Not since the film adaptation of Alice Walker’s Pulitzer-Prize winning novel The Color Purple, has a movie sparked so much controversy and inspired such absolutely love the film or absolutely hate the film and just the idea of the film emotions. I found much in Precious absolutely breath-taking-the way that Sibide owns and lights up the screen from the very first frame. Even as we watch her victimization at the hands of a monstrous mother and evil father, we feel her vulnerability and her intelligence, and we know that somehow this child will make it. I found the recurring fantasies that filled Precious’ thoughts and imagination (looking in the mirror and seeing a blonde White girl rather than her own image, being loved and pursued by a light skinned “pretty boy”), painfully authentic and the expected survivalist daydreams of a very dark-skinned Black girl surrounded daily by a relentless stream of White supremacist images, and crippled by self loathing, poverty and unspeakable abuse. I applauded the affirming sisterhood that blossomed among Precious and the girls in her literacy class where they learned to read and write and simultaneously grew in their ability to feel and express compassion, concern and tenderness for one another.

Yet for all the enormously satisfying complexity of many elements of the film, it nonetheless hues to the age-old racist color codes that are epidemic in the Black community and are significant aspects of many cultures globally. Every person who works to save Precious is light skinned. The literacy teacher  who opens up Precious’ world and enlarges her aspirations, the male nurse who cares for her when she has her second child and who becomes Precious’ friend, the social worker who engineers a climactic confrontation between Precious and her mother that emotionally liberates the young girl, are all light skinned. Yes, the performances by Paula Patton, Lenny Kravitz and Mariah Carey in these roles are superb. But in terms of both narrative and image, this is color politics as usual.  Confidence, meaningful jobs, control over one’s life belong to attractive, light skinned members of the Black community. That seems to be the message of the film. In a story overloaded with horrors, I nearly expected the see Precious begin using skin lightner before the movie reached it’s conclusion.

Yes, light skin and “White” features make a difference. Colorism in all its expressions is now a topic under serious scholarly study at universities throughout the country and around the world, from Harvard to the University of North Carolina. And all the studies confirm what we know, or suspect-lighter skin is more highly prized and results in greater life and career opportunities, higher salaries, longer life expectancy, and can even save Black men from death row. There is now a kind of global triangular trade supporting the virus of colorism as for example Africans import hair from China for weaves and extensions and Chinese women go under the knives of plastic surgeons to get European looking eyes and noses and men and women in the Caribbean and Africa use skin lightners to such a degree that skin cancer has been for the last decade on the rise in these regions of the world where it was once largely unknown.

Yes, this is the ugly truth, light skin is a physical attribute that can improve one’s life. But the reliance on such stock casting belies the reputation Lee Daniels has earned  as a producer and director hailed for the courage of his cinematic vision and his willingness to take risks in his choice of stories and actors. He had an opportunity in Precious to interrogate and reject the dominate color-code imagery that in and of itself derails the lives of so many young girls like Precious. And because so many of her fantasies focus on wanting to be white or to be loved by a boy who looks white, by casting actors who looked like Precious as positive agents for change in her life would have bolstered her self esteem and sense of possibilities as much as her new found literacy. The implicit message of the film seemed to be that the nightmare of Precious’ life was as much about color as poverty and abuse. Who would criticize Precious by this reasoning for wanting in her heart and soul to be White or at least light, when the only people who cared give credence to the rhyme she heard a thousand times, “If you’re Black step back if you’re light you’re alright.” This isn’t a minor quibble but questions much of the aesthetic foundation of this film.

In the Black community we remain in the grip of negative colorist attitudes, passed from mothers to daughters and fathers and sons. If we can’t turn to a serious, groundbreaking film like Precious to offer much needed relief from this madness, where can we turn?  While Riannah, Beyonce and Alicia Keys reign as a triumvirate of global superstars as much for their light skin as their talent, Maxine Waters walks the halls of Congress, Michele Obama is First Lady, and look, really look and you will find scores of high profile brown to black men and women who are success stories, and who are role models for real and imagined girls like Precious. I loved Precious but she still broke my heart.