print“There’s the most enormous, fat black chick I’ve ever seen. She is enormous. Everyone’s pretending she’s a part of show business and she’s never going to be in another movie. She should have gotten the Best Actress award because she’s never going to have another shot. What movie is she gonna be in?” That was degenerate DJ Howard Stern on Gabourey Sidibe (yes, she’s American-born), the mountain of human flesh that stars in the film “Precious,” pushed by Oprah.
Stern reminds me of the claims made repeatedly on the O’Reilly Show, that “Shangri-La of Socratic disinterest.”Have you heard them? Not speaking proper English, behaving like a rapper, not studying—these will get you nowhere. That’s so not true. And he says it to rich rappers who’ve followed exactly that path.
This is the age of the idiot first—but also the age of the halt, the lame, the plain dysfunctional, the retrograde, the exhibitionist, and above all, the black person, in all shapes and sizes. Sidibe will do just fine, embraced as she will be by the constellation of flesh-creeping cretins in Hollywood and beyond.
What’s grotesque here is not the actress, so much as the film Precious, the story. From what I’ve gleaned (I’d never go see such a film), it’s designed to schlep every sentimental fiber of a stupid person’s being.
The ugliest, fattest, most abused and tormented girl gets kicked around some more after spending her formative years as the ugliest, fattest, most abused and tormented daughter in the world. Then she hits the big time. Or delves into herself, and with the aid of a lesser version of “To Sir With Love,” finds some reservoir of strength and talent to prevail. She makes everyone involved in unleashing her gifts see the light. They are lucky to bask in her riches. Am I wrong? Is it about something totally different?
If Stern was anything other than a shock jock he’d have zeroed in on the obscene sentimentality pervading this film and the culture at large. If you think I’m heartless for excoriating sentimentality in the strongest of terms, think again. Sappy sentimentality is the opposite of compassion. It causes a person to misplace compassion.
I wonder what the white man would have done wrong this time.
“Mountain of human flesh”! I love that phrase. Another movie that I shall have to avoid as soon as (or, preferably, before) it reaches my local multiplex.
The local kids, many of them fairly mountainous themselves, seem to be doing just fine without even the faintest suggestion of getting an education. Certainly the cost of their ostentatiously casual, gangsta-rap attire would be about equivalent to the Gross National Product of Bangladesh.
Ilana, Amen! No, you are not wrong about your description of the movie.
I’ve had very interesting and brutal arguments about the pornographic filth this movie is. I was accused of being everything from a sell out to a moron because I can’t see the “artistic” value in celebrating and promoting barbarism.
[“Pornographic filth”: what a great observation. Please elaborate.]
“Sappy sentimentality is the opposite of compassion.” Once again you have condensed pages and pages of rhetoric into concise thought. Sadly the masses don’t even have enough original thoughts to debate you on this because this sappy attitude is built into our chickified nature.
Just sign me “GOB”. (Grouchy Old B——)
Grotesque is the ‘new’ precious.
The old story lines and visual appeal meant to inspire are no longer the standard, they’re passé. So passé is ‘out’ and outré is ‘in.’ The New York Times, not too long ago, saw fit to print ‘opposite sex marriage’ thereby elevating ‘marriage’ to be understood to mean any deviant form of the institution. The edge becomes the center and the center is banished to beyond the pale. The aberrant and bizarre are now the center, the standard.
Just finished listening to Willie Nelson’s My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys. I’m thinking the new standard would have it My Heroes Have Always Been Cows.
Good point, George Pal. Does anyone else, apart from me, remember the early-1970s song (Donny Osmond, I think, championed it) called “And They Call It Puppy Love”? Today that hit would probably be taken up as an anthem for the nearest federally-funded bestiality brigade.
While Stern cannot be counted upon for serious commentary, he does have a point. Sidibe’s roles are limited. Americans love maudlin sentimentality, but they are narcissistic above all. In such a culture the porn element trumps sentiment. The only reason the movie was popular at all is that Oprah promoted it.