“Let me just say that Precious is Lee Daniels’ vision, not mine,” author Sapphire said Monday night at the University of Missouri–St. Louis.
She was addressing hundreds of guests who were eager to offer their opinions on the film – from raves to ravages – during the question-and-answer segment of her presentation
“If I had done a movie, it would have been a different movie,” she said. “I have no idea what I would have done.”
At UMSL, she was undoubtedly riding the wave Daniels afforded her by adapting her book Push for the big screen. But her presentation had little to do with the feature film, besides responses to questions.
Instead, she made the most of her newfound spotlight by adding a more authentic face and voice to themes explored in the film.
Instead of the homely, obese main character in the film and book, Sapphire said, her novel actually was inspired by beautiful, intelligent, smartly dressed, “well put together” women she taught in New York – whose faces hid their pain and struggles.
“‘I’ve got to go get my AZT,” Sapphire recalled one of her students saying anxiously, as she bolted for the door in the 1980s class that Sapphire taught in New York City.
“‘AZT,’ I thought – ‘that is an anti-viral medication used by gay white men who have AIDS,’” Sapphire said.
“I had never met a black woman who had the disease. It was a disease that gay white men and some Haitians got. I was hearing something that soon the whole world would be hearing.”
Sapphire didn’t know it at the time, but these women’s stories would become endemic to the inner city nearly two decades later, as black women topped the statistics for rising rates of HIV infection.
“Very little literature is written about black women survivors,” Sapphire said.
She would ultimately bring herself to tears as she read excerpts from her book and discussed the stories that breathed life into it.
“But the other major component is the importance of language and literacy,” Sapphire said. “There would be no point in me writing a book that is just about abuse.”
She also wanted to show another story – her story. She carved a place for those who lack the maternal legacy left by black writers describing the unwavering matriarch determined to make a better life for her children, by any means necessary.
Sapphire said, “I wanted to break open one of the sacred cows of the African-American community: the self-sacrificing mother.”
She sourced Carolyn Rodger’s “It Must Be Deep” as a prime example.
“In poems like this, black mothers took care of their children and scrubbed floors to send them to college,” Sapphire said.
“In poems like this, black women had sturdy foundations – things that I never had.”
Precious vs. Push
The most compelling element of the presentation was Sapphire setting the record straight with respect to the theme of her book, which from time to time gets misconstrued in Daniels’ film.
The first comment in the question-and-answer section was the toughest to swallow.
“The impression that I got from the movie is I didn’t like what I saw,” one woman in the audience said.
“I left the movie theater feeling very unsatisfied. It felt like I saw a very horrible story told with no inspiration to it.”
Sapphire’s response was simple.
“There are not going to be any miracles in most people’s real life,” Sapphire said.
“Most women wouldn’t survive what she went through. She breaks the cycle of the abuse, even though she doesn’t get rich or get a husband.”
While she was quick to defend the intentions of the film, her conversation shed light on some of Daniels’ more questionable choices in Precious – most obviously, the casting of fair-skinned actors in the roles of uplifting and healing characters.
“Precious has grown up admiring, hating and fearing people who are lighter-skinned than her,” Sapphire said.
“If she is going to become a full human being, the narrow-mindedness that she is encased in – she is going to have to grow beyond that.”
Unfortunately – despite all of its acclaim – this is an element the film fails to capture.
The now common comparison between Precious and The Color Purple was also discussed.
“In The Color Purple, Celie is rescued by romantic love, even though her rescuer happens to be a homosexual. In Precious, romantic love of any kind doesn’t save her. Her situation is changed – as with many African-American women – purely through her own efforts,” Sapphire said.
“I wanted to write a novel where a young girl doesn’t fall in love – with a man or a woman – where there is nobody coming in on a white charger. Because the reality is that most African-American women are going to have to save their own lives.”
