Trapped in a World That She Never Made

I must confess, I wasn't exactly amped to see the much-praised movie "Precious." (The prospect of spending two hours with a morbidly obese illiterate teenage girl who is pregnant for the second time by her father wasn't high on my list of things to do, and the only time I ever wanna see Mariah Carey onscreen again is during a midnight revival of "Glitter"). But after reading this revealing interview in the Sunday Times Magazine with the film's director and co-producer, Lee Daniels, I'm completely on-board:

"What I learned from doing the film is that even though I am black, I’m prejudiced. I’m prejudiced against people who are darker than me. When I was young, I went to a church where the lighter-skinned you were, the closer you sat to the altar. Anybody that’s heavy like Precious -- I thought they were dirty and not very smart. Making this movie changed my heart. I’ll never look at a fat girl walking down the street the same way again.”

After a gala screening of the film at the Cannes film festival, he greeted the audience by saying, “I’m a little homo, I’m a little Euro and I’m a little ghetto.” The film received a 15-minute standing ovation. “They wouldn’t stop clapping,” Daniels said. “I’m a director -- after six minutes, I’m saying, please sit down. But I’m also a producer, so I’m thinking, what’s the record? Can we break the record for the longest standing ovation at the festival?”

Read the full Sunday Magazine article HERE.