Culture

'Precious' Hits Movie Theaters; Armond White Slams 'Precious'

by Jordan Yerman | November 6, 2009 at 09:33 am

8052 views | 21 Recommendations | 9 comments

Precious, executive produced by Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry, hits theaters today on what many see as the first steps in an inevitable march toward Oscar victory. Overall, the Precious reviews are positive, but the acclaim is by no means universal. (Where is Precious Playing? US showitmes/Canadian showtimes)

Armond White, the current head of the New York Critics Circle, singles out Precious as detrimental to African-American empowerment, and accuses Oprah and Perry of shameless pandering. I haven't seen the movie so I can't really agree or disagree with Armond White's assessment, but I was amazed to read his review of Precious, in which he compares it with Birth of a Nation, the KKK propaganda film, which was itself a blockbuster in 1915.

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.

Not since The Birth of a Nation has a mainstream movie demeaned the idea of black American life as much as Precious. Full of brazenly racist clichés (Precious steals and eats an entire bucket of fried chicken), it is a sociological horror show.

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Blue Crush

at 12:16 on November 6th, 2009

I'm looking forward to seeing it, should be a good one.

Fariche Alleyne (not verified)

at 16:21 on November 6th, 2009

I think Mr. White missed the whole point of the story entirely. Can't wait to see the movie.

Rey rey (not verified)

at 09:52 on November 7th, 2009

Where is it playing?

Diane Williams (not verified)

at 15:29 on November 8th, 2009

Where is the movie playing in Chicago, Illinois or western suburbs of Chicago?

shante (not verified)

at 14:22 on November 11th, 2009

when is it playig?

Frances Brewster (not verified)

at 08:53 on November 13th, 2009

I live in a small city, Texarkana, TX. A large group of senior citizens at my church have been impatiently waiting for "Precious" to come to our local theatre. To our dismay, it is only being shown in selected cities. We are so dissapointed! When, if ever, will it come to smaller cities such as ours?

SHAMIA (not verified)

at 12:19 on November 13th, 2009

WHERE AND WHEN IS THIS MOVIE PLAYING?

Blaquexx (not verified)

at 12:06 on November 20th, 2009

So many haters in the world Armond is just peeved this wasn't his idea or story, Armond stick to what you know blogging. I mean what could you possibly know about writing you critique other peoples work, holla at us when you have done something substantial, yours is an opinion that really does not matter to the masses, because people are foaming at the mouth to see this as you say "sociological horror show" NEWAYS. Stop trying to be politically correct, cause you are not... This is a story about coming through the depths of hell and standing strong, its about love where there shouldn't be any, and it shows how even in today society people do care about others and are willing to help those that need it... Move along with your negativity.. UGH!!!!

Motivated writer (not verified)

at 23:57 on November 20th, 2009

I feel that this movie had good intentions however...I will NEVER pay to see a "Lee Daniels" film every in my life!! This movie focused too extensively on negative. I have 3 daughters and they were bugging me to see this movie...after waiting for it to finally come to our city, I go through the TROUBLE of buying tickets online and spending a Friday night scattered all over the theatre! To see what.....now we all know that there are some cases of abuse like that or close but come on...........why??? This movie was all over the place with no point and no victory. It ends with a 17 year old abused girl taking her mentally challanged daughter that she never had a relationship with and a 10 month old son back to a half-way house to live...she didn't accomplish anything I mean couldn't we see her at least get her GED, an apartment, a job anything even a plate of sunnyside up eggs!! Instead she gets HIV.... the idea for this came from a group of folks sitting in a garage with about 1lb of weed, a 30 pack of blunts and definately some strong drinks!!! I have better ideas then this after 6 blunts.......wow (and not in a good way)