Precious Film Analysis

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Caucasian Male Patriarchal Society; Is It Considered To Be Existent In Daniels's Movie? The film Precious which is directed by Lee Daniels, is centered on the ideas of ethnicity and diversity, and how people tend to interact with one another within society. The article "Chapter 7; Oppositional Gaze; Black Female Spectators" which is written by Bell Hooks, argues that tensions are scripted to occur within movie storylines, in order to place emphasis on a character's "culture" (Hooks 127) or "racial difference" (Hooks 123) in society. Hooks also argues within her article that that "in . . . [many] Hollywood Cinema . . . movies" (Hooks 125), the setting of the movies happen to center around Caucasian characters who live in a predominantly …show more content…
. . [to have] awareness of the way in which race and racism determined the visual construction of gender" (Hooks 122). This aspect appears to be accurate upon discussing the "structures of domination" (Hooks 130), within the context of masculinity and race as separate entities. There happens to be "a . . . psychoanalytic framework" (Hooks 123), provided by Mulvey, which "created a critical space where the binary opposition Mulvey posits of 'woman an image, man as bearer of the look' was continually deconstructed" (Hooks 123). For example, the man that is portrayed in Precious's thoughts on numerous occasions demonstrates the "black male gaze" (Hooks 118). Once when he is in the same room with the apartment as her, and also when he glances at her with a smug expression as he hand her a helmet (Movieclips). In terms of race, it is quite evident that towards the beginning of the film, Precious accepts how her mother behaves towards her. Yet, she eventually learns how to takes charge of her life, and stands up to her mother, who attempts to demonstrate her superiority. Precious behaves that way, instead of allowing "their history" (Hooks 128) of her not mother's behavior to continue to occur. Therefore, within this particular movie, there is less "White supremacy" (Hooks 117), and an increased level of "black representation" (Hooks 117) of "masculinity . . .[within] dominant ways" (Hooks 128) is demonstrated more prevalently throughout the movie, as opposed to a commonly stereotypical interpretation of a predominantly elevated level of Caucasian traits and