The Precious Debates: Stanley Crouch, Sheril Antonio, and Howard Stern

I was going to label this as a "Saturday Afternoon Funny" but I decided not to. To my detractors: I do in fact have a sense of self-restraint and good taste.

Listen, watch, and laugh as 2 black intellectuals try to make sense of that pseudo-monster movie Precious. Yes, I called that "cultural" document a monster movie because what is Precious, if anything, but monstrous?

First random thought: did Stanley Crouch's position on this film surprise you?

Second Random thought: How well will the movie Precious age? I predict not so well. Like others, I still argue that it is pathology porn. Moreover, I also suggest that it is part of the black pathology, black female suffering is by its very nature a noble enterprise, that is all in vogue as a counterpoint to the ascendancy of Michelle and Barack Obama. And yes, that ordering was intentional.

Not to be overlooked, some folks are hating on Howard Stern for daring to comment on the movie Precious and its star Gabourey Sidibe's health and weight issues. I submit that Howard is saying what so many of us are thinking in private...at least many of the black and brown folk with whom I pal around with. There is something horribly wrong with Precious, and doubly so with how so many people of color--and interestingly enough some white conservatives--have flocked to it as some type of exemplary "art," and its star as offering an alternative beauty and health standard for women of color. I will continue to argue that Precious is both literally and metaphorically unhealthy and should be critiqued as such. I have neither read nor heard anything to dissuade me from that position.

I must ask: With Precious who is playing who? Are Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey playing all of us for fools? Alternatively, while black folk in film may no longer always be Bucks, Mammies, or Coons, are we somehow liberated and freed by the pathos that is Precious? Or is Precious a new/old form of typecasting prison?