Scattered Coherence

whiteytighties:

“I mean, it has  an overweight black girl and the hip people are watching, so I’ll see it, but I want to know what I’m getting myself into.”

Are people really this shallow? Yeah, I guess they are and I’m SO glad I don’t personally know any of them but so grateful to be exposed to them on occasion and therefore reminded to be incredibly glad I don’t know people who think this way.

I used to have a friend who would have asked the same question in the same way. He was an “artist”. But then he went to “art school” which ruined his “art”. Now he only cares about money and his student loans.  Obviously I can no longer speak to him as he also would consider a film because ” the hip people are seeing it” and say something like ” i know its about an overweight black girl” because he can’t really think further than that on the spur of the moment and doesn’t have the breadth of reference to dig deeper. It’s possible that what gets to me most is the simplified description. Is this all you know about this film? YES people, it matters what you say on your Tumblr because you are communicating with other humans. Don’t waste the opportunity to communicate on any level no matter how simplified or “anonymous”, it’s still you and you should be excellent and marvelous in any format.

I watched Precious this morning, by chance, online. I couldn’t have described it adequately to anyone because there isn’t another story like it. There are stories about abuse, about struggle, about survival and beating the odds. There has never been a story told on film about THESE characters who are utterly unrecognizable in their combination from other cheap, gimmicky attempts at pulling your emotions. This film doesn’t even try to pull you in. It doesn’t even know you, the audience, is there and it does not care. There’s a line at the end: “you can’t handle me. You can’t handle none of this”. It is the line that speaks directly to the audience, if only the audience is aware of it. Most of them won’t be. They won’t know what they’re seeing. They won’t have a frame of reference- which is one of the best things film is capable of, but extremely scary for most of the public. I’d lay a wager to anyone reading this, on your honor and mine, that you don’t know this story unless you’ve been there. And if you’ve been there, you are SO unlikely to be hanging out on Tumblr.

I dare say it’s one of the three most important films in several decades based on subject matter, and bravado alone. If you watch many films, you know what acting is. You know it’s not something many people can do well without a brilliant director, a flawless script and a hollywood dream team. This will remind you what acting is, or if you weren’t sure, you will be sure afterward. If it could be the first American film you ever watched, lesser artwork would try your patience in the future.