The Misery Of Others Is Your Best Entertainment Value [or "Sympathy Porn"]

I have a brief, "nutshell" review for Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire (that is the movie's actual title): File under "Things I'd really like to un-see."

The annual AFI film fest was in town this week. For one of America's oldest and most respected film institutions, they made a super-cool, down-to-earth move - they offered mass quantities of free tickets to the proletariat. YOU HEAR THAT, REDFORD??? PUT THAT IN YOUR PATCHOULI BONG AND SMOKE IT!!!

Actually, I like Robert Redford - and Sundance. But it's nice to know that a film fest held in what most people regard as the centerpoint of all things superficial might just be one of the most accessible this side of SXSW. There's more to the festival circuit than starfucking and schmoozing. But I digress...

I wanted to see Vincere - a movie about Mussolini's first wife - but Simon Phoenix wanted to see Mariah Carey in person... you know, why the fuck am I sugarcoating it? He wanted to check out Mariah's ass in person because he wanted to see if it's beautiful shape in pictures was a Photoshop thing. And I really didn't feel remotely bad about indulging that desire. Not one goddam bit.

A brief pronunciation guide before we proceed:

serious = sir-yus
important = imp-hor-t-an-t
issue = iss-see-ewes

But, brevity being the soul of wit (which makes me the biggest fucktard of all time when you really think about it) Precious: Based on the novel "Push" by Sapphire was, in a word, terrible. In twenty-two: one of worst and most gratuitously repugnant films since... I don't know, what the fuck was Tyler Perry's last movie called again?

I know certain folks love them some "serious" "imporant" films. Fare with lots and lots of issues.

And motherfucker! Did Precious ever come with issues. Let me break it down for you, in the span of one movie, nay, ONE FUCKING CHARACTER you had the following issues:

• Teen pregnancy - Precious is pregnant.
• Teen motherhood - Precious already has a child that her grandmother is taking care of. Her classmates are at varying stages of teen motherhood, too.
• Incest - The father of Precious' children is her father.
• Rape - I don't know, is incest ever consensual? What do you say, "Papa" John Phillips??? "Don't look at me. Ask the Gyllenhaal kids." You're a sick fucker, "Papa" John Phillips!
• Poverty - Precious and her abusive mother live in the genre's requisite urban squalor. Naturally, they live on government aid.
• Down's Syndrome - Precious' first child, Mongol (short for Mongoloid, ain't that charming?), has Down's Syndrome. Look at the bright side, she didn't refer to it as "Corky."
• Illiteracy - Precious can't read, although she has enough skill at math to matriculate to an "alternative school." The one goddam good thing that happened to that poor girl in two fucking hours of celluloid!!! TWO!!!
• Obesity - Precious weighs 350 pounds. Her abusive mother keeps her heavy to make her less attractive to her father.
• Abuse - see above comment. Oh yeah - she beats the shit out of her on a regular basis, verbally berates her, and at one of the film's many climaxes, attempts to drop a TV on top of Precious and her new baby boy.
• Prison - Daddy is in prison. But not for raping his daughter...
• Drugs - Of course.
• Absentee father-ism - You know, the mom really seemed to miss the man.

AND... 

Take a guess. You know what I'm about to say, don't you?

Drumroll please...

• AIDS!!! WOOOOOOOOOOO-FUCKING-HOOOOOOOOOO!!! JACKPOT, KIDS!!!

Precious is also tied to a railroad track by moustache-twirling villain, Snidely Whiplash, in the third reel. She's rescued by her father, who was walking home after being discharged from prison. So he rapes her AGAIN, not behind, but IN, a dumpster. But he hits her in the head afterward, and she loses her mathematical ability, thus costing her the scholarship to the alternative school. As she's going home from the meeting at the school where she loses her scholarship, she drops her first child in the gutter. The kid's puffy coat makes her a virtual life raft, but alas, poor Mongol is washed down a storm drain. While trying to fish Mongol out of the drain, she sets the newborn on the bench at a bus station. That baby is abducted by a man wearing a t-shirt that said, "Black Market Babies For Sale!!! Just Ask Me!!!" and an 800 number. As she's crying at the bus station, Corky from Life Goes On says, "You deserve to lose your babies you retarded cunt!!!" and kicks her into the gutter. The bus arrives, running her over, but NOT KILLING HER, and roll credits.

Feel-good movie of the year, folks! OF THE DECADE. Just ask fuckin' Oprah!

Does "SPOILER ALERT" really count when not a soul I know would see this for any other reason but duress?

I didn't see that last part of the film. Simon told me all about it. I was about to go into hysterics, so I left early. Laugh at Oprah, and that bitch will find you. She's friendly with the Scientologists, and you know what that means!!!

After the show, Simon punched me in the face.

"OW!!! Fuck was that for??? You could have left with me, you asshole!!! Mariah had already split!!!"

"It's because you're white."

And you know what? After seeing that picture, I knew he was right - so I went back inside and punched myself in the face. I caught Tyler Perry in the lobby.

"Punch me in the face!" I said.

"Nigga please. We may have a black President, but I'm still not hitting a white man in this town. At least not with cameras around. Now if this were Chicago... Call my publicist."

And then he went across the street to shoot another movie, Madea Turns A Trick. Only took him twenty minutes. Then another ten minutes to edit, and he did an about face, and went to its premiere BACK INSIDE THE CHINESE (packed house - fucking packed). Say what you like about Tyler Perry, but that dude is prolific!

Like I said, I love a good drama. I'm not so much as a film-snob, as I am a cinema nut. Yeah, there's always the "escape" aspect to a movie. But escape, for me at least, doesn't have to entail unicorns and/or laser guns. If nothing else, I simply prefer movies with unicorns AND laser guns. Get it straight.

But seriously, I love it all, genre wise. It's like music. I can't pick a style I prefer over everything else. The main thing: take me into a world, any world. You don't have to take me away, just get me into a mind that isn't mine. Deal?

To me, saying that a film is "great" just because it's realistic is a fucking cop-out. It's as if a story gets automatic street-cred simply because it's close to a reality people WHO DON'T LIVE SAID REALITY can believe about people who aren't affluent liberals. I'd love to say it's a white, affluent, liberal thing, but Oprah and Tyler Perry are on board.

Did anybody else see the fucking parallels to The Fuckin' Perils of Pauline??? I don't get a dramatic structure that just heaps shit upon shit onto a character only to give the character more shit in the end. Not too put too fine a point on it, but it feels like torture.

It doesn't have to have a happy ending. But I guess that's the other problem. No matter what, and here's where I'm going to be a purist, every good drama (in the general sense) involves three things: goals, obstacles and the achieving or failing at those goals despite or because of the obstacles. It's just how it works.

If I want to see the reality of a tragic and sinking situation that just continues and continues, well, I can step outside my door for that. Fuck, somedays, all you have to do is stay home for that!

I was talking about this with my friend, Double E, and she coined a term that I think is particularly appropriate: Sympathy Porn. And this is without any knowledge of the horror sub-genre of "Torture Porn," the term and the films. I'd love to take credit for creating it, but I'll certainly exploit and disseminate it with no problem whatsoever. It's true.

Obviously, "porn" here isn't referring to hardcore sex movies. [But I want to state for the record that I really, really, REALLY love that kind of porn. I'm watching some now. Real deviant shit. I should fucking be locked up.] It's more an issue of exploitation. More specifically, it's the exploitation of emotion to cover up what appears to be total lack of artistic intent. Silence of the Lambs and Hostel both scare the holy fuck out of you, but the latter goes for the jugular, while the other has emotional beats that lead to crescendos, choices and moments of serious jeopardy.

And I'm not saying one is "better" than the other. "Better" is a useless term. I've got no issue with exploitation pics. Sometimes, ya just need that, you know?

Same with porno-porno, right? But then again, that's the one where I think the more exploitive version is the more honest one. I have one word in the other direction: Skin-emax. Seriously, when those folks try to act... Well, it's beneath all of us, I think. And I mean the entire human race.

Sensuality as a dominant theme in a movie-movie is more difficult. A lot of the time, it comes off as pretty retarded. Henry and June and 9 1/2 Weeks were pretty good. But then again - goals, obstacles, yadda yadda.

So to me, Sympathy Porn, entails those stories that basically play on the heartstrings in absence of real story. "I can't do this artfully, so I will clobber you over the head with a sledgehammer of woe." You know: pretty much anything that has the words Oprah Winfrey or Toni Morrison attached to it. Fuck - The Color Purple is the trifecta of this genre! You've got Spielberg's suburban white guilt and inability to empathize with black folks mixed in there! There are plenty of movies that play pathos artfully. It's all in the pacing.

Now let's keep this between us. I'm scared of very little in this world. The Wrath of Winfrey is one of them. She has a pack of wild dogs that she's raised on nothing but human flesh (milk-carton kids, you know), testosterone shots, and pure fuckin' hatred. I saw it in a  conspiracy theory 'zine...