“Precious” is a film about a Harlem teen of the same name’s attempts of escape from her abusive mother and lustful father in order to live a new life and have a brighter future. The movie, in spite of cliché and problems in the plot, managed to win the viewers’ heart and took them up for an empathic and compassionate adventure of Precious, a 16-year-old teen who is slowly transforming into a mature and independent young woman. Coupled with a decent director and excellent actors, “Precious” is indeed one of the well-acted and beautiful of the year 2008.
At the start of the movie, the story is about Clareece “Precious” Johnson, an illiterate, obese girl in 1987 Harlem who is pregnant with her second child after being raped by her own father and abused by her mother both verbally and physically by beating her up and calling her all sorts of vulgar words. However, the story itself isn’t a grim representative like her reality. There is color and music as shown whenever something terrible happens to Precious. She treats the dream as if they were
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Concerning the fact that Precious is dancing on the edge between life and death like the scene when Mary is throwing an TV down which almost hits Precious and their baby, when she is running from home cold and homeless and the fact that she is HIV-positive, a happy and empowering ending is impossible as she cannot combat the odds against her. Although not happy, I still consider it to be evaluating and powerful because the films teach us that there are good and bad people in the world. Even if the world put weight on your shoulder and you feel like you are about to give up, there are still good and caring people from unlikely places to come to help you if you accepted the support. Despite your fate, you can still be afforded the ability choose your own choices in life and there will be those can and will support
Precious and her family members are invisible to the larger world because they don’t posses any skill that enables them to make even the slightest difference in the world. The tests that Precious take show her lack of intelligence and only amplify her inferiority to the people around her. When you’re invisible, nobody treats you with respect; in the beginning of the book, everyone treats Precious like worthless trash. Though, later, she becomes visible again through the people she meets at the alternative school, and the birth of her second baby, Abdul.
Lee Daniel’s Precious is a movie centered around Precious Jones, a 16-year-old overweight black girl living in Harlem, New York. The movie begins when she is in public school pregnant with her second child by her father. Because Precious is pregnant, the principle recommends an alternative school for her. At home, Precious is a servant to her mother, Mary, who is physically, emotionally, verbally, and sexually abusing her. Mary constantly tells Precious that she is not good enough and that no one will ever want her. At times of distress, Precious tends to dissociate and fantasize about another life where she is a blonde white girl. She wants to be famous and loved by all. Precious arrives at the alternative school hardly knowing how to read or write. She gets placed in a class of girls with a dedicated teacher, Ms. Rain. Ms. Rain asks each student to write in a journal every day, and she will write back to their letters. This is the first time in the movie when Precious feels very
The story of “Precious” provides an excellent example of how a person can become lost in the system, and also how one can begin to turn things around by utilizing available resources. Precious’s mother, Mary, has been taking advantage of Precious to help her manipulate the system so Mary can continue to receive welfare benefits. Precious ultimately meets with the social worker, Mrs. Weiss, who begins to help her move forward in life. It is my understanding that Precious initially met with Mrs. Weiss for welfare benefits, but this relationship seemed to change as the movie progressed. I was admittedly taken aback by the conditions of the office in which Mrs. Weiss worked, how she interacted with Precious initially,
The 2009 film directed by Lee Daniels, Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire, tells a story about the life of a 16-year-old, Claireece “Precious” Jones, who grew up in Harlem during the late 1980s. Precious lives a life that includes many sociological issues that have unarguably caused her great pain throughout her young life. Having endured poverty, sexual abuse, and verbal abuse her life has been far from perfect, but she realizes the need to defeat these negative sociological factors to achieve a life that seems to her as only a fantasy. Daniels effectively portrays the source of Precious’s problems, as well as the way in which she deals with them; thus, achieving his goal in allowing the audience to see the effects of negative social culture, specifically oppression, on victims.
Beloved is a movie full of pain, love, and triumph. This film is constructed and created from the works of Toni Morrison’s novel. Beloved can be considered a ghost tale based on how the main character Beloved magically appears and disappears with no warning signs. The movie takes place in the summer of 1865 in Ohio at 124 Bluestone Road in a little white house on a plate of land.
The racism feature is the main theme in the short reading " Desiree's Baby. There are racism events happens when throughout the story. Desiree's Baby took place when racism was way too prevalent. After Desiree married to Armand , they birthed a baby. When the child grows, the ski...
The philosophy of parenting is a concept that all parents try to understand. When they realize what a parent needs to do to be successful, they employ their parenting strategy on their children. The ultimate goal is to raise their children to become successful and autonomous away from the security of home, wherever that might be. The reason why parenting styles differ is that each parent has a different definition of success. For some, success means going to an Ivy league college, while for others it just means to be happy in life no matter what lifestyle their child leads. The type of person produced is largely dependent on what parenting style that was used on them.
Precious is, in every sense, a film that pushes this country to eschew self-congratulation and forces us to really take inventory of how we live and function as a society. The final moments in which Precious escapes from her wrecked home to begin her life on her own, is the best part of the entire film; the hope that is rebirth and new possibilities spring forth like a Phoenix from her ashes. Those Marco systems that failed her as a child will now be her primary sources of support as an adult.
The younger vesion of herself describes what is happening in a disturbing way when she says, “That smell, he put his ball in my face, years like wash machine aroun and around, mama jaw open like evil wolf, the smell deeper than toilet, her fingers pick apart my pussy.” (Sapphire, 72) Clearly, while reading this, it is difficult not to imagine how sick both her parents must be to do these kinds of things to their little girl. The novel focuses on Claireece’s life as a rape victim whereas the movie focuses more on the hope that she will be rescued from her situation. The hope that she dreams of is to become independent if she does well in school and also the hope that she will finally be able to live life without her abusive mother. In the movie, Precious doesn’t have long flashbacks about her father raping her. She instead talks to a welfare worker about what happens in her everyday life and explains that her mother likes to use the system to her advantage and takes all the money meant for her own children. While Claireece is talking
For my final essay, I have chosen the movie “Fatal Attraction”, and I will focus on Alex Forrest and her mental disorder. Borderline Personality was displayed in the movie and Alex had almost every symptom of this disorder. Throughout this essay, I will be discussing Alex’s characteristics, intelligence, motivation, stress, social influences and/ or personality theories, treatment, and if the depiction of the disorder and treatment is consistent with what was discussed and read in the course.
The 2009 film “Precious”, based on the novel “Push” by Sapphire, tells the tragic story of sixteen-year-old Claireece Precious Jones; an overweight, illiterate who is now pregnant with her second child. Her life at home is a complete nightmare; her mother, Mary, verbally, emotionally and physically abuses her daily. Her father, Carl, molested her on multiple occasions and impregnated her twice then disappeared. Precious was kicked out of public school and took an offer to attend an alternative school where she meets her inspirational teacher Miss Blu Rain. Precious begins to believe in herself and prepares herself for her future. She becomes engaged in class and learns how to read and write; she was called stupid and dummy all her life and
Precious was born to an unmarried couple, Mary and Carl, living in government housing in Harlem New York. Mary is an overweight African American woman. Carl is an average sized African American man. When Precious was born Mary was extremely happy and loved her child very much. A few months after Precious was born, Carl began sexually molesting her in front of Mary. Mary began to resent her daughter as she felt she was losing the love of her significant other to her daughter. Mary claims to have tried to stop Carl from molesting Precious but was unsuccessful in doing so. As Precious aged Carl continued his abuse by beginning to rape her. These rapes led to the eventual birth of Mongo and then Abdul. Mary saw Mongo as a way to receive more money from the Welfare office. Mary has many psychological issues including being a pathological liar. Mary claims that Tootsie, her mother, was abusive to her in the same ways that she abused Precious. There is no proof to these claims and the social worker feels these claims are to try and excuse Mary’s abuse of
.... Precious was finally proud of herself for doing well in school. In addition, her friends, her teacher, and her social worker were recognizing her efforts–these were some of her external esteem needs. Finally, at the very end of the movie, it is arguable that that she was self-actualized, even though this stage is never able to be satisfied because as one grows psychologically there are always new opportunities to continue to grow. However, for the time being, she was happy and free from her mother.
...amily she finds the true meaning of being brave and saves her family (“Brave”). I like this kind of movie instead of a man being the brave and independent one now the woman is. These are the kind of fairy tales that need to be told so that women do not feel the need to be weak and dependent on other people. If fairy tales slowly become more realistic then I think they are a good thing but teaching women to not be strong or if their not a size 0 and gorgeous, well that in my eyes is not okay.
1980. Warner Bros. Directed by Stanley Kubrick. Music by Wendy Carlos and Rcachel Elkind. Cinematography by John Alcott. Editing by Ray Lovejoy. With Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd.