"She's Not Just a Fat Aunt Jemima on a Pancake Box":
A Response to Ishmael Reed
by Khadijah Costley White
Precious is one of the few movies I have truly appreciated in a while--and I've seen a good number of the "notable," patriarchal and sexist Black films that show how much Black men love white/light-skinned women that Reed uncritically admires in his review (ahem, The Great Debaters?!). Moreover, it sounds like Reed's central complaint is more about the lack of other similar portrayals of non-Blacks than an ACTUAL critique of this specific movie. In fact, based on his summary of the movie in his review, I'm not even sure he's seen the film.
Precious provides a new twist to an old stereotype--the "mammy" figure in this film speaks, she suffers, she schemes, she aspires, she fights back... she's not just a fat Aunt Jemima on a pancake box. I don't see typical, humanistic portrayals of overweight Black women that aren't comedy. I definitely see problems with Precious--one of them being that in order to create a sympathetic Black female welfare recipient, she has to be so ridiculously beat down. I wouldn't argue that it's a scot-free portrayal-- I'm just saying that its complexity deserves much more of a thorough critique than the "oh it's stereotypical" arguments that I've seen thus far. Finally, we get a film in which an overweight Black woman isn't just happy and funny.
Additionally, the fact that the character Precious narrates this film is extremely significant--the idea that she understands her own subjectivity and the conditions of a system in which she is undernourished and undereducated is absolutely integral to the power of this piece. Precious takes the stereotypes of Black people and transforms them into a real person with thoughts and ambition and complexity. THAT alone makes it a worthwhile film. Much better than The Green Mile or any of those other magic negro movies. No one said that Precious is supposed to represent the experience of all of Black humanity--no more than the Cosby show did.
Let's talk about what it means for her to be welcomed into the home of a loving lesbian couple. Let's talk about why it's important that she is so aware of her own surveillance that she steals her social worker's file and discusses the realities of a morally bankrupt system like "workfare" with her peers. Please, someone, analyze why its so poignant that one of her classmates can't help but laugh at the absurdity of a baby wrapped in a blood covered blanket. How about the damaging impact of colorism, represented by a dark-skinned girl's fantasy about being a white woman with blonde hair or being loved by a light-skinned man with "good hair"? And, ideally, we can ponder why Precious' mother tells the social worker "bring my baby back,"stating truthfully "that's what you do!" -- in this she reminds us of all the family reunification projects that have resulted in any number of murdered or horribly abused children, often after ignoring other types of kinship ties within the Black community.
In any case, who gets to decide what serves as Black "reality"? Ishmael Reed? Is there a review board? There are any number of human experiences--I don't like the DuBoisian tendency to pick and choose which ones count as worthwhile and which ones don't (thus, the complete disregard for a luminary like Zora Neale Hurston 100 years ago). Would a film about the savagery that some of us have seen our own female relatives suffer at the hands of male relatives make the "representational black film" cut?
And, even more importantly, can anything about Black women ever be about BLACK WOMEN, or will a male-centric gaze always shove us aside --even in our own narratives?
Khadijah White is a PhD student and Fontaine Scholar in the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Previously, she worked as an Associate Producer at NOW on PBS.
by Khadijah Costley White
Precious is one of the few movies I have truly appreciated in a while--and I've seen a good number of the "notable," patriarchal and sexist Black films that show how much Black men love white/light-skinned women that Reed uncritically admires in his review (ahem, The Great Debaters?!). Moreover, it sounds like Reed's central complaint is more about the lack of other similar portrayals of non-Blacks than an ACTUAL critique of this specific movie. In fact, based on his summary of the movie in his review, I'm not even sure he's seen the film.
Precious provides a new twist to an old stereotype--the "mammy" figure in this film speaks, she suffers, she schemes, she aspires, she fights back... she's not just a fat Aunt Jemima on a pancake box. I don't see typical, humanistic portrayals of overweight Black women that aren't comedy. I definitely see problems with Precious--one of them being that in order to create a sympathetic Black female welfare recipient, she has to be so ridiculously beat down. I wouldn't argue that it's a scot-free portrayal-- I'm just saying that its complexity deserves much more of a thorough critique than the "oh it's stereotypical" arguments that I've seen thus far. Finally, we get a film in which an overweight Black woman isn't just happy and funny.
Additionally, the fact that the character Precious narrates this film is extremely significant--the idea that she understands her own subjectivity and the conditions of a system in which she is undernourished and undereducated is absolutely integral to the power of this piece. Precious takes the stereotypes of Black people and transforms them into a real person with thoughts and ambition and complexity. THAT alone makes it a worthwhile film. Much better than The Green Mile or any of those other magic negro movies. No one said that Precious is supposed to represent the experience of all of Black humanity--no more than the Cosby show did.
Let's talk about what it means for her to be welcomed into the home of a loving lesbian couple. Let's talk about why it's important that she is so aware of her own surveillance that she steals her social worker's file and discusses the realities of a morally bankrupt system like "workfare" with her peers. Please, someone, analyze why its so poignant that one of her classmates can't help but laugh at the absurdity of a baby wrapped in a blood covered blanket. How about the damaging impact of colorism, represented by a dark-skinned girl's fantasy about being a white woman with blonde hair or being loved by a light-skinned man with "good hair"? And, ideally, we can ponder why Precious' mother tells the social worker "bring my baby back,"stating truthfully "that's what you do!" -- in this she reminds us of all the family reunification projects that have resulted in any number of murdered or horribly abused children, often after ignoring other types of kinship ties within the Black community.
In any case, who gets to decide what serves as Black "reality"? Ishmael Reed? Is there a review board? There are any number of human experiences--I don't like the DuBoisian tendency to pick and choose which ones count as worthwhile and which ones don't (thus, the complete disregard for a luminary like Zora Neale Hurston 100 years ago). Would a film about the savagery that some of us have seen our own female relatives suffer at the hands of male relatives make the "representational black film" cut?
And, even more importantly, can anything about Black women ever be about BLACK WOMEN, or will a male-centric gaze always shove us aside --even in our own narratives?
Khadijah White is a PhD student and Fontaine Scholar in the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. Previously, she worked as an Associate Producer at NOW on PBS.
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