"Precious" Based on the Novel Push by Saphire Analysis
Jaclyn
Butler
04/24/2012
Intracultural Communications
Professor Brook
Film Analysis on 2009’s “Precious”
Analyzing a dynamic film like the 2009 “Precious” is difficult. The movie got a lot of praise for the acting and the story that was portrayed but it also got a lot of heat from the race that was portrayed in the movie. African Americans nationwide said the movie made their African American ghettos into a sexually incest ridden, classless society and didn’t properly show any of the positive attributes that come from the African American ghettos. In our course of Intra cultural communication we have studied through different topics, ones that I think are shown in the movie are culture, race, class, and sexuality. I am going to analyze the film “Precious” by looking into those four areas of the African American culture that is depicted in the film and show how they are illustrated through.
The 2009 film “Precious” is an adaptation by Geoffrey S. Fletcher based on the best-selling novel “Push” by author Sapphire. The story is centered on Clareece "Precious" Jones, an overweight, illiterate African-American teenager from Harlem who lives with her dysfunctional and abusive mother. Despite the fact that she is only a teenager, Clareece is a young mother who is about to give birth to her second child. Both of Clareece’s children have been fathered by her own father. To make matters worse, Clareece learns that her father has died of AIDS and that she is HIV positive. Unable to read or write, Clareece shows little prospect for the future until discovering that she has been accepted into an alternative school. There, with help from a sympathetic teacher and a kind male nurse, Clareece receives something that most teens never get, a chance to start over and begin a new life.
One theme that came to my mind while watching the movie was the image of the “dark side” of the African American culture. Culture is defined by the behaviors and beliefs characteristic
Butler
04/24/2012
Intracultural Communications
Professor Brook
Film Analysis on 2009’s “Precious”
Analyzing a dynamic film like the 2009 “Precious” is difficult. The movie got a lot of praise for the acting and the story that was portrayed but it also got a lot of heat from the race that was portrayed in the movie. African Americans nationwide said the movie made their African American ghettos into a sexually incest ridden, classless society and didn’t properly show any of the positive attributes that come from the African American ghettos. In our course of Intra cultural communication we have studied through different topics, ones that I think are shown in the movie are culture, race, class, and sexuality. I am going to analyze the film “Precious” by looking into those four areas of the African American culture that is depicted in the film and show how they are illustrated through.
The 2009 film “Precious” is an adaptation by Geoffrey S. Fletcher based on the best-selling novel “Push” by author Sapphire. The story is centered on Clareece "Precious" Jones, an overweight, illiterate African-American teenager from Harlem who lives with her dysfunctional and abusive mother. Despite the fact that she is only a teenager, Clareece is a young mother who is about to give birth to her second child. Both of Clareece’s children have been fathered by her own father. To make matters worse, Clareece learns that her father has died of AIDS and that she is HIV positive. Unable to read or write, Clareece shows little prospect for the future until discovering that she has been accepted into an alternative school. There, with help from a sympathetic teacher and a kind male nurse, Clareece receives something that most teens never get, a chance to start over and begin a new life.
One theme that came to my mind while watching the movie was the image of the “dark side” of the African American culture. Culture is defined by the behaviors and beliefs characteristic
References: Dictionary.com for definitions of Class, Race, Sexuality and Culture http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0929632/ http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1935116,00.html http://movies.nytimes.com/2009/11/06/movies/06precious.html