Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire

It’s underrated. Disturbing but also uplifting. Everyone threw down.

Yeah, it’s a brutal watch but there are magnificent performances across the board. Mariah Carey of all people was wonderful in it, not to mention Monique, Paula Patton, and Gabourey Sidibe.

It’s weird I feel like it’s really moving and there’s some great acting in it but at the same time there are moments when it borders on camp. Like when Gabourey Sidibe steal the bucket of fried chicken is running while devouring it.

R3 Get that big bitch!

We discussed it a lot when it came out. I've never watched it. As I've gotten older, I've realized this sort of thing hits me hard, no matter how much I tell myself it's fiction.

This was my favorite thread about it.

Monique's character had her own daughter going down on her, NASTY

R6 Not in the movie tho IIRC?

R5 This is gold

[quote]"You are not ever going to be anything," Mother replied. "I suggest you accompany your posterior to the local welfare office and throw yourself at their mercy because, I repeat, you are not ever going to be anything. Corpulent, dusky female dogs such as yourself are rarely good for more than mindless copulation and constant consumption of empty calories. I don't wish to belabor the point, but you really are quite inconsequential."

I get it, it came out a while ago at this point, but it just seems like it's one of those movies DL would talk about constantly.

R7 It’s suggested for sure. Implicit in the book.

It has a lot of campy moments. When Monique is dancing in her unitard, the running with fried chicken, when Precious slams her mother against the wall (everyone in the theater was laughing at that one.)

R10 The film is so intense and merciless, those moments were needed but also very authentic.

The title with the based on etc. is just too much. What ego demanded that?

I loved it, but as with many sad/disturbing movies, I don't think I'll ever sit through it again. Same with Requiem for a Dream.

Gabby Sidibe was robbed of the Oscar, IMO. I don't know about the rest of her career, but she definitely deserved it for that role --more than Bullock!

Push, I’m assuming.

I like the chicken scene. This is not a glamorous affair. Everyone was willing to look ugly and fat and poor in this movie, and it makes it more real IMO.

R13 I agree. She was transcendent. When I first heard her talk in real life, I was like WHA?

R15 Get that big bitch!

Exquisite delivery. ::chef’s kiss::

R12

[quote]The film's title was changed from Push to Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire, to avoid confusion with the 2009 action film Push.

I saw this with my mother in theaters (we’re both film lovers) and cried my ass off. I had to stay seated until after the credits rolled.

Her mother drops a tv on Precious

R20 Oh God, and that gospel music swells...

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

Lenny Kravitz also had a small but important role. I liked the clear pro-gay message.

The only thing that bothered me was that we didn't know much about Monique's character's backstory. Precious' grandmother seemed warm enough, but maybe too submissive. Perhaps she let Mama be abused, and the cycle continued. But I wasn't sure if Mama had been abused herself, or if she was mentally ill, or if drugs had messed her up. Also: grandma took in her great-grandchildren...but why didn't she take in Precious?

Like most Black films, it is over the top and melodramatic, but I still enjoyed it. It is better to watch it as a dark comedy though as opposed to a drama.

I read one article by a critic who compared it to Female Troubles which I thought was an interesting and fun take on the film.

I love this movie; there’s a self-awareness to how absurdly high the cards are stacked against the protagonist, leading to some inspired comic moments (such as Mo’Nique playing the role of doting nana to Little Mongo during the social worker visit, and the Two Women pantomime in which Mo’Nique tenderly instructs Precious to “sit her big ass on that seat” and “eat, you whore.”).

Mo’Nique deserved her Oscar, but I always thought Gabourey Sidibe should have won as well.

As a screen adaptation, it’s faithful to the source material, though the mother daughter incest was toned down and the mother was given more of a back story in the film.

One element that Daniels missed—in the novel, we see the theme of black lives being regulated by white bureaucracy, specifically Miss Weiss. Mariah Carey’s casting was not consistent with Sapphire’s depiction of the character, but she was so good in the role I didn’t care.

R23 Uh, no. Everything about your post is just no.

[quote]One element that Daniels missed—in the novel, we see the theme of black lives being regulated by white bureaucracy, specifically Miss Weiss. Mariah Carey’s casting was not consistent with Sapphire’s depiction of the character, but she was so good in the role I didn’t care.

Interesting, R24, can you expand on that?

Mariah looked like she has a lazy eye in that movie

I much preferred the movie Hard To Watch (Based on the novel Stone Cold Bummer by Manipulate).

R28 Right? Cause shit like this NEVER happens.

Let’s all go watch Stella Dallas!

One of the few things Mariah Carey has done that one likes.

Sad reality is past, then and now Precious pretty much sums up state of things for most urban or whatever child protection/welfare/social services agencies.

Now and then the more horrible cases (especially ones resulting in death or severe harm to a child) makes news. There is the predictable moral and political outrage with promises to "correct" or "change" system. Once media spotlight fades things go right back to what they were which is evidenced by sooner or later exact same things happen all over again.

Sad thing in USA is that in many states while women long have escaped being the legal and unique property of their husbands (or fathers), children still remain so, and thus there is a strong bias against depriving a parent of his or her "rights" far as custody of a child is concerned. There is social service ethic of keeping families together which translates into children being only temporarily removed from bad situations until a parent can get their act together. How far this goes and the permanency of those efforts is the question.

It was a good movie.

Monique gave one of THE best Supporting Actress performances ever. The scene with her and the social worker (played by Mariah Carey, also excellent) is flawlessly done. Anger, rage, self pity, disgust, jealousy....just excellent. I also loved getting to see inside of Precious daydreams, with her cute imaginary light skinned boyfriend, dreaming about being famous... I think Gabourey should have won the Oscar. I love Sandra but hate that she won for THAT role

The scene where Precious imagines the fight between her mother being like an Italian soap opera, so well done

I also liked the scenes when Precious was interacting with the young neighbor girl. I remember one scene Precious was so angry after a fight with her mother she pushes the curious little girl (who kindly asked if she could play with her baby) into the trash can. Great example how abuse is a cycle

R32 Which role should Sandra have won for in your opinion?

R33 She shouldn’t have won shit. I love Sandy but no.

R33 I can’t think of any, but “The Blind Side” was a Lifetime Movie. I think Sandra won because she was well liked, and I really don’t think they wanted to give it to Gabourey unfortunately. You could tell Sandra was kind of embarrassed when she accepted

Sandra was more compelling in Gravity than The Blind Crap.

Sandra won cause she’s brought the bucks to the industry.

Sandra winning over Gaby was Julia Roberts/Ellen Burstyn all over again.

R36 That’s probably my favorite performance by her. Nomination worthy for sure.

R32

Not just abuse, but cycle of teen pregnancy and being an unwed mother, leaving school, welfare, etc....

R12 r20 it's supposedly most of your title to avoid confusion with the other film PUSH released around the same time.

Chris Evans and Dakota Fanning in an anemic X-Men wannabe film

R42 Um, they could have just titled it “Precious.”

Op it's discussed all that much because it's a film staring black people. DL is a site full of white old men, most of them wouldn't bother seeing the film.

You’re welcome, op.

R24 At least I have articulate opinions. Just because a film is made by black filmmakers doesn’t make it above reproach.

Its an over the top film. Monique in a skin tight jumpsuit dancing in the living room and her screaming about white women on her buzzer. Precious stealing a bucket of chicken and naming her kid “Mongrol”. The line “he never stuck it in my ass”. It is an over the top, tramua por’ and it is utterly hilarious.

Indeed, r42.

R45 Hm’k.

I'll always remember 30 Rocks Porn Version - FreshAss: Based on the novel Tush by Assfire.

R13, Boys Don't Cry is like that for me. I saw it once. Don't need to see it again.

Mo'niques performance was so good, she even made Oprah and Lee Daniels look like villains for attacking her.

Doesn't the son of Precious end up abusing her and killing her?

R49 No, Precious dies of HIV complications when he is a child. He does abuse others though

"30 Rock" summed it up best:

[quote]'Hard to Watch' based on the novel Stone Cold Bummer by Manipulate

r50 thanks

So wait is there a sequel or is the book just even more miserable?

R53

[quote] In 2011, Sapphire published a semi-sequel, The Kid. It follows the life of Precious' son Abdul from the age of nine to 19. Precious herself has died following complications from HIV, but was accepted to college before her death.

Very sad (and disgusting) thing about Ms. Johnson telling about how Precious came to be abused in R30 is that while some bits vary, across the board (race, socio-economic level, etc...) the story is pretty much same. That is women (now mothers) with low self esteem and a fucked up sense of priorities will allow or at least turn a blind eye to some kind of piece of worthless man abusing her children.

Wasn't covered in film, but book The Color Purple makes clear Celie's mother not only knew her husband (Alphonso) was abusing her daughter, but that he was father of both of her children. Most everyone in that local AA community and church knew what was going on, and did not believe the stories Alphonso told about Celie being boy crazy and that's how she got pregnant. What film did get right was that Celie's mother was too ill to perform her wifely duties, so Alphonso made his step daughter do "what her Mama won't".

Horrible monster as Ms. Johnson is in Precious, at times in above clip and elsewhere you feel a bit sorry for her. The odds were stacked against her from start (she even yells at her mother that "you didn't do no better". Ms. Johnston knew what Carl was doing to Precious was wrong, but in her world there weren't many good choices. Complaining to Carl would get her a beat down, and or he would take his pleasures elsewhere. The abuse would continue unless or until Ms. Johnson went to LE or otherwise filed a report. Then she'd likely lose both Carl and Precious (along with welfare money), so she'd be broke, without a man and her child.

This movie is the story of my life.

Also, proof that Mariah Carey can act normal.

Just rewatched that Mo'Nique scene. Goddamn that scene is amazing. She is amazing in it. I am sure it wasn't written or suppose to be that way, but you can see Mariah herself is actually moved by Mo'Nique's performance. Whatever take that was when Mariah wipes away a tear but remains in character, they decided to leave in. I am sure as written, this social work is not suppose to be moved by what this mother is saying, probably more horrified. But it's an interesting decision to leave Mariah's real emotion, not the character's, in the movie. She is moved like the rest of us listening to it.

Mariah Carey should have gotten a nomination for this too. Mo’Nique’s co-nominees that year were very weak. Mo’Nique, as one poster stated upthread, gives one of the best supporting actress performances of all time.

Sapphire is an incredibly striking woman and I was drawn to her table at a book festival in NYC just when PUSH had come out. I spoke to her for a few minutes and realized I knew about her from the NEA arts backlash in the early 90s when her poem Wild Thing was the center of controversy. It was about the boys accused of rape in Central Park of the jogger and when the police heard them singing words to the song Wild Thing, they misheard and thought they said wilding. Panic and fear spread throughout NYC about groups of kids going “wilding” causing mayhem, vandalism, violence and rape. Her poem was a means of reclaiming what they actually said. Of course we all know how that turned out. Based on her dynamic personality and chatting about the book I bought a copy and she signed it. There was nothing else quite like it at that time and it really broke through in a big way. Oh and she is a Lesbian too.

Isn't Alice Walker a lesbian too? Boy they really hate black men and paint them in the worst possible light. The Color Purple didn't have one redeeming black man in it. I am not denying that there aren't cases of black men raping their children. But to have two prominent female authors right black male characters who rape their children, is excessive - especially considering the underrepresentation of black male characters in literature.

And I would fathom to guess, Hasids, Mormons, Hollywood Execs and Us Presidents are in front of black men, proportionally, when it comes to raping children.

I always wanted to write a lighter sequel called "Mo' Precious"

Genius scene

Movie was great and Monique deserved the Oscar. I found the book very hard to read not only because of the story but also the use of dialect.

Mariah did a great job as the social worker. Lenny Kravitz and Patton look phenomenal in Precious 😋

With all the hate on DL for Chrissy Metz, I'm surprised there is no mention of Gabourey Sidibe's weight. Not even one little snide aside. What's up with that?

R57

Mo'Nique though from a middle-class household, was born and raised in Baltimore; she was not directly from Ms. Johnson's background, but likely knew enough about that helped her from that character. In interviews Mo'Nique said after certain scenes in Precious was shot she needed the director to "bring her back", that is get her out of that character/moment. It was just to real and dangerous place for her to go.

Other thing is like Precious Mo'Nique was abused as a young girl, so there's that bit of reality as well.

You look at the range of emotions Mo'Nique gives in that social worker scene and realize just how good an actress she was in that film. Ms. Johnson goes from indignation to deference to anger, to resentment, then from start to finish again. At times you feel Mo is going to get up out of that chair and beat the shit out of that social worker (it has happened). Other times she is meek and submissive like a child to parent or anyone else to someone in authority.

Ms. Johnson cannot even remember when Precious was born, but we're supposed to believe her when she says the girl was "loved" and "had everything". Like Ms. Halloway who is called upstairs Ms. Johnson reflects a common real life theme; fear of being cut off from welfare funds ("before this woman cuts off my shit...."), so they play the game dealing with social services, all the while resenting the same state that is giving them money for getting into their "business".

The only reason why that little girl didn't get slapped when she answered her mother back in the waiting room was because of where they were. Her black eye is obvious proof whatever Ms. Halloway is telling social services ain't happening because the child is still being abused.

R65 Gaboirey plays a fat girl. Chrissy Metz wants to play a pretty girl. That’s the difference. Of course the politically correct thing to say is that girls her size are pretty girls. But the obvious thing is that she has a pretty face and a jacked up body.

Chrissy Metz is shaped like a Jennifer Convertible.

Try not to laugh!

Lol r69

I couldn't bring myself to watch the film. In any case, the moment Precious fought back, you can bet I'd be rooting for her.

An intense movie. Definitely deserves respect. Yes it’s gruesome emotional manipulation/misery porn - i thought of this movie when I read “A Little Life” - but the acting was great. Monique Mariah and Gabourney. And having done social work in the Bronx, I can tell you it’s real. Crazy sad twisted lives like these do exist.

Gabourey Sidibe and Mo'Nique gave very moving, frightening and memorable performances. Sidibe would have been a worthy winner if she had been named Best Actress that year.

I can understand people liking Mariah Carey's acting in this movie, but something about her always rubs me the wrong way. I can't stand her face, her speaking voice, her singing voice or anything else about her. She irritates me and I can't bear to see this whale in anything.

It's not a film I would ever want to watch again. It was too depressing and I remember wishing when I watched it that poor Precious had access to HIV cocktail treatment so that her diagnosis wasn't a death sentence for the poor girl. Of course given the period in which the story was set, her horrible fate was probably inevitable. Mo'Nique made me LOATHE the mother character, she was so good!

I agree about Monique. Fantastic performance and one of the few over the last twenty years who legitimately deserved to win.

But this is the kind of role I would have loved to have seen the late Nell Carter do. Imagine those brass lungs of hers screaming at Precious and towering over her. Monique made the character creepy, but Carter would have made her terrifying.

Why wasn’t the film, Precious, ever released in 3-D?

I remember an article where the author Sapphire was quoted as saying that her book was primarily about how literacy helps uplift Precious. In spite of Precious' eventual death caused by complications from AIDS, Sapphire believed that leaving her nightmarish home situation and learning how to read and write was a happy ending for the poor kid.

It's kinda like Mommie Dearest. Monique's Oscar speech is almost as good the Mariah scene.

Everything in this movie was ripped off from the movie “Claudine.” Even the stereotype that blacks love chicken.

In “Claudine” one of the kids makes the joke, “Momma came home with chicken on her breath.“

R75 lol you’re going to hell for that one :D

I love looking at Gabourey’s sweated up face with some her wavy wig on her head.

This author makes an interesting argument for Precious not as a serious this-is-what-it's-like for Black America but rather as channeling the camp spirit of John Waters

[quote]Sad thing in USA is that in many states while women long have escaped being the legal and unique property of their husbands (or fathers), children still remain so, and thus there is a strong bias against depriving a parent of his or her "rights" far as custody of a child is concerned.

I don't get what you're trying to say. Men shouldn't have legal rights to their own kids? Furthermore, why compare grown women to underage children?

For what it's worth, this movie is very campy (a la MOMMIE DEAREST), thus it's hard to take seriously. And I came from a very abusive home. The final straw for me was when Mary opens the upstairs window and chucks the TV set at Precious and her newborn.

I loved when Mary, after chucking the TV down the stairwell, plops her ass down in her chair, reaches for the remote, and clicks it at where the TV used to be. What a dumb bitch.

R84 Lmao, I never noticed that, but what a brilliant touch because you so know that’s what would happen IRL.

I loved the song Mary was dancing to.

Lee Daniels told Monique that she was Mary, and to just let it out and be herself. Monique's real life experiences were very much like Mary's. If we were living in the 1950's Monique would be institutionalized.

R82

In a perfect world parents would have their act together before having children. Sadly that isn't the case and you end up with kids in abusive homes, but because in many states law is pretty much as Mary says, children "belong" to their parents. Thus focus is on usually taking child or teen from a home while parent or parents get their act together, then send them back. Too often this doesn't work out well and abuse continues with whole cycle beginning again.

All this assumes child is even taken from the home, which doesn't always happen. As we see clearly that young girl with a black eye sitting in waiting room with her mother. You can see that mother has no patience with little girl, and when she answered her back after being told to "go play with those kids" would likely have slapped that child upside head. But the woman remembered where she was and why "let me go see this woman before she cuts off my shit.....".

In some states once a credible claim of abuse is substantiated parents only get "X" amount of time to get themselves together. Otherwise parental rights are terminated and efforts are made to place child in stable and loving home. This makes more sense to me rather than having a child's life put on hold while a mother and or father sort themselves out. Precious's mother wasn't going to change, she was just too damaged herself and filled with rage against a daughter she blamed for taking "her man".

Some people say that abuse (verbal, physical, sexual) is pretty much the same throughout all socioeconomic classes, but not everyone thinks that. More educated people do learn how bad this is for kids and that CAN give them more restraint. For example, a greater number of educated people have learned that physical punishment isn't good for kids. So a lot of us never hit our kids (or even our pets!) I can understand the impulse to hit your kid (or your pet), especially when they physically hurt you by mistake. It's an impulse, but you realize it's a bad impulse. I have to imagine that this same thing works with sexual abuse. A man who may be inclined to abuse might realize what that would do to someone and stop himself.

This was in response to someone upthread saying that not all black guys should be portrayed as molesters. Of course they shouldn't, but the women writing these books have experienced it themselves or witnessed the abuse of someone they know, and they want to write about what really went on.

R89

Agreed! There are all sorts of ways to abuse a child, and IMHO many of so called "upper class" families did so in ways equally damaging as physical abuse.

You look at what Mrs. Perkins did to her son Anthony, or Mrs. Webb to her son Clifton all come to mind.

Fresh-Ass: Based on the the novel "Tush" by Assfire.

What streaming service has this? It's been too long since I've seen it.

I still am shocked that Mariah let herself be filmed that way, she seems too vain for it

R77 Lol, that bitch be cray <3 I love her.

It's a horror movie. It was hard to stomach. I had to stop watching when the mom asked Precious to pleasure her and went back to it a few days later.

[quote] I had to stop watching when the mom asked Precious to pleasure her and went back to it a few days later.

What part was that? I must have missed it.

Hard to believe the real Monique would eclipse the character in being unlikeable. I can’t stand her and will never watch the movie again because of it. She’s her own worst enemy. She’ll learn when “Daddy” leaves her for a dude.

One of the best movies of the last 20 years. I haven't seen it again since the release, because it's one of those movies that's just a little too much for me most of the time. Monique was astounding in her role and I've never been able to forget her final performance. That didn't feel like acting to me at all. It felt so raw and real and you don't see performances like that very often.

It was even more astounding when you took into account the way her character was for the rest of the film. She's over the top, campy, and monstrous but that final scene manages to humanize her without forgiving her to trying to redeem her. She hasn't been redeemed by us, but we understand her now and why she did what she did. It's one of those rare moments only truly great art can give us.

I would have liked it but there weren't enough words in the title.

Will there be an Asian version? What will it be called?

R98 good post. I’m glad others liked it as much as I did.

There are certain movies where every single scene is memorable and crucial. Grease is one. Goodfellas is another. I’d put Precious in that category too.

I've never seen the movie, but that clip shocked me. I always thought Mariah Carey was one spacey broad. She's quite great here. At first, I thought it was Marissa Tomei.

It's tragedy porn: illiterate obese black girl sexually abused by both parents, impregnated by her father, gives birth to two incest babies (one of them is retarded) and ends up HIV positive from all the father sex. It borrows heavily from "The Color Purple", in which the main character Celie, an unattractive black girl, is raped by who she believes is her father (mercifully it turns out he isn't) and has two babies from the sexual abuse. She's married off to an abuser with a bunch of kids and her beloved sister leaves with some missionaries. Celie, like Precious, is redeemed by writing and the love of a beautiful lesbian. Like I said, it's tragedy porn.

Color Purple like both "Push" and "Precious" was badly received in some quarters of the African American community for exposing too much dirty linen.

Nettie only goes off with those "missionaries" (who by the way also are the couple Alphonso (the step-father) gives his his babies by Celie to...), after first running away from Alphonso who was trying to rape and beat her same as the sister. When Mister (who wanted the 12 year old Nettie originally as his wife, but was put off by Alphonso and given Ceile instead), cannot believe his luck that Nettie is now in his house, and makes his move, the young girl forcefully refuses. That causes Mister to chuck Nettie out of his home leaving the girl with no place else to go.

In book Color Purple (IIRC) the husband "missionary" ends up marrying Nettie after his wife dies while they are off in Africa.

As Sophia makes clear later with her "all my life Ise had to fight.... first my daddy, then my uncles, brothers.... a girl child ain't safe in a house of men..." What Alphonso or other older AA men did to young girls like Celie then wasn't so uncommon. No one just wanted to talk about it... Ella Fitzgerald kept running away from her step-father's house and eventually ended up in reform school because the man "wasn't very nice to her" after Ella's mother died. Read between the lines for what you will.

Despite what her mother tells that social worker, Precious was almost doomed from the start. Her mother was abused ( she screams at her mother "What? You didn't do no better", and the only thing the woman cares about is herself and holding onto a man (Carl), who she let abuse her infant daughter.

You see the pattern again with that young girl with a black eye in waiting room of child welfare office with her mother . It comes up again with that young girl who stops writing graffiti on that building to ask if she can hold Precious's baby.

Ciele and Nettie are five or six decades apart from Precious, but yet things are remarkably similar; poor girls and young women of color have few options to get out of bad situations. Worse they simply go along assuming their lives (and lot in it) is normal.

R102 see it at least once. I’d love to know your thoughts if you do.

Watching this now. Incredible performances by ALL. A travesty that Sidibe didn’t win Oscar Best actress. Mariah and Paula Patton both superb.

[quote] It’s weird I feel like it’s really moving and there’s some great acting in it but at the same time there are moments when it borders on camp. Like when Gabourey Sidibe steal the bucket of fried chicken is running while devouring it.

Yeah, and she's still fatter than Tracey Gold after breaking a Yom Kippur fast!

Daniels would intersperse segments through out the movie where Precious would have dream situations where she was happy and beautiful- the exact opposite of her life, but would happen in her imagination and help keep her sane.

I love the girl who says her favorite color is fluorescent beige <3 Goddess.

I hate to sound snobby, but I always thought it was so contrived that they were watching “two women” on tv- a black and white art house European classic. Could either of them even read properly!? This is just one scene that took me out of the movie because it just seemed too agenda -driven.

R110 I can see what you mean. They probably wouldn’t have been watching that movie. Didn’t take me out of the scene though.

The reason they watched "Two Women" is simpler than you think: the film is in public domain in the US so the producers didn't have to pay zilch to include it in the film. That's why you often see people watching random B&W films in the movies, because they're free of charge.

I thought that moment when Monique and Gabby turned into Sophia Loren and her daughter was one of the funniest in the whole film (and one of the few ones that was intentionally funny).

R112 Oh, so the rest of the film is unintentionally funny? What exactly do you find funny about an illiterate girl getting raped and impregnated by her dad and then getting HIV from him?

They are *not* watching Two Women simply because it is in public domain, R112. Think about the plot of Two Women and how it bears on that of Precious...

R113 get serious, read the essay linked at R81. Precious is basically a John Waters movie

R114 I don’t see that, and I won’t apologize for not being a cynic or for allowing myself to be moved by this movie.

The final scene with Monique talking to Mariah Carey is some of the finest acting I've ever seen in my life. That character is such a monster for the entire film, but she finally bares her soul and you really want to cry with her while, at the same time, realizing that this could very well be just another ploy by an evil person to get you on her side. Absolutely brilliant writing, directing, and acting.

I loved the fantasy sequences throughout the film that brought much needed levity and humor to the story. Without those, it really would have been a full out camp film. Humor is important in a dark, depressing film like this. If you don't give the audience something to intentionally laugh at every now and then, they'll start to laugh at things that aren't meant to be funny just to release some of that uncomfortable energy.

The colorist casting in this film was a bit jarring for me despite the good message and good acting. Lee Daniels and Tyler Perry always do this in their movies and TV shows. In the movie, Precious is very dark-skinned and Monique is brown-skinned. While the "good" characters played by Mariah, Paula an Lenny are all biracial. The author even pointed it out and she said that she wrote Paula Patton's teacher character to be dark-skinned with dreadlocks.

So her mother made Precious fingerbang and eat her filthy puss?

R118 that's what you took away from it? Get your mind out of the gutter.

I really think this scene should be on par with the whole "I am not one of your fans" scene from Mommie Dearest in the DL lore. In many ways, this movie is the 21st century, black version of Mommie Dearest.