Commentary: The two sides of race at the Oscars

Photo by AP Photo/Chris Pizzello

Actress Gabourey Sidibe (left) and director Lee Daniels at the Governors Ball following the the 82nd Academy Awards Sunday.

From The Boston Globe Web site boston.com.

What does it mean that a virtually all-black movie made the final cut of 10 for the best picture Oscar this year and would surely have made the traditional cut of five? “Precious’’ has no white stars. Its nominated director and screenwriter are black, as is the author of its source material (in case you haven’t heard, it’s “based on the novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire’’).

Photo by AP Photo/Chris Pizzello

Actress Gabourey Sidibe (left) and director Lee Daniels at the Governors Ball following the the 82nd Academy Awards Sunday.

Mark J. Terrill/Associated Press

In accepting the Best Actress Oscar for her performance as Memphis mom Leigh Anne Tuohy in "The Blind Side," Sandra Bullock dedicated her award to her mother and all "the moms that take care of the babies and the children, no matter where they come from."

The movie tells the story of an overweight, illiterate teenager, pregnant with her second child (both of which are her missing father’s). It’s grim and, up to a point, sad. It is also an off-kilter melodrama and a moving tale of unmoored, undereducated girls holding on to each other, lest they drift into ignorance or drown. Does its embrace by the overwhelmingly white Academy (the movie has 6 nominations) mean that “Precious’’ was made for white people?

The movie’s most vociferous detractors are black, and a few of them have complained that it proffers the sort of victimization and monstrosity that comforts white audiences watching black people. Last month, the novelist and poet Ishmael Reed wrote on the op-ed page of The New York Times that, watching “Precious,’’ he felt under psychological assault. Setting aside that the assault is intentional, wouldn’t a white audience feel similarly attacked?

Reed goes on to lament the movie’s being used to draw untrue, unflatteringly dire conclusions about black families and jabs at the white film critics quoted on the “Precious’’ website. “It’s no surprise either that [they] maintain that the movie is worthwhile because, through the efforts of a teacher, this girl begins her first awkward efforts at writing.’’ What does it mean for a black critic, and for black moviegoers for that matter, to love this movie as much the Academy?

More important: When does a movie with black characters stop being about the entire black experience and start being about individual black people living their own lives. Can a movie do that? Ever? “Precious’’ has blown the mind of black America. It’s racist. It’s nasty. It’s brilliant. It’s triumphant. It’s insane. I see where everybody’s coming from. Some people are considering the film from their grad-school library carrels. Others are doing so from the broken-down elevator in their housing project. Where you stand on this movie depends largely upon where you’ve stood.

To read the rest of this commentary, go to boston.com.

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