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OK.  OK I found exactly what I was looking for.

All afternoon I’ve had the nagging thought that I need to write a post about what I think about Precious’ mother, Mary.  By the end of the film, Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire, Mary is left as a despicable monster, literally an untouchable.

No matter what, wasn’t Precious’ mother still a human being?  Why would she not be worthy of compassion?  Where is the line we draw that determines who we feel sorry for, who we empathize with, who we have pity or sympathy for, who we hate and who we love?

I have referred to my own mother as ‘a monster’.  I know what she was like, especially when she was in the throes of one of her maniacal rages.  Does this mean that my mother ‘deserved’ to be hated?

Did Precious’ mother deserve to be hated?  Did her father?

The key to this movie’s final, finished finesse lies in the barely perceptible yet still obvious twist of the shoulder of social worker, Ms. Weiss away from her when Mary reaches out a pleading hand and touches her as Weiss walks out of the interview.  Weiss didn’t say to Mary, “You are a sick woman.  You need help.  Here’s a card with a number on it.  Call and there will be someone there who will care about you.”

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Wanting to rescue an abused child does not require hate for the abuser.  Watching this film, wanting Precious to escape the horrors of her home did not require that I hate her mother, either.  My personal passion as a viewer of this film was focused on waiting for the moment when Precious could separate herself from her mother, from that twisted, hate-filled environment, from danger, from darkness into a place of safety and security.  Had that moment never arrived in this film I would not be writing this post.  Had that moment never come, I would hate this movie, but I would still not hate the mother.

Yet the mother was left in the film as a vulnerable target for us to despise with disgust.  The rapist father?  I consider myself extremely fortunate to not be the victim of rape, incest or of any form of overt sexual abuse.  I cannot possibly know what it would be like to view this film if I did have such a history.

I do have a history of having a parent in the home, my father, who knew my mother’s terrible abuse of me continually happened and did nothing to intervene, protect me or stop it.  In one of the final scenes of this movie, Precious’ mother discloses the details of the first time her boyfriend sexually assaulted her three-year-old daughter and how she did nothing to intervene.  We are told in nearly point-blank terms that Mary suffered from a severe insecure attachment disorder:  “Who would love me?”

Precious’ mother did not protect her daughter.  Instead, her own brokenness demanded of her that she HATE her daughter for ‘stealing’ her boyfriend’s attention away from her.  How are we to forgive a woman who could participate IN ANY OF THIS?  How are we supposed to not HATE her?

It is the power of art – the writing of this story, the directing of this film, the talent of the actresses portraying the characters that designates that we hate this girl’s mother.  If we DO NOT hate her, we have not participated as willing audience members in the intention of this art form.

That’s quite all right with me.  I personally don’t want to be on the side of darkness where hatred breeds and seeds itself into the lives of its victims.  I would rather be able to loosen my mental and emotional grip enough to allow something other than hostile hatred, disgust and a feeling of “She is despicable” to envelope me.

I know that darkness.  I spent the first 18 years of my life in that darkness.  What makes this movie shine is the fact that Precious did not allow the darkness present in her life to consume her.  Never in the film are we shown that Precious swallowed any portion of the force-fed poison of hatred.  That, to me, is the power of being able to turn around finally and walk away into a different world where the abuser is not physically in it.

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I was fortunate as I plowed my way through web pages about this movie tonight, and found this year-old post:

Mo’Nique, PUSH Interview, Sundance 2009

By Eric Kohn

The film was evidently still known by it’s literary title, Push, at the 2009 Sundance showing:   Read the entire interview HERE.  What I was looking for appears part way down the interview’s script, as entertainer (comedian, now Oscar winner) Mo’Nique, who played the part of Precious’ mother, responds to the questions posed by Kohn:

You deliver a fairly intense monologue at the end of the movie that really ties it together. Do you see Mary as a sympathetic character?

Yes, I think that all of us know Mary.  I had to put her shoes on.  If I were that person, I would want forgiveness.  You do feel sorry for her because you begin to understand she’s mentally ill.  She ain’t just being a bitch.  She’s sick, and the society that we’re in, they threw her away.  Nobody asked any questions, nobody got involved.  That illness doesn’t just start.  People know for years.  We wanted to bring that world and put it right in your face.  To say, they exist; they’re your neighbor.  It might be your mother; it might be your sister.  It might be you.  What we were trying to do is not make it an action-and-cut Hollywood movie.  I think Mr. Daniels did a great job.

What guidance did he provide?

He said, “I need you to be a monster,” and that was it:  “Be a monster.  I need people to hate that character.”  Then he asked me before we started filming,  “Do you think that everybody gets redemption?”  I said,  “No, especially if you don’t ask for forgiveness and mean it.”  The moment he said action, the monster she was.

You brought to the table what you understood about the character.

Well, I was molested.  The person who molested me was a monster.  So I had to go to that person, because I know what it was like for me.  [Daniels] said action, and be that monster.

There has been talk that the movie is a tough sell. How do you see it working in the marketplace?

It’s honest.  You can’t be afraid, and you have to go and work at being fearless.  If you go into it saying, well, if I don’t believe it, then you won’t believe it.  As long as I believe it, you will believe it.  This is a universal film.  Do you know what I mean?

That’s what I wrote in my review.

It’s all over the world – molestation and abuse, mental and verbal.  It’s all over.  It’s not just black.  It’s not just white.  It’s every color, every walk.  It’s everywhere.  I haven’t met any Martians, but I promise if we have some, it is going on with them, too.

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SHARE A PRAYER

O God, refresh and gladden my spirit.  Purify my heart.  Illumine my powers.  I lay all my affairs in Thy Hand.  Thou art my Guide and my Refuge.  I will no longer be sorrowful and grieved, I will be a happy and joyful being.  O God, I will no longer be full of anxiety, nor will I let trouble harass me.  I will not dwell on the unpleasant things of life.

O God, Thou art more friend to me than I am to myself.  I dedicate myself to Thee, O Lord.

– ‘Abudu’l-Baha

in Baha’i Prayers, Baha’i Publishing Trust, 1969

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