Is celebrating obese women giving the wrong message to young black women?

by today's Urban Chameleon contributor Aireka Muse

Now that the Oscars are over and we don’t have to be politically correct, can we start getting real and talk about Gabourey Sibide’s weight? Gabby, the lead actress in Precious, is not “full figured”, “voluptuous” or “curvy”. She is obese. Publicly using her body as a symbol of confident body image is not only dangerous for her but gives the wrong message to black women struggling with weight.

At 350 pounds, Gabourey is nearly 200 pounds overweight. Being only 20% overweight increases the chances of heart disease dramatically. Gabourey is 50% overweight. At only 25 years old, her life is drastically limited. She can’t ride a bike, take the stairs, or sit comfortably in a restaurant chair. Her lungs, heart, and joints are working overtime just to support her getting out of bed and walking out the door. If health risks such as heart attack, kidney failure, and diabetes are not scary enough, obesity reduces your life expectancy by 10 to 12 years. Gaborourey at the size that she is will be lucky if she lives to be 60 and that of course will not come without a couple joint replacements and multiple daily medication.

By using the words such as “curvy” and “full figured” to describe Gabourey, the same words to describe Kim Kardashian, Jennifer Lopez, and Jordan Sparks, is saying that being 200 pounds is nothing more than a preference. But it is not. Especially when according to the Center of Disease Control, 79.8% of African American women are either overweight or obese. My question is, by ignoring the health issues plaguing this beautiful woman’s life and pretending her weight issues are trivial? Is it possible that celebrating Gabourey for being “full figured” is just as dangerous as celebrating the waify arms and protruding hipbones of an anorexic?

What are we saying to the 79.8% of African American women struggling with their weight? The sentiments that this is ‘Just her size” is ludicrous. Regardless of what people might believe, no one is born obese. Obesity is not hereditary. Poor diet choices and other lifestyle behaviors are hereditary and we must stop enabling unhealthy lifestyles in our community.

In November, Gabourey discussed her confidence with Oprah. “One day I had to sit down with myself and decide that I loved myself no matter what my body looked like and what other people thought about my body." But Gabourey, why does loving yourself have to compromise taking care of your body the best way possible? Could loving yourself actually be the opposite of putting whatever you crave in your mouth? Could loving yourself mean making a conscious effort to support your body with best foods and nutrients?

Even Monique, Gaby’s co-star, for years screamed, “ I am fat and fabulous” and recently lost weight in the pursuit of being healthy. At 262 pounds, close to 100 pounds lighter that Gabby, doctors worried about Monique’s health and she made the decision to lose weight to be the best version of herself for her husband and children. Queen Latifah, another beautiful confident black woman, has publicly spoken about the health benefits of exercising and eating right. She is far from being considered skinny and her decisions about her weight have had nothing to do with what other think but everything to do with taking care of herself. 


I am not at all suggesting that the praise and accolades that Gabourey has received from her acting role in Precious are not well deserved. She is shining example of what is possible in your life if you believe in yourself. Nor am I suggesting that Gabourey needs to be publicly shamed or condemned. She is a beautiful woman with enormous talent. All I am suggesting is that weight issues, regardless of what size they come in, anorexic or obese, is not a laughing matter, nor should it be ignored. Gabourey, as well as the public figures surrounding her and missing an opportunity to change millions of black women’s lives by seeing that we all struggle with weight and even in the most dire situations, health is always obtainable.

On Tuesday, after the Oscars, radio shock jock Howard Stern and his sidekick Robin Quivers, made harsh and cruel comments regarding Gabourey’s size. The rant included calling her the “most enormous fat black chick I’ve ever seen” and suggesting that Oprah and others who support the actress are lying “She’s telling an enormous woman the size of a planet that she is going to have a career”. He returned on Friday to suggest his comments were only to bring light to the seriousness of obesity in our country. Howard’s comments caused a public stir of emails and phone calls in defense of Gabourey. Both Whoopi Goldberg and Jessica Simpson made public statements calling Howard disrespectful and inaccurate.

Howard’s comment regarding Gabourey’s career has already been proven wrong since Gabby has already booked a recurring role on a TV show and two feature films but Howard was correct in stating that her weight should not be considered normal or okay. Somehow because we like Gabourey talking about the ungodly truth about her size has become just as taboo as telling a new parent their child is ugly. Somewhere in 2009, being politically correct has become more important then telling the truth. Quickly, we must get over this and save this poor girl’s life. Gabourey Sibide is obese. As a talent confident woman, she deserves the help she needs to not only lose the weight but to combat the behaviors that lead her there. She deserves a lengthy career and healthy life and her chances are greater if she looks in the mirror and says it’s time to make a change. That change has nothing to do with what others think about her and everything to do with a chance to really live life.

To read more from Aireka Muse visit www.untiligettoyou.blogspot.com

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Precious

by today's Urban Chameleon contributor
The film critic

In going to see Precious this past week I was so disappointed and uninspired I wasn’t even moved enough to write up a review. However after reading multiple different reviews both praising and bashing the film, I finally came across one that almost word for word articulates how I feel about this film.

Lost in Translation: A Response to ‘Precious’
by Summer M.

Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry said Precious was awesome and that everyone should go see it. Since I am the most obedient of Negroes, I saw it last Friday. If Flavor Flav is the world’s greatest hype man, this duo is officially the world’s greatest hype machine. I found Precious slightly underwhelming, uninspiring, and lacking much of what makes the novel, Push by Sapphire, so powerful. Sorry, Ms. Winfrey. I had no “A-ha!” moment.

My reaction to and assessment of the film, however, needs context. With relative ease, I could probably come up with a book list of black women’s fiction about incest–The Bluest Eye, Corregidora, etc. In other words, I have discussed, read, written, and thought about the issues the film presents visually perhaps more than the average moviegoer. So I’m willing to concede that my expectation, my threshold might have been a bit higher than the people (talking loud as hell) in front of me. Still, I think what I found troubling about the film worth mentioning. Lee Daniels & Co. had the envelope; they just didn’t push it. (Was that too heavy handed?)

A quick synopsis: It’s 1987. Precious Jones is 16 years old, illiterate, living in Harlem with her abusive mother, and pregnant with her second child by her father. The film begins with her being suspended from school, only to wind up in Each One Teach One, an alternative school where, with the help of her teacher, Ms. Rain, Precious works towards obtaining her GED, literacy, and the agency to tell her own story. Part of me thinks that Perry and Winfrey are so enthusiastic about this film because they believe the pathology articulated in the film is an inherent component of black women’s condition. But I can’t really prove that. I can only infer. Though Precious is somewhat faithful to the novel, it fails in several key ways.

First, the film lazy is at times, and doesn’t work hard enough at situating the viewer with an era that many of us forget or were too young to remember. It’s Harlem. It’s the 1980s. Crack has started to decimate black neighborhoods like Harlem. Len Bias has just died of a cocaine overdose, and the goverment has consequently changed the way drug offenders are prosecuted which, in turn, disproportionately affects blacks. The Cosby Show is the number one rated show on television, but instead the filmmakers opt to seemingly satiate their executive producer by having their main character pepper a pivotal scene with several “What would Oprah do?” lines. At other times, the film is weirdly anachronistic. Bobby Brown’s “Humpin Around,” which wasn’t released until 1992, serves as soundtrack to one of Precious’ imagined photo shoots. We see Oliver North, but that’s one of few blatant reminders of the Reagen era, and that’s unfortunate, because Precious’ mother, Mary Johnston (played by comedian Mo’Nique), would be considered a welfare queen as described by Reagan during his presidential campaign in the 1970s–an image that was reinvigorated in the 80s. I make this latter point especially because Mary and her daughter Precious–who I don’t find grotesque, as David Edelstein describes–are kinds of stereotypes. But I don’t think Sapphire, and later the filmmakers, employ these types out of laziness. Rather, I think these seemingly flat and distorted images place the work in the context of the time it was published, the 1990s, when black artists like Spike Lee and Kara Walker were using stereotypes to make a larger commentary about blackness at the end of the 20th century. But without proper contextualization, that observation can’t be made and the conversation can’t be had.

Second, though the film is faithful to the book by casting both Precious and her mother as they were described, it’s quite liberal in its portrayal of other characters, which results in several light skinned and/or mixed race characters working as Precious’ middle class saviors. For example, Ms. Rain is described in the book as having dark skin and dreadlocks. In the film however, she’s portrayed by Paula Patton, who not only gives Precious the gift of literacy, but opens her home to Precious when she finally runs away from her mother’s uptown apartment. This wouldn’t be such a problem and could be chalked up as a casting quirk if the other “good” characters weren’t also light skinned–and judgmental.

For instance, in an effort to show a positive black male figure, the film takes a minor character in the book, a presumably Puerto Rican EMT, and turns him into Nurse John (played by Lenny Kravitz) who cares for Precious while she’s in the hospital convalescing after having her baby. Of course, he later cashes in on the capital he earned by vigilantly sitting at her bedside by asking Precious to hook him up with Ms. Rain (or her partner, I couldn’t really discern). What’s more disturbing than that, however, is the moment when Precious asks Nurse John, sitting next to her bed eating a bowl of fruit, why he doesn’t like McDonald’s. He responds by saying that he goes to an organic grocery store and refuses to eat “crap” like McDonald’s. The moment is alarming, for it neither advances the film in any way nor adequately allows the viewer the opportunity to interrogate the classist assumptions in Nurse John’s line. The implicit claim in the statement, of course, is that Precious and her classmates choose to eat McDonald’s instead of organic fruit because, of course, there are so many organic grocery stores in Harlem circa 1987, thus making Precious’ unhealthy diet of fried chicken and pig’s feet a choice–and her fault. How very Obama era Reagan era of you. Perhaps I should reassess my first problem with the film.

To add further insult, when Precious asks Ms. Weiss, played by mixed race poster child Mariah Carey, about her racial identity, the social worker skirts the question and opts to buy her client a cherry Coke. Again, the conversation is odd, goes nowhere, and does nothing but subtly validate the skin privilege that Precious is so invested in. Although JoAnn’s door knocker earrings were a nice touch, I didn’t want the only indicator of this time pre-Wesley Snipes 80s era to be a plethora of attractive and nice light skinned folks onscreen. I saw so much yellow I began to feel like a coward; I swore Vanity made a cameo. Such filmic decisions do nothing but reify overused symbols: all the bad guys are shrouded in darkness, sweat, and presumably funk (see The Bluest Eye), while our fairer heroes are bourgie, clean, and always drenched in light. That said, way to go finding the light skinned chick from Head of the Class to play Ms. Rain’s partner. Who knew she was still around?

Third, though I appreciate the decision to make Mary Johnston less monstrous by giving her a monologue slightly different from the one we read in the book, I thought the brief appearance by the grandmother damaging, because her only screen time showed her shaking her head at her daughter. Such small gestures seemingly validated the viewer’s judgment of Mary. Further, it implied that Mary’s abusive and destructive behavior was not a result of her own history (of abuse), that she somehow became monstrous without precedent, without context. Indeed, Mary’s meeting with Miss Weiss and Precious is rendered in a slightly more forgiving light than we see in the novel, but by then the damage has been done. Perhaps viewers lack the capacity to have empathy for both a fat, poor, black girl and her mother. I shouldn’t hope for so much.

Still, the film is significant. I’m not sure it makes audiences uncomfortable enough–the physical abuse seems more terrible than the incest; I don’t know if we understand Precious’ visions of an alternate self as trauma-induced and not daydreams, but I think it’s incredibly important that we see someone like Gabby Sidibe onscreen. I appreciated Mo’Nique’s rather nuanced performance. (Admittedly, I cringed when she seemed to overact her way into a “red gumball” moment during the above mentioned scene.) Though I’m conflicted about having contributed monetarily to empires (Winfrey’s, Perry’s) that seem to have monopolistic and narcissistic impulses–was the Precious come to Jesus moment not a page out of the Tyler Perry playbook?–I understand that one of few ways films like Precious continue to get made is by supporting them while they’re in theaters. I worry that the (light-skinned) savior trope overwhelms the real message of the story: that of perseverance, endurance, and the incredible power in being able to articulate one’s own story, on one’s own terms. I do, however, respect the film for the conversations that will and should be had about all too common issues that are consistently ignored. Precious (hopefully) inspires folks to read the book (before seeing the movie). After seeing the film, I find it imperative that we push to know Precious ourselves.

source from www.blackyouthproject.com

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Rihanna "Breaking the Silence" and Saves Lives

Urban Chameleon news

This past Friday, 20/20 premiered Rihanna's new video "Russian Roulet", which was a follow up nugget to Rihanna's interview with Diane Sawyer a week ago “breaking the silence” in regards to the abuse she experienced while in a relationship with singer Chris Brown. Since I missed the interview I looked for it on Youtube to watch especially since they mentioned that the women's domestic abuse hotline had received more than 70% more calls from teenage girls. I was wowed by the unbelievable direct impact this one interview had. Rihanna goes into detail about her physical, psychological and emotion journey including going back to Chris before finally deciding to end the relationship. Rihanna may have saved several lives that day and counting. Thanks god she spoke up.

In not having any direct or indirect experience dealing with domestic abuse I have in the past over looked the subject matter as an “idea” a horrific idea but meaning something with no lasting emotional connection, you hear about it, you’re affected in the moment and then move on. But in watching this interview, seeing again the image of Rihanna's battered face that was released by TMZ and to hear her taking us on her journey, this time the impression was imprinted. I looked up statistics for myself discovering that most abused women range in the ages of 16-24 years old. These are lives that have barely started.

A friend of mine who is a professor at Spelman College has been telling me about the many young women she’s witnessed in abusive relationships with young men from Morehouse too afraid to reach out for help. This is not to put any grand emphasis on a specific college…the point is it’s happening and everywhere.

I hope that by posting this interview it encourages all people to watch, whether male or female for in these instances it’s clear that not only women need rescuing but men do to and whether you are in abusive relationship or not breaking and helping to break silence is imperative…remember we are all here for each other.

Tyler Perry Responds to His Work Being Coonery

Urban Chameleon news

In an interview last night on 60 Minutes Tyler Perry responds to Spike Lee's remarks about his work being coonery. I have to say after watching the entire interview I decided to try and back off a little on Tyler as it is clear that he is creating work that relates to HIS experiences (not mine) and should be able to. The problem is because all Black people are grouped together by skin color we even forget that we are individuals and that one person should not have to be responsible for representing the entire race. Now what would be great is if we could have an equally successful mogul as Tyler representing ANOTHER perspective of people of color. Then maybe the rest of us could breath and not be so worried that white people think the images being put out by one powerful Black man reps us all....can I get an amen?

Will Precious Contribute More to Our Precious Problems?

by today’s Urban Chameleon contributor

The soon to be released film, Precious, based off the novel Push by Sapphire is making the festival rounds with the backing of Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey. The film stars a young teenage girl living in Harlem with her dysfunctional family; impregnated twice by her father and physically abused by her mother who is played by Mo’Nique who (I can’t even front) is giving it to us from the trailer. The film also stars Lenny Kravitz, Paula Patton and Mariah Carey who lawwwwwd I cannot believe she allowed herself to be seen with out soft gel lighting and a Photoshop airbrush.

However, I can’t say I’m hyped to see this film. Maybe it’s because I wasn’t abused as child or maybe I was abused and don’t need Precious reminding me or maybe I’m just sick and tired of 99% of the few mainstream Black films released being connected to poverty and dysfunction. There are about eleven genres of film (action, adventure, comedy, crime& gangster, epics & historical, horror, musicals, science fiction, war and drama) and Black films for the most part cover only one of those genres, the same poverty stricken, dysfunctional- let me uplift myself with either the lord or a bustin’ a rhyme- drama.

Since media contributes as one of the largest influences over people’s perception do we really need Precious? A writer friend of mine had me chuckling as someone attacked him for not supporting the film, emphasizing a point Oprah apparently made, which had something to do with that, "Never again will we ignore Precious." In which my friend replied, “Oh no we know exactly who precious is, my problem is that white people think we’re allllllllll Precious.”

In all fairness I wouldn’t have a problem with Precious if there were other kinds of films released that showcased broader experiences of people of color. Out of all the Vince Vaughn and Seth Rogen movies you mean to tell me we can’t we get at least one regular romantic comedy out this piece?





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