Trailers of Precious

To watch the trailer of the film pleace click on the links below.

hollywoodstreams
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5FYahzVU44

LionsGate
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krQiRIUSZs0

Visit the official site to get more information
http://www.weareallprecious.com/

Oprah Winfrey

Oprah Gail Winfrey (born January 29, 1954) is an American television host, producer, and philanthropist, best known for her self-titled, multi-award winning talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind in history.She has been ranked the richest African American of the 20th century and beyond,the greatest black philanthropist in American history, and was once the world's only black billionaire.She is also, according to some assessments, the most influential woman in the world.

Winfrey was born into poverty in rural Mississippi to a teenage single mother and later raised in an inner-city Milwaukee neighborhood. She experienced considerable hardship during her childhood, including being raped at the age of nine and becoming pregnant at 14; her son died in infancy. Sent to live with the man she calls her father, a barber in Tennessee, Winfrey landed a job in radio while still in high school and began co-anchoring the local evening news at the age of 19. Her emotional ad-lib delivery eventually got her transferred to the daytime talk show arena, and after boosting a third-rated local Chicago talk show to first place,she launched her own production company and became internationally syndicated.

Credited with creating a more intimate confessional form of media communication,[ she is thought to have popularized and revolutionized the tabloid talk show genre pioneered by Phil Donahue, which a Yale study claims broke 20th century taboos and allowed LGBT people to enter the mainstream. By the mid 1990s she had reinvented her show with a focus on literature, self-improvement, and spirituality. Though criticized for unleashing confession culture and promoting controversial self-help fads, she is generally admired for overcoming adversity to become a benefactor to others. In 2006 she became an early supporter of Barack Obama and one analysis estimates she delivered over a million votes in the close 2008 Democratic primary race, an achievement for which the governor of Illinois considered offering her a seat in the U.S. senate.

Resources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oprah_Winfrey

my opinon:

it is surprised that the super famous talk show star Oprah have been raped when she was nine.

it seems like raping is the common burden for African America women.

Precious is raped by her father, and it hurt her forever physically and mentaly.

Oprah face the some disaster.

But both stands up to reconstruct their life.

The sociao welfare is extremely important, a lot of black women need help.

the system should be well organized to protect and help black women.

pics of precious II

pics of precious

Black Women Bear Brunt of Domestic Violence II

And cycles continue, through generations. Boys watch daddy pummel mommy and start practicing their shoves on sisters and cousins. Shoves elevate to punches, now foisted on girlfriends and wives. To curb that cyclical violence, prevention education emphasis is falling to not just entangled adults or even teenagers, but to elementary school students, where impressions begin.

“We don’t always want to equate domestic violence in other conversations we have, like HIV/AIDS, housing, unemployment,” Williams said. “Even if it’s not called ‘domestic violence,’ it’s present. It’s a challenge for us to get our heads around. But we need to look at it from a holistic perspective of making sure our community is healthy.”

He has seen advances in his 30-plus years as an advocate. From literature to counselors that reflect the African-American, and later, the Latino and Asian and Pacific Islander, experience, he can document progress.

In 1993, he and his cohorts were pioneers in tailoring domestic violence prevention efforts for African-American audiences. Today, they find themselves in the company of others, community efforts taking root from Atlanta to Los Angeles, with successes budding, lives being saved.

But it’s still not completed work. Shelters have been a good start and a proven method for some, but may not be the most accessible outlet for every woman. African-Americans still need to dig deeper, look at barriers raised by class and culture and develop their own networks and remedies to address them, he said.

And while wider society is beginning to accept and support those trying to survive abuse, the National Women’s Law Center reported in 2008 that in nine states – Arkansas, Idaho, Mississippi, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Wyoming – and the District of Columbia, it is legal to reject survivors of domestic violence for individual health care coverage, citing the abuse as a “pre-existing condition.”

On many fronts, it’s still part education, part action in the battle against domestic abuse.

Washington is working on both ends. On Oct. 24, she will host her second walk in Philadelphia to raise money for the hotlines in the area that direct women in need to crises support services, a lifeline for many fleeing for their lives.

She suffered her abuser for nine years, but it wasn’t until 14 years later that she recognized and understood what she had endured. Once she did, she began speaking out.

Washington will continue to do so, urging other women to chose other options.

She is still “Cookie” to those who knew her when, and “senator” for those who know her now. But she is a victim no more.

Today, Washington is known as an advocate, a voice, a survivor. And more than anything, she hopes other women will walk alongside her, not just this October, but every day.

resources: http://www.blackamericaweb.com/?q=articles/news/moving_america_news/13144/2

Black Women Bear Brunt of Domestic Violence I

LeAnna M. Washington is busy at work these days like many of her colleagues in the state senate, looking to push through Pennsylvania’s budget, finally freeing needed dollars to strapped social service agencies that aid the most vulnerable. Washington once was among them.Well before she was called “senator,” looking to right wrongs, she was called “Cookie,” looking for love. When she was 18, she figured she found it.She became a married woman, with a black eye as a honeymoon present from her new groom – the first of many.“It was the big secret,”

Washington told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “But women being beaten was not unfamiliar to me. And I got used to being beaten.”As have many black women across the country.While the sensational incident between pop stars Rihanna and Chris Brown recently snagged headlines and electrified airwaves, the struggle against domestic violence among African-Americans is an age-old and often silent battle. Those fighting to end it hope the spotlight from Domestic Violence Awareness Month will draw recruits.It’s not just about donning purple ribbons or playing celebrity public service announcements.

It’s about absorbing the reality that close to five in every 1,000 black women aged 12 and up are victims of domestic violence, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. It’s understanding that among those abused aged 15 to 34, murder by a husband or boyfriend remains a leading cause of death.More importantly, it’s about actively working on changing those outcomes, said Dr. Oliver J. Williams, executive director of the Institute on Domestic Violence in the African-American Community.“We have to figure out ways for our communities to own it,” Williams said. “We have to devise ways to get communities to see what actions and activities they can do to be engaged and involved, to develop solutions to it.”First observed in October 1987, Domestic Violence Awareness Month evolved from a single day of unity to a month-long endeavor to spotlight a social condition that was considered taboo for polite conversation.

Verbal, sexual and physical abuse are forms familiar to a large swath of black females. Historically so, Williams said. These are the scars of slavery, lack of education, discrimination, unemployment and other frustrations that have been exacerbated among African-Americans.Poverty tends to be an indicator for abuse, though violence is not confined to one social class. The difference is having options and resources to escape – options not always afforded by those struggling to survive day-to-day. Feeling trapped leads many women to stay put - and in peril.For Washington, those days seem like a lifetime ago, but the memories still make her cringe.

Like when she and her young children would barricade themselves inside a bedroom, dresser against the door, and remain huddled together until they heard her husband's truck pull away in the morning.Or the time she tried to exact revenge after a beating by tossing a pot of boiling water at him, and instead he dumped the hot water on her.Or the day he unexpectedly stepped in puppy feces, dragged her to the spot, twisted her arm and shoved her face in the smelly mess.But the beatings were the constant, followed by the apologies, the promises to change. Until the next beating.“A lot of people ask me to come and share my story,” Washington said. “The toughest woman will stop and pay attention, and that’s because it’s not just unique to me. We all know this story, but just with different players.“Sometimes I laugh when I hear myself repeating the stories, asking myself, ‘Why did I take that?’ But it was real life. And it happens all the time.”

resources: http://www.blackamericaweb.com/q=articles/news/moving_america_news/13144/1

from Los Angeles Times

For African American rape victims, a culture of silence
But as the phenomenon is finally addressed, women's voices emerge.
July 20, 2004 Gayle Pollard-Terry, Times Staff Writer

There's an old saying in the African American community: Black women raise their daughters and love their sons. A legacy of the atrocities of slavery, it signifies a communal protectiveness of black men, from the coddling of toddling boys to a reluctance to report rape and incest.

It's not like a get-out-of-jail-free card. It's born of a wariness of authority, especially white authority, learned from those stories about how your light-skinned sister got those gray eyes and your dark-skinned cousin got that keen nose, from those photographs of white lynch mobs and the beaten body of Emmett Till, a black teenager killed because of a wolf whistle.

http://articles.latimes.com/2004/jul/20/entertainment/et-pollard20

Domestic violence in African American society

photo from http://images.mirror.co.uk/upl/m4/feb2009/0/3/Rihanna_milticrop_524570783.jpg

Domestic Violence and African Americans

African Americans, including African American Women suffer deadly violence from family members at rates decidedly higher than for other racial groups in the United States. However, it is observed that research concerning family violence among African Americans is inadequate.

Factors such as the breakdown of families, unemployment and underemployment, poor schools, inadequate vocational skills and training, bad housing, the influence and use of drugs, and the density of liquor stores in the inner city contribute to the problem of domestic violence. All of these ingredients may compound and coalesce into a strong undercurrent of frustration that can lead to domestic violence.

A Painful Dilemma

Many Black women may find it harder to leave a battering relationship than White women. The reasons for this are unclear, but some possible explanations include the following: (1) African American women have fewer options in their search for a marital partner than do White women; (2) African American women on average, have a lower income level than that of most White women; (3) Black women are reluctant to call the police because they see the racial injustice in the criminal justice system; (4) community support systems including women’s shelters and other service programs may be less available to them and they may view the shelter system movement as something mainly to benefit White women. Unfortunately, many Black women resort to “homicide” as an answer to the violence and battering they encounter.

from http://www.blackwomenshealth.com/2006/articles.php?id=35

Scenes of Friendship

Precious finds true friendship later in the film. The teacher Ms. Rain she met in Each One Teach One helps Precious to rebuild her confidence. Precious is humble and willing to learn all the things Ms. Rain teach her. Due to Precious' kind heart and humble personality, people around her willing to offer her helps and being her friends. Precious has learned to love and care for others after she has been loved and cared for during the days she get along with Ms. Rain and her friends.

Scenes of White Refelction in the Mirror

The mirror always functions to refelct people's mind, thought or subconsciousness in the films. Precious sees herself as a blonde in the mirror which shows her eargerness of being a White woman. Precious is lack of confidence when she has oppressed too long by the environment she grows. Precious pursues a common (or even philistine)value of beauty in her contemporary that only blonde stands as beauty. By viewing herself as a blonde Precious gains herself some confidence. However, the blonde in the mirror is wearing a sad face which refelcts Precios' true mental status.

Scenes of Being Superstar

By dreaming being a superstar Precious can run away form the miserable events for a short period. In the film, Precious always has her dreams when she is maltreated. (Been raped, bullied, and kicked out by her mother) Though Precious grabs a short rest through these Superstar dreams, she has to face the crule reality after she wakes up, which is always a sad thing. These Superstar dreams make an irony to Precious life which makes people sad rather than excited to see her illusions.

Scenes of Romantic Illusions

Precious always dreams for having a romance with a "lighted skin guy who wear nice hair". The scenes above show her illusion for her teacher and the nurse both with lighted skin.(The teacher is a White man and the nurse a lighter Black man) We view Precious' such dream as the result of the offensive feeling caused by her father's violence rape. By dreaming her romantic dreams, Precious gets the chance to run away from the crule reality.

Scenes of Being Bullied

Precious is not only maltreated at home but also out on the street. Beside to the fact that the gays laughed at her for her fatness, gender issue is also the problem. The scenes indicate female's status is lower than the male's in African American society.

Scenes of Being Raped

The raping scenes show Precious' miserable life in the past and they are the connections to the present to tell audiences what happened to Precious that leaded to her pregnancy (which also made her been kicked out from school). In the raping scenes we learn that Precious' mother notice what is happening as we can see her figure shows up at the door. However, the mother choose not to stop what is going on. Having a monstrous father and an indifference motehr Precious still has her fantastic dream. During the raping, Precious dreams of being a super star. The breaking ceiling will turns out to be Precious' illusion as a super star which is compeletly the other way from the reality.

Scenes of Being Abused

These scenes show how Mary abuses Precious physically and verbally. The abusing scenes provide the audiences the background imformation of Precious' life. Abusing scenes can be saw through the whole film that remind audience how miserable experience Precious always comes up with. The abusing scenes are Precious' shadowed past which make an obvious contrast to Precious' better future.