Commentary: The Abject and the Grotesque: Broken Bodies, Broken Dreams, and the Lost Promise of Harlem

Abstract

Precious is a difficult film to watch, not only because it deals with uneasy topics such as incest, poverty, illiteracy, and the disease of HIV/AIDS, but also because of its unflinching focus on the irrepressible and corpulent body of one Claireece “Precious” Jones. Hers is a body born out of a life of trauma, yet this body powerfully disrupts the visual and aural boundaries typically experienced by a viewing audience—so much so that critics Daniel Engber and David Edelstein resort to vicious and dehumanizing language to describe their encounter with the film. As Engber bewails, “the film’s most arresting figure of urban poverty is the one that lumbers through nearly every frame: The 300-pound Gabby Sidibe.” New York’s David Edelstein echoes these same sentiments, “[Precious’s] head is a balloon on the body of a zeppelin . . . her cheeks so inflated they squash her eyes into slits. That’s part of the movie’s XXXtreme social realism, no doubt.”1 No doubt? Besides overlooking the powerful association between the figurative and the literal, the seen and the imagined, Engber’s and Edelstein’s viewing practices focus the film through rigid lenses. More than benign illustrations, artistic images potently exemplify the nature and meaning of American values and beliefs. Engber’s and Edelstein’s inept and offensive attempts at defining the grueling and heartbreaking struggles of black folks in