Mo'Nique in Precious
During a recent episode of Oprah: Fridays Live, two seemingly unrelated stories about black girls and their mothers were (un)intentionally juxtaposed. First, Winfrey interviewed the white father and aunt of Shaniya Davis. Following that segment, Winfrey introduced Gabby Sidibe, star of Precious, the film Winfrey executive produced. A friend of mine had previously mentioned Precious and Shaniya in the same breath, but it wasn’t until I saw these segments that I paused long enough to make a connection. Watching a story on Davis, the 5-year-old girl allegedly sold into sexual slavery by her black mother only to be found dead days later, succeeded by scenes of Sidibe as Precious Jones, an illiterate, fat, black girl twice-pregnant by her father, whose value was similarly determined as something more tangible—and much less valuable—than Precious, was disheartening yet illuminating. The similarities between a little North Carolina girl and a fictional Harlem teenager, though not immediately apparent, exist below the surface nonetheless.
Antoinette Nicole Davis
What the flurry of debate surrounding Precious and Shaniya Davis’ death reveals is a particular public fascination with and unequivocal condemnation of black women who represent a pathologized version of motherhood, an image that perpetually manifests itself in our public sphere. It seems that turning our collective attention to the lives of young black girls requires that their mother either serve as First Lady or represent a stereotype, such as a welfare queen (Precious’ mother, Mary Johnston) or (former) drug addict (Shaniya’s mother, Antoinette Davis). A recent article about the continued violence in Chicago Public Schools, for example, concludes with an interviewee implying that single black mothers are the reason for such decrepit (educational) environments, making them solely responsible for black children’s violent behavior, never implicating the larger social constructs.
I defend neither mother’s actions. Our view of them, though myopic, is not unwarranted. Indeed, what Precious and Shaniya experienced at the hands of their mothers—like so many black bodies before them—is a trauma tied to an appraisal of their monetary value: Precious is worth a welfare check, while Shaniya’s price equals her mother’s drug debt. Yet, despite both Mary Johnston and Antoinette Davis serving as the latest examples of well-worn images of black women, the abuse that these dark-skinned, natural haired black women enact upon their daughters is understood as unique and alarmingly monstrous. Though the penultimate scene of Precious shows Mary explaining to Ms. Weiss (the social worker) her reasons for allowing Precious to be abused by her boyfriend, by then the viewer has become accustomed to quietly judging Mary. An earlier scene featuring Precious’ grandmother—appearing onscreen just long enough to shake her head disapprovingly at her daughter—not only validates our negative evaluation of Mary, but implies that she became monstrous and abusive on her own, without precedent. The lineage of abuse remains unseen, comforting viewers into believing that such people are mere anomalies.
I have not stopped thinking about Precious since I saw it almost a week ago. This is a movie that unleashed many emotions many that have been hard to articulate properly. Here are some of the things I’ve been pondering (more on the film’s content to come tomorrow.)
Disney is releasing a new film this Winter, 
Recent Comments