Earlier this week, I wrote a post about stereotypical images of black children that I come across at auctions. I complimented Disney’s “The Princess and the Frog” for its positive portrayal of a black girl and woman.
I can’t say the same about “Precious.” I’ve only seen the previews and they haven’t enticed me to go see the movie, which has been the subject of much controversy over its unflattering depiction of black people in general, especially black women and men. Watching the previews gave me that sick feeling I get each time I see a black Mammy figure on an auction table or a black child eating watermelon on an old postcard. We are much more than that.
I see too many awful stereotypical images under the guise of Black Americana to force myself to pay $10 to see us portrayed as pathological again.
I’m sure that I’d find the movie depressing, and I know that there is nothing depressing about black life. My friends and I love being black, and we love life. So why can’t Hollywood do movies about us being well-adjusted – well, as well-adjusted as human beings can be.
So, today I want to show you why I won’t go to see “Precious.” I’ve seen her too many times before in books and on auction tables. I’ll let writer Ishmael Reed speak. He does it eloquently.
From left: Mandy Struts Old Maid card (1940s or 1950s); Mammy jar; black woman dubbed “Mammy” on a postcard; Aunt Esther from TV show “Sanford and Son.”
From left: Bisque heads of man and woman; Hattie McDaniel in “Gone With the Wind”; stuffed doll and knitted potholder; Aunt Jemima.
I came across this piece by artist Betye Saar with a different take on Aunt Jemima. Not the docile one we’ve seen through the years but a “take-no-prisoners” one. It’s called “The Liberation of Aunt Jemima” (1972).
