain a new lease on, well, I’m not sure exactly.
Though on the surface Precious and Going Rogue could not be more dissimilar, I suspect that when boiled down to their essence, they have a lot in common. Based on what I’ve heard about them, both shamelessly seek to shock the sensibilities of its audience by presenting raw, updated versions of the Cinderella story. Each tries to emotionally manipulate by presenting a highly selective version of the truth it pretends to represent.
But that’s just what I heard. I could be wrong because I’m not planning to waste any time on either one of these over-hyped productions. I’m tired of being played.
I don’t have to see Precious to know that it has little to tell us about how we can improve the circumstances of real-life victims of such tragedy. Many of those who are heaping praises on Precious for the unblinking eye it turns on ghetto misery were among the mob that dumped on the Washington Post for publishing Leon Dash’s down and dirty series about the underclass family of Rosa Lee in 1994. Such people would rather weep about fiction than study the facts.
So, for the most part, Precious will do what it’s designed to: move its viewers to schadenfreude—a sense of pleasure based on observing the misery of others—rather than a disciplined commitment to action on the colossal scale that uplifting the poor requires. As a moving op-ed piece by Malika Saada Saar in the Washington Post reminded us, poor, undereducated and sexually victimized girls like Precious are most likely to end up in the juvenile justice system than to be rescued from their plight.
As for Going Rogue, I don’t have to slog through its pages to know that it’s a pastiche of self-serving lies, half-lies, distortions and innuendo aimed at progressing Sarah Palin’s demented political ambitions. It would have been better as an episode on The Jerry Springer Show than as a book.
I might even have watched it.
It might have been a lot more honest than either Precious or Going Rogue.
Jack White is a regular contributor to The Root.
If you’re like me and you literally never missed an episode, even when you swore off some of the directions, you’ve got no problem admitting to being a SITC addict. All of my education, cultural training and anything else that would deem me an unlikely fan go out the window (sort of like when I’m a health nut and I eat a bowl of Laffy Taffy without blinking - brain happily shutting down). Would I like a character that looks like me that’s not the trusty wise old black woman in a young woman’s body (see Jennifer Hudson in the first one - enjoyed it I didn’t think too hard about it)? Of course! But I live in the real world and I can write that story with my eyes closed (in fact, have and do so all the time as I can’t help it).
Women all over the world love these girls as their own best friends because not since the Golden Girls have we perfected the stereotype of the overall female type met with pop culture references that are current and fun. Fun. Not rocket science. There is no making fun of any kind of stereotype. There’s really not much that’s off limits whether embarrassing (in fashion or in thought process). Just like candy! Try it all and don’t judge.
All of the above you can read at any website that tries to break down the SITC phenom. But here’s what you won’t hear in most areas. Candace Bushnell doesn’t have much to do with this franchise. A bunch of you are clutching your Dior and falling out (or your Fior - fake Dior). Listen, if you read the book like I did, you know I’m right. Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha are not the same characters in the page that’s on the screen. Candace’s “Sex in the City” is a foggy Page Six article that focuses on a Carrie Bradshaw that we really don’t relate to like we do when SJP is giving us “Carrie Fever.” Candace’s book is all over the place, dropping character studies with shadows of famous people we should know, instead of giving us situations we should know. Darren Starr was able to do what Candace could not. And here’s my bigger bomb. Patricia Field deserves more credit than Candace Bushnell, without the fashions, we could be potentially watching a painful production of “Lipstick Jungle” - ARGH!
What producers need to understand more than anything is that a production is really EVERYTHING involved - from music, fashion, art - not just the script or the director or the actors. This is about a collaboration in every way. Us women folk leave no detail unturned. We will notice the restaurant where they eat, the flowers Carrie beats Big with down to the damn book she read in bed with him. The reason why the fake SITC sitcoms didn’t work is because we ALREADY HAVE a SITC. Try something else. None of those other shows were any different other than the marital states or the bitchiness. But that’s not changing the story. We’re good thanks. That’s why we sell out the movies when SITC comes out on the big screen.
Anyways, back to Patricia. She elevates her status as a designer by becoming the ultimate character creator. You could have anyone else write the movie (there are tons of fans that are screenwriters and the soaps change writers all the time) but if you change Pat Field, we’re out. Period.
The moral of this rambling: Give us who we are and who we want to be at the same time and SITC will always prosper.
Miss Fierce Kitty Fields:
