Usually if there are People of Color nominated for Academy Awards I'm pretty excited about it. This year there are quite a few POC nominated and yet I'm underwhelmed. Maybe that's because the bulk of the nominations POC received were for the film Precious.The film is based a on the book PUSH by Sapphire. The film directed by Lee Daniels, who also produced Monster's Ball for which Halle Berry won a Best Actress Oscar, is different from the book in some very key ways. Mainly the 'good' people in the film are all light-skinned or bi-racial African Americans and all of the "bad" or troubled people in the film are dark-skinned African Americans. I know that a lot of people were willing to overlook this but I'm not.
Also it amazes me how films or roles that feature Black dysfunction are recognized by the Academy but other films are not.
Anyway, beside Daniels for Best Direction, Gabourey Sidibe is up for Best Actress, Mo’Nique for Best Supporting Actress. Precious is also nominated for Best Picture.
6 comments:
But aren't all the light skinned Blacks the good ones in real life too?
@UBJ
HA!
You have a point. I thought the film was good and somewhat disturbing, but I honestly didn't view the film as anything special. But I am inclined towards gangster flicks, so my opinion is somewhat biased.
@Don
If the film starred White people instead of Black I really don't think it would have gotten so much hype.
I didn't want to see this film, for a few of the reasons you listed here. I figured the poor underpriviledged downtrodden woman of color had been done enough. But it's an exceptional film, it left me in awe of the human condition. I guess the thing that struck me was that I went into this not wanting to see another negative film about my people and yet the film wasn't necessarily about my people as much as it was about this girl's fucked up life. The reality is that the movie could have been made with any race........parts of me wished it were made with another one. But I also understand that because the movie was made it gave Mo'nique, Paula Patton and Gabourey a vehicle to showcase their talents.
I was moved by the film. Moved enough to go out and buy the book the next days and finish it in under two days.
The end result was that I wanted to drive to New York City and shoot everyone who looked like they could have been this character's mother or father. It was a good film and an even better book. Who could have known that Mo'nique was that talented an actress........I sure as hell didn't know.
@Reggie
I agree about the downtrodden Black women stories too. And the fact that Oprah and Tyler Perry were involved didn't help.
I just wish they had made different casting choices. But I agree that it's an intense story. I found the book to be even more intense than the film though.
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