102-12. Precious and Pecola

As you know, because of the Bayram this week I showed the film Precious by Lee Daniels to Sections A2 and D2.

I chose this film because it dramatises many of the same themes we saw in The bluest eye. It's set in Harlem in 1987. Precious (Claireece Precious Jones), the African-American protagonist, is 16 years old, semi-literate, overweight and unattractive. Physically abused by her mother, sexually abused by her father since the age of 3, Precious is pregnant with her father's second child; the first child, nicknamed 'Mongo', has Down's Syndrome and is being cared for by her grandmother. Precious is suspended from school for being pregnant (I don't know how this is legal, actually), but her principal recommends an alternative school, and it is here that she meets dedicated teacher Miss Rain and a small group of female classmates ranging from former drug addicts to gang members, all of whom are struggling to improve their reading skills in order to get their GEDs (a qualification equivalent to a high school diploma). After giving birth to her second child, Abdul Jamal, Precious learns that her rapist father has died - and that he has given her the HIV virus.

Here are some of the heartbreaking parallels between the lives of Precious and Pecola:

• Both are unwanted by their mothers and raped by their fathers.
  
• Both are very black and 'ugly' and suffer from an extreme lack of self-worth: "We're just ugly black grease to be wiped away" - this line really affected me.
  
• Neither girl opens her mouth at school, and both are teased and bullied.
  
• To escape her abuse and her torment, Precious envisions herself as a diva on a floodlit stage wearing beautiful costumes and watched by an adoring young man; Pecola tells Frieda and Claudia of the pretty dresses and jewellery given to her by the three whores and eventually goes mad, believing herself to be a bird that can fly away from the pain.
  
• Precious slowly does her hair in front of the mirror as a slim blonde white woman gazes serenely back at her; Pecola loves little white girls like Shirley Temple and ends up believing she has blue eyes, the bluest eyes.
  
• Precious writes in her journal that she wants to be "skinny, light-skinned and have long wavy hair"; Pecola is jealous of Maureen Peal's light skin, green eyes and soft hair.

I watched this film with an enormous sense of shame. I know I am not personally responsible, but I feel a collective sense of guilt that African-Americans are still living in such appalling conditions in our country. Maybe you know the old saying, 'The more things change, the more they stay the same'.

However, unlike Pecola, Precious gets a chance at redemption. She develops friendships with her teacher, classmates and the male nurse who helped deliver her baby; she wins a mayor's award for literacy; she greatly improves her score on the literacy test; she rejects her mother once and for all after her mother confesses to having allowed her husband to repeatedly touch and rape her daughter; she starts attending therapy groups for survivors of sexual abuse; she gets her firstborn child back and vows to teach her children, to meet their needs. She is a tower of strength, and Daniels shows us her humanity, as Morrison showed us Pecola's humanity. By the end of the film we no longer see an obese black girl, we see a person.

Please read more good posts about this film:

• Tümay
• Simge
• Ezgi O.
• Cemre Naz
• Ezgi Y.
  

'Peacock feather' by Panache, licenced under Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial 2.0 Generic