Precious (2009) Analysis through the Writing of Bell Hooks - Movie Review Example

Precious (2009 Analysis through the writing of Bell Hooks The film Precious (2009) brought to the screen a film about the lower black female in the depressed neighbourhoods within the United States. Although filled with stereotypes, the film manages to create a discourse on the bondage of oppression that can occur within the dynamics of a family fraught with horrors that take a young girl and twist her into an object of sexual obscenity. Although the film discusses hope, it also portrays black women from a perspective of social oppression that requires outside interference to bring them into social connectivity to the community. In a discussion that uses the writing of Bell Hooks as a reference point, the film Precious (2009) is analyzed for the ways in which the plight of black women is tied to the historical sexualized slave history that murmurs through modern black women of today. It is difficult to find a culturally relevant piece of work that does not create a discourse on the sexualized nature of women. Women are objectified, subjectified, and situated within the framework of their reproductively until the prospect of their intellectual contribution is balanced against the contribution that they make to a sexual discussion to the point of dehumanization. Film is particularly susceptible to this problem as it is a medium that emphasizes the visual element. Women are defined by the way in which they impact the visual response, their sexual allure or lack of sexual allure a center of the approach to their characterization. Women are defined by a sense of sexuality. For black women, the problem is more complicated as the shadows of the past shroud the present characterization of the black woman as shackled by the memory of her position of vulnerability in slavery. Bell Hooks (1996: 218) writes “A devaluation of black womanhood occurred as a result of the sexual exploitation of black women during slavery that has not altered in the course of hundreds of years”. The stereotypes of black women portray them as powerless and dependent, the past of bondage retranslated into bonds of poverty. Black women are seen as victims of a system that cycles dependency and hopeless existences. The film Precious (2009) continues this view of the American black woman. The aim for triumph is built upon the belief that black women are still born in bondage and that they must find a way to break those bonds, rather than having been born with a right to hope and freedom. The nature of the life that is portrayed in the film is one of abuse. The young girl is abused by her mother and her father, and her sexuality is reduced to usability. She lives in a state of survival, the things that are done to her keeping her numb to the idea that life can be better than what she knows. She doesn’t dare to hope or dream because she knows her place in the universe. Of course, the arc of the story carries her to a place where she can dream, but the oppression from which she begins is a dark place that is the space in which black women are slotted very often in film. This echoes back to the discussion made by Hooks (1996) as she describes the plight of the black woman in modern society. She is expected to live as a modern woman, but shackled by ancestral memories and oppressions that have been passed through the generations. Precious embodies these oppressions, her abuse deep and violently sexual. This harkens back to the darker beginnings of black female slaves in the United States.. One of the problems with the imagery created in the cultural texts that establish the downtrodden and victimized nature of the stereotype of the black woman is that the stereotype has a basis in reality, yet that reality is not balanced by the other side of the story. As suggested by Nelson (2011: 68) “although there is some accuracy to the portrayal of black women in Precious and For Colored Girls, America is still lacking the other side of the story – a balance that we can achieve only if we can show instead all those healthy, black women we know are out there”. She also goes on to say, however, that the problem with even successful black women is that it still comes back to relationship problems. For Nelson, the whole picture of black women is based upon a lack of men who know how to be in a healthy relationship. The bondage of women under the yoke of male dominance is a strong theme in the writing of Hooks (1996). She discusses the idea that although there is a persevering stereotype of black women as ‘loose’ or ‘immoral’, the truth is that they were guided to preserve their virtue just as white women were guided to preserve their own. The larger difference was that the social order was not set up to protect black women from being used by their owners. However, the narrative suggests a sense of responsibility on the part of the black women and that they somehow were a party to this form of abuse. The narrative of the film places the lead character at the centre of the same kind of social conflict of abuse and blame. She is shackled to her abusers, but yet is somehow held accountable for the consequences of her bondage. The image of the morally corrupt black female was more than just a method of asserting moral dominance. Hooks (1996: 220) calls it a form of ‘social control’. By abusing the reputation of black women through a cultural narrative that provided a discourse that suggested that black women were morally corrupt, the supremacy of the white population was maintained. This type of social control can be seen in the film, the characters acting out this dynamic rather than a fresh perspective that might show black women as having morality, even if shown in impoverished conditions. Critic Ishmaal Reed discusses the movie from the perspective of the impotence that it gave to the black community. The film told the story of the poor, downtrodden black people who needed the altruistic efforts of white people to elevate them into proper society. While the film had many wonderful attributes, this narrative created a furtherance of the black slave narrative, putting all the power and control into the hands of white people (Luther et al 2011: 54). This narrative perpetuates that culturally define state of black women, placing them within the space of the inept and morally corrupt who need to be cleansed in the generosity of white society. This aspect of the film is disappointing, creating such a furthered dependency within the context of overcoming adversity. The dynamic of poverty and morality becomes a central philosophical discussion as it is within the American philosophical background to link poverty and morality. This suggests that through being impoverished, a state of immoral behaviour must have been the cause (Sherman 2009: 7). Sherman (2009:7) states that “moral discourses can also hurt those who are most in need of the communities help, often depicting them as personally responsible for their own misfortunes and thus unworthy of support or aid”. This cause and effect rational places all those who are in a state of poverty as being immoral and creates a pervasive stereotype that the film does not work to abolish. As much as Precious is a victim, there is an undertone that suggests that it is through the immorality of the life within her family that poverty is built, rather than a greater social cause. Therefore, it is for the white philanthropists to save the poor, immoral black girl from the consequences of her position. Yee (1992) shows that this is not the truth of what the stereotype should be of black women within the United States. She shows cases upon which black women have shown their activism and support of creating positive change. As shown by Hooks (1996), however, there is a cultural habit of creating a discourse of the immorality of the black woman and the consequential poverty as a sign of her undeserving of more. It is the entitled right to success that is lacking within the cultural narrative, and this is perpetuated within the film through the events of the life of Precious. Although there are historic examples of some very brave women who have had great accomplishments within the United States, it is the pervasive imagery of the immoral black woman bound in servitude, but responsible for the lascivious nature of her owner, or later in history, her employer that steals the pride from American black women. The film latches onto these stereotypes and builds its case upon the assumptions that go along with those stereotypes. The film Precious (2009) provides an in depth look at the state of the American black woman as she suffers in poverty and is oppressed through the theft of the ability to control her own sexuality. This is a furtherance of the slave narrative which often holds the black woman responsible for her situation. The idea of the ‘white salvation’ is also perpetuated within the film, thus creating a continuation of the dominance dynamic between the races. The film allows for the lead character to carry the weight of her ancestors through the burdens that she must endure as a symbolic modern black woman from within the United States. References Hooks, Bell. (1996) ‘Continued Devaluation of Black Womanhood’, in Stevi Jackson & Sue Scott, eds, Feminism and Sexuality:  A Reader, Edinburgh University Press. Luther, Catherine A. Et al. (2011). Diversity in U.S. Mass Media. West Sussex: Wiley and Sons, Inc. Nelson, S. A. (2011). Black woman redefined: Dispelling myths and discovering fulfillment in the age of Michelle Obama. Dallas, TX: BenBella Books. Sherman, J. (2009). Those who work, those who dont: Poverty, morality, and family in rural America. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Yee, Shirley J. (1992). Black women abolitionists: A study in activism 1828-1869. Knoxville, TN: The University of Tennessee. Read More