Nov
9th
Mon
9th
This actress is my new favorite person on earth. First because she’s my skin-twin (and how often do you see that on television?), secondly because her name is so beautiful it could be Burkinabe or Senegalese or Dagomba or something, and thirdly because she defies every single bullshit stereotype of temperament that the world tries to put on people like her. Daniels said when they auditioned the girls they found a bunch who “were” Precious—girls who had survived horrendous things and were still standing—-and though those actresses were a dead ringer for the character he felt like casting them would be making a documentary. It would be too close to their lives and their lived truth and would end up being exploitative because it would be microscoping their personal stuff and trying to make it a stand-in for fiction. He also felt like they would be overpowered by the material because they would have to relive stuff all the time. Though this might come across to someone else as judgmental or elitist (i acknowledge that it is to a degree) I found a kernel of truth to his statement. Because in most movies of this kind from what i’ve seen they do find someone just like the lead character, and make it a real rags to riches story. The young star is thrust into a life they do not have the emotional resources to cope with. And then the young star in interviews unwittingly universalizes the experience of what a (insert movie trope here) looks like or sounds like because in real life they are pretty much the character. It does such a disservice to all the other people living in similar bodies or similar existences because then it suggests that all overweight dark-skinned women are downtrodden and sad. Which of course then implicitly suggests that being discovered by Hollywood is the only thing that gives them some measure of redemption in their lives. The next logical conclusion then is that since most dark-skinned, overweight women aren’t in Hollywood they must thus be all near-suicidal. Cue, well-intentioned folks treating every fat, dark-skinned girl they see like she must a “Precious.” Gabby turns this shit completely on its head. And it couldn’t have come a moment too soon.
