Yeah, but "A Beautiful Mind" and "American Beauty" took home Oscars, right?
*eyeroll*
The last couple of movies about which I remember reading this type of rantage about someone's life getting "shoved in our faces" were Thelma & Louise and The Accused. Oh -- and Do the Right Thing.
Slightly off topic, but is there a reason the movie reviews posts never link to Rogert Ebert's reviews for the Sun Times? I mean, if we're going to quote Stevens at Slate (the least of the above reviewers), then the dean of American movie reviewers deserves to be heard as well.
@JosephFinn: No, you're not an idiot! You're right that we quote the Sun Times intermittently and I agree we should use it more often...we will in the future. :) #preciousreviews
@Anna: Good to hear (by the way, you should check out Ebert's online journal; he's been posting long entries that are quite well written). #preciousreviews
I am really sick of hearing about how this movie is 'poverty porn' or too bleak to be believable. Precious' circumstances are REALITY for a lot of people and to say that depicting them as they are is unbelievable or pornographic is insulting and makes the writers seem pretty far removed from reality.
Poverty, abuse etc. are shocking, but they are real. I think the level of shock and what sometimes seems like disgust in the tone of people talking about this movie says a lot about how far we go to pretend that they don't exist in the US. #preciousreviews
@LeCauchemar: The "poverty porn" critique and the "too bleak to be believable" protest encompass two separate issues.
The "poverty porn" critique, if I can grossly oversimplify, goes to one group's use of the manifestations of another group's pain as a source of its (the first group's) own emotional catharsis.
(It tends to be unconscious, but that doesn't make it any less grotesque.)
"Too bleak to be believable", if you'll permit me a cynical moment, runs closer to either the "not in my backyard" meme or outright denial.
@Rooo sez BISH PLZ: Thanks. I don't really know the background of the term 'poverty porn' and was reading as much closer in meaning to the so bleak its unrealistic criticism. #preciousreviews
I absolutely cannot deal with the subject matter, no matter how powerfully acted or how worthwhile the eventual "uplift." I know what horrors exist in this world, believe me, first hand. I do not want to watch it. I.. can't.
It took me 20 years to watch "Sophie's Choice," for heaven's sake, and afterward broke up with the person who basically coerced me into watching it .
So, no thanks. I'll be getting my uplifting stories from movies I can stomach watching. Namely, something like "The Wizard of Oz." #preciousreviews
@gerbilsoutofexile...is cheap and easy: the Flying Monkeys are horrifying...! That is so true, but because they are fantasy creatures, and not a representation of a real-life horrible thing like a rapist step-father, somehow not as scary to me.
But I do understand. And when Dorothy is crying in the tower for Auntie Em? Trauma. #preciousreviews
Sounds like an utterly incredible movie, and I can't wait to see it.
I dislike the Slate review. It's almost as if the reviewer is offended to be presented with such horror, that it could exist in American society. If the movie wields a large cudgel, it's only to make damn sure we feel the utter horror of this situation. Sublety wouldn't cut it. Of course, I haven't seen the movie so my opinion may change. #preciousreviews
@Agumen: As I've already said, these reviewers are rightfully grossed out, but are not good at articulating why they're so bothered. You're not going to sit a white person down in front of Precious and have him come away feeling particularly good about black people. #preciousreviews
@voteforme: I don't agree with this. At all. I haven't seen the movie, but I have read the book, and I didn't come out of it with any different "feelings" about the Black population.
This is not to say that race does not play a pivotal role in this story. But, it's pretty simplistic to claim that a White person can't take anything away from the movie besides "those darn Black people." No, a White person does not know what it's like to be Black. Just like most of us cannot know what it's like to live in that kind of poverty. #preciousreviews
@Penny: Your personal, arguably more enlightened perspective (you do post on Jezebel, after all) has nothing to do with the general white audience demographic. When the most notable black authors (Alice Walker and Toni Morrison) and extremely hyped films all feature similar storytelling tropes, it's time to step back and try to project a different kind of story about young black girls. There is a difference between personal fulfillment upon watching these films and realizing that, as far as public impact goes, these are not good images of black people to disseminate. #preciousreviews
@voteforme: Okay, I would agree with this. I think, for me, race was secondary to the poverty/abuse. I think the reason all of these people are even talking race is because it was made into this (acclaimed) film. Again, race is an important element, but the abuse and illiteracy do not stem from race itself, they stem from poverty. Poverty just happens to disproportionately impact POC.
@Penny: I know what you mean, but in America, the class system is couched in racial terms instead of economical or social terms. Our class system, on paper, is comparable to that of England's, but we don't have similar class warfare. We have racial conflicts. #preciousreviews
@Penny: Except I wouldn't say that poverty "just happens" to disproportionately affect people of colour. There are real social and historical reasons why this is so. It's hard to talk really critically about poverty in America without also discussing race because they are so interrelated. That is not to say that white people are not affected by poverty and abuse. But with a person like Precious, there's a unique intersection of class, race and gender going on.
Correct me if I am wrong, though, but I think I get what you are saying about how abuse and poverty are not inherent aspects of one's race. This is something that I see with First Nations in Canada, where I live. Many people seem to think that aboriginal people - who do suffer from exponentially higher rates of addiction, mental illness and poverty - are somehow inherently more likely to lead these incredibly difficult lives because of, I don't know, some sort of moral deficiency. It's a terribly racist notion. The reality is, aboriginal people in Canada are disproportionately affected by these things because of the history of colonialism and residential schools and the reserve system and a host of social, economic and political factors, which is very similar to Black people in America. #preciousreviews
@Cerridwen: It's hard to talk really critically about poverty in America without also discussing race because they are so interrelated.
Oh, no, I totally agree. I was just projecting what I, personally, took from this story.
I fully agree that we cannot talk about issues of poverty, sexuality, violence, etc etc, without talking about race. In fact, it's one of my pet peeves, especially in discussions around feminism and gay rights.
I didn't mean "just happens" in the "oh, it just happens" kind of way. It's just so simplistic to reduce her life events down to her race or to think this is a "Black problem." #preciousreviews
@voteforme: Okay.
So to rake at even the first level of what's - um - going on - in your comment -- you assume that abuse can only happen in black families? Among black people?
Or that only abuse of that gross degree can only happen in black families?
I agree with you that some reviewers are not conscious of why they're upset. But the rest of what you said ... oy. #preciousreviews
@Rooo sez BISH PLZ: I am allowed to take issue with the amount of black women who insist upon presenting incest as somehow representative of the American black girl's story, and I think everyone else should too. It's disempowering on a lot of levels. #preciousreviews
I'm sorry, but I fail to see the connection between exploring the "lower depths of human experience" in film and pornography. For many people who suffer from the abuse of those in power over them, life is atrocious and depicting it in cinema is not salacious or inappropriate. Would the critic call a film about war in Rwanda genocide porn? Is a film about concentration camps in Nazi Germany Holocaust porn? Why is showing a young woman's experience of incest and neglect poverty porn? #preciousreviews
@Maryscary: Because it allows white people to feel empathy for black people while secretly concluding that they still deserve their oppression; these movies present them as violent, oversexed, and uneducated. White people will leave the theater thinking less about Precious' triumph than about how the black people being depicted were treating their daughter. Poverty porn is a real thing, and it's a legit thing to take issue with. I certainly take issue with it. These stories are valuable from a storytelling perspective, but they don't actually do anything to combat racism. #preciousreviews
@voteforme: Honestly, I get what you are saying, but the way you are saying that this is how every white person will view the movie - with the apparent exception of those of us who post at Jezebel (which is a strange little rhetorical out you are leaving for yourself) - strikes me as unfairly reductive. Yes, a lot of white people will see it the way you say they will, but a lot won't. #preciousreviews
@Penny: But how is an imagination cavernous? It's big but empty? It's hollow? It echoes? There are bears and bats? None of that matches the movie.
@PilgrimSoul: I know, that's where I went too. It's either a really obnoxious dig in an otherwise positive review, or a case of a reviewer not knowing what words mean. #preciousreviews
@yvanehtnioj: word nerd here. I think cavernous implies large, deep depths (see cave vs. cavern) which I suppose would emphasize the nature of her hidden world, aka vast and hidden and unexplored, like a cavern. Although maybe I am giving them too much credit. #preciousreviews
@clamme: I'll give you hidden, but I still submit that caverns are defined by the lack of content. They're basically negative space. The first connotations I get are empty, vacant, vast. #preciousreviews
@yvanehtnioj: Hmm, I think caverns are defined by being large and unexplored. I don't think it's a bad thing to say that she has a large and unexplored inner life, when it's followed in the review with 'fantasy', 'warmth' and 'beauty'. #preciousreviews
@yvanehtnioj: Of course, yes people explore caverns. Do most people? No. They're sort of connoted as unexplored (until we explore them) I'm just saying the connotations. Caverns are unlit, they are mysterious. Anyway we could argue about connotations all day I suppose. Sorry for getting off topic. #preciousreviews
@yvanehtnioj: You haven't been to Carlsbad Caverns I take it. It's a large deep place, with lots of beautiful stuff to look at. And yes, there are some bats as well. #preciousreviews
@circlegirl: I surely have. It's explored, it's mostly negative space (give or take a few stalactites/stalagmites), the pretty things to look at are essentially the walls, and there are more than a few bats. According to the tour I was on, it's the largest bat colony in N. America. Doesn't change my point at all.
Also I went to the dictionary to look up cavern and cavernous, and while the words vast and hollow made an appearance, nothing about being mysterious or unexplored popped up. #preciousreviews
@yvanehtnioj: I was referring to your stating the definition in the dictionary as part of your argument for cavernous. I don't think using synonyms is a good way to get at the connotations or the definition, though.
Anyway, I was sort of stating my point in stupid little tidbits, because my boss was over my shoulder. (Bosses!) I was trying to convey that 'cavernous' isn't always negative, esp. with the context clues. However, you are right, we disagree and that is okay. Farewell, fellow worder. Farewell. #preciousreviews
@clamme: As a fellow word nerd, I don't take cavernous to mean "big," but "grand." "Expansive" wouldn't quite work. It's too bland to describe the richness, the vastness, the grandness. "Vast" also doesn't mean "large." It's got a romantic quality to it. The universe is vast. The starry night is vast.
So, yes, I agree with you.
Full disclosure: I'm a writer. Words move me, and synonyms don't always mean exactly the same thing. #preciousreviews
Not to speak of how inside every woman there's a yawning maw housing a keening creature who's just ... so violently needy, you know?
*turns a faint green*
I think I'm going to start carrying a bucket with me through this film and related review-reading season, so that I'm always prepared. #preciousreviews
@PilgrimSoul: Fuck, I know. "I'm not judging girls who look like Sidibe in life" - except you are, asshole. Sidibe is a real-life woman, she's not some computer-generated cartoon created for this film. #preciousreviews
"New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Atlanta" These select cities are a little too select. I was really hoping it would come to Dallas, hell...I'd drive to Austin to see it. #preciousreviews
@TubOfTaft: When will Boston get on the list of big cities to open a film in? It's always frustrating to me that we have to wait like everybody else. I want to be first, wahhh! #preciousreviews
@bluetrain84: I’m grateful for Kendall Square Cinema. Where else can you watch Zombie Strippers one month and Slumdog Millionaire a few months later on the same screen? #preciousreviews
@bluetrain84: Because ... ah ... Bahstahn is a more ... ah ... intellectual town.
You don't watch films. You read books.
*spoken in William F. Buckley cadence* #preciousreviews
My complaint is that the commercials are about Oprah. I don't want to see this film because Oprah loved it. I want to see it because Push is an incredible book and it speaks volumes about the evil and the strength of humanity. #preciousreviews
@Lymed: Eh, the "Oprah's Book Club" label has gotten more middle-of-the-road people to buy books that otherwise wouldn't have. Middle-aged women are moved by Oprah in ways that few other people motivate them. #preciousreviews
@voteforme: Can't they somehow put the Oprah label on without showing Oprah talk about how moved she was? I'm sure it will get people to see the film, but it bothers me. I guess it bothers me that they probably focus grouped trailers and found that people would not see the movie based on a traditional trailer. #preciousreviews
@Lymed: The Oprah shit bugs me too, but they also want to make money. I am sure she's more concerned with motivating the masses to see it, though. In the end, at least she promotes decent stuff. #preciousreviews
@Penny: I've found some of my favorite books where her book club picks. I even read some classics because she brought them back to a new printing via her book club. But as I said in reply to voteforme, perhaps I'm more upset that this is what many people need to go out and see this film. #preciousreviews
@Lymed: Think of it as a necessary evil. I think many would agree that the more people who see this movie the better. Oprah helps, and she especially helps get people who would NEVER have watched this type of movie otherwise. It's not perfect, but it's better than the movie being ignored by the mainstream Oprah crowd #preciousreviews
@growler: You know, I find that review interesting. I'm not sure I agree with all of it and have to think about it, but something like this: "It sells materialist fantasy as a universal motivation—no wonder Perry and Winfrey like it." Well, this is what someone what Edelstein was reaching for, but he got distracted by her "squashed eyes" and we were off to the races. #preciousreviews
@voteforme: Societal/economic factors, the fact that a incest and child abuse often stems from feelings of a total lack of power, hating oneself, and punishing others because of it.
Dunno, maybe someone has a more articulate answer. #preciousreviews
I'm excited to see this movie but I might wait until it comes out on DVD for fear that I might burst into laughter because I cannot separate Mariah Carey with Glitter. Regardless, I'm really glad that this movie will probably prove some (*ahem* Edelstein) critics wrong and shine some light on pressing/difficult topics. #preciousreviews
11/06/09
*eyeroll*
The last couple of movies about which I remember reading this type of rantage about someone's life getting "shoved in our faces" were Thelma & Louise and The Accused. Oh -- and Do the Right Thing.
I can't imagine any of that is an accident.
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[tinyurl.com] #preciousreviews
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Poverty, abuse etc. are shocking, but they are real. I think the level of shock and what sometimes seems like disgust in the tone of people talking about this movie says a lot about how far we go to pretend that they don't exist in the US. #preciousreviews
11/06/09
The "poverty porn" critique, if I can grossly oversimplify, goes to one group's use of the manifestations of another group's pain as a source of its (the first group's) own emotional catharsis.
(It tends to be unconscious, but that doesn't make it any less grotesque.)
"Too bleak to be believable", if you'll permit me a cynical moment, runs closer to either the "not in my backyard" meme or outright denial.
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I absolutely cannot deal with the subject matter, no matter how powerfully acted or how worthwhile the eventual "uplift." I know what horrors exist in this world, believe me, first hand. I do not want to watch it. I.. can't.
It took me 20 years to watch "Sophie's Choice," for heaven's sake, and afterward broke up with the person who basically coerced me into watching it .
So, no thanks. I'll be getting my uplifting stories from movies I can stomach watching. Namely, something like "The Wizard of Oz." #preciousreviews
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But I do understand. And when Dorothy is crying in the tower for Auntie Em? Trauma. #preciousreviews
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I dislike the Slate review. It's almost as if the reviewer is offended to be presented with such horror, that it could exist in American society. If the movie wields a large cudgel, it's only to make damn sure we feel the utter horror of this situation. Sublety wouldn't cut it. Of course, I haven't seen the movie so my opinion may change. #preciousreviews
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This is not to say that race does not play a pivotal role in this story. But, it's pretty simplistic to claim that a White person can't take anything away from the movie besides "those darn Black people." No, a White person does not know what it's like to be Black. Just like most of us cannot know what it's like to live in that kind of poverty. #preciousreviews
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Fish in a barrel, I know. #preciousreviews
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I might be making absolutely no sense. #preciousreviews
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Correct me if I am wrong, though, but I think I get what you are saying about how abuse and poverty are not inherent aspects of one's race. This is something that I see with First Nations in Canada, where I live. Many people seem to think that aboriginal people - who do suffer from exponentially higher rates of addiction, mental illness and poverty - are somehow inherently more likely to lead these incredibly difficult lives because of, I don't know, some sort of moral deficiency. It's a terribly racist notion. The reality is, aboriginal people in Canada are disproportionately affected by these things because of the history of colonialism and residential schools and the reserve system and a host of social, economic and political factors, which is very similar to Black people in America. #preciousreviews
11/06/09
Oh, no, I totally agree. I was just projecting what I, personally, took from this story.
I fully agree that we cannot talk about issues of poverty, sexuality, violence, etc etc, without talking about race. In fact, it's one of my pet peeves, especially in discussions around feminism and gay rights.
I didn't mean "just happens" in the "oh, it just happens" kind of way. It's just so simplistic to reduce her life events down to her race or to think this is a "Black problem." #preciousreviews
11/06/09
So to rake at even the first level of what's - um - going on - in your comment -- you assume that abuse can only happen in black families? Among black people?
Or that only abuse of that gross degree can only happen in black families?
I agree with you that some reviewers are not conscious of why they're upset. But the rest of what you said ... oy. #preciousreviews
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What the heck does "Precious' cavernous inner world" mean? How is an inner world cavernous? #preciousreviews
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@PilgrimSoul: I know, that's where I went too. It's either a really obnoxious dig in an otherwise positive review, or a case of a reviewer not knowing what words mean. #preciousreviews
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Also I went to the dictionary to look up cavern and cavernous, and while the words vast and hollow made an appearance, nothing about being mysterious or unexplored popped up. #preciousreviews
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We just do not agree. And that is okay. #preciousreviews
11/06/09
alveolate, broad, chambered, chasmal, commodious, concave, curved inward, deep, deep-set, echoing, gaping, huge, resonant, reverberant, roomy, sepulchral, socketed, spacious, sunken, vast, wide, yawning
And the only antonym? Filled.
[thesaurus.reference.com] #preciousreviews
11/06/09
Anyway, I was sort of stating my point in stupid little tidbits, because my boss was over my shoulder. (Bosses!) I was trying to convey that 'cavernous' isn't always negative, esp. with the context clues. However, you are right, we disagree and that is okay. Farewell, fellow worder. Farewell. #preciousreviews
11/06/09
So, yes, I agree with you.
Full disclosure: I'm a writer. Words move me, and synonyms don't always mean exactly the same thing. #preciousreviews
11/06/09
Not to speak of how inside every woman there's a yawning maw housing a keening creature who's just ... so violently needy, you know?
*turns a faint green*
I think I'm going to start carrying a bucket with me through this film and related review-reading season, so that I'm always prepared. #preciousreviews
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This has a listing of where and when it opens. It opens in Dallas next week. It doesn't open in the Boston area until the week after! #preciousreviews
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You don't watch films. You read books.
*spoken in William F. Buckley cadence* #preciousreviews
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[nypress.com] #preciousreviews
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Dunno, maybe someone has a more articulate answer. #preciousreviews
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