Is "Precious" star Gabourey Sidibe so obese she is in danger of early death?

Cafe Society
181

Yeah, I kinda have to ask for a cite on that, even in Cafe Society. No one is saying that there aren’t poor women living desparate lives, but that doesn’t mean that there are stories that equal Precious going on out there. I have no clue why you feel ‘poverty porn’ is such a disgusting thing to call something, but if something is going to exploit people’s idea of poverty by piling on the ‘poverty’ cliches to an outrageous extent, then it is going to get called what the heck it really is.

You will forgive me if I don’t take the word of a director on the cusp of an Oscar nod for his horrid movie. I would like a cite for the kind of person whose life = Precious.

I listed all of the things that Precious had befall her in a different thread on this board before, and I will list it again. You must understand, the things on this list is not uncommon in poor black America. I am fully admitting that,* no problem at all stating that.* Some of the things on the list (being very dark for instance) is obviously very common, and not a problem in and of itself, even though being dark has been put down for so long in this society.

But *all *of these things stacked together is INSANE. I can’t say that it has never happened to anyone ever in existence, but I think it is unlikely enough that I can say quite confidently that Precious is NOBODY’S life, no matter what Sapphire, the Director or Oprah and Tyler Perry says. Below is what I posted in a thread from December. I posted this before I saw the film. Having saw it, the only redeeming thing about it were the awesome performances. I have seen some atrocities in the ghetto. I am talking, some seriously, brain bleach needing, messed up stuff. And I haven’t seen it ALL, I am certain. But even the worst that I have seen in my work with underpriviledged kids is not one fifth of this crap I’ve posted below. Even the molested, abused, non-reading kids didn’t have every single freaking strike against them. Posting this list this time, I will bold the parts that I find laying it on a bit thick there, Sapphire:

  1. Very Dark. Several shades darker than what this society is willing to consider attractive usually (though I find her skin tone gorgeous).

  2. Morbidly Obese

  3. Poor

  4. Sexually abused by dad

  5. illiterate

  6. Pregnant twice by dad

  7. physically abused to the extreme (kicked in the head while giving birth, for instance)

  8. sexually abused my mom.

  9. gives birth to a baby with Downs Syndrome

  10. saddled with AIDS

I mean, 1-3 may be par for the course in the ghetto. By the time we get to number 4, we are talking much rarer in my experience (just from my very limited perspective, of course).

By the time we get to number 6, we can say, "Yeah, that is a bit much for one heroine, but this a movie, so duh, of course we want to find an interesting story to tell.

By the time we get to number 8, yeah…we gotta call this poverty porn, right?

By the time we get to number 10, we got to call it overkill.

182

That must’ve sucked.

183

:smack: Incest humor. You are so going to hell for that one.

184

No. Start a thread in Great Debates.

These do not belong on the list. None of these are bad things belonging in the realm of incest and abuse. Precious happened to be these things, but you’re adding them just to make your list longer and more impressive-seeming for you to snark at.

These things have happened to women of all colors and sizes.

185

Plenty of movies have been done about people who are physically or sexually abused, or victims of incest, or kids with disabilities, or having AIDS. I think Nzinga’s point is that although all those things can happen, it is very extremely unlikely that they would all happen to the same person. Hence some people referring to the movie as “poverty porn” since it is such an extreme combination of horrible life circumstances.

186

No clue what the hell you mean by me trying to make my list more impressive. I don’t go about trying to be impressive, that’s not my style.

All of those things HAPPENING TOGETHER doesn’t happen. And I am not opening an entire thread in GD just so that you can NOT post a cite where all of those things happen to one single person. That was a rhetorical request for a cite.

Being fat and black and poor is definitely a condition that one has to endure in the ghetto. It doesn’t describe all of us, but it describes some of us, and it is not easy to have to endure it when you are told your whole life that dark = bad and fat = gross. You can try to discount the fact that Saphire knew that when she decided to make her character all three of those things on top of all that other crap, but the fact remains that she piled it on to a degree that has folks calling it poverty porn. Let’s say, all of those horrible things happened to Precious, but she happened to be not hideous to look at…that would have been at least marginally less ridiculous, because it is the fact that she is saddled with completely *every strike that a person could possibly have against them *that makes the idea that it is a story that could be true ridiculous.

I truly believe that sometimes these authors sell out disgustingly to exploit black ghetto people by misrepresenting them. If you want to make a horror novel, by all means, go ahead, but to lead people to believe that it represents true stories in the ghetto is irresponsible to young black kids growing up in the ghetto and trying to keep their head up, while school teachers and Barbara Bush and a bunch of fat ass suburbanites that saw this movie talk to them as if they are completely fucked up.

Time for me to bail in this thread. I know for a fact that my emotions are talking now, and that’s not good communication.

187

I have to say that one of the things that made “Precious” a powerful movie experience for me personally was that I once worked, very closely for several years, with someone who had many of those things happen to her in her life. Certainly numbers 3-10.

  1. Poor - lived on the streets for much of her life
  2. Sexually abused by her father, repeatedly over the course of her life
  3. Illiterate
  4. Pregnant twice by her father, as a teenager
  5. Physically abused to the extreme
  6. Sexually abused by her brother, physically abused and then abandoned by her mother.
  7. Gave birth to a baby severe developmental issues (this is the baby who was adopted by a family member, the other baby she never saw again.)
  8. Had AIDS

She wasn’t black or obese, but she had enough other things going on that her life was as much an unrelenting hell from a young age as Precious’ was. She suffered from schizophrenia. As a teenager she was pimped out by her father for sex until, after bearing 2 children to her father, she left home and began a lifelong career on the streets as a sex worker. She was a heroin addict (methadone and benzo addict in the years I worked with her), was in and out of jail for years, and had Hepatitis C, which eventually killed her.

In attitude she was often more like Mo’Nique’s Mary, and became an abuser as much as she was an abusee, but there was the occasional, wonderful moment when I saw a glimpse of a girl like Precious inside her.

People like Precious exist. Or certainly, people who have to endure as much as she did.

188

I definitely was not saying “keep bickering with Cisco and throw in a dig at his mental health,” so this is a warning for ignoring mod instructions. My comment was a little vague, but I’d just warned Cisco for insulting you and said personal comments - like jabs about a poster’s rationality or behavior on other forums - were not welcome in here. I was not telling you to stop talking about Howard Stern; he’s the topic of the thread.

189

That’s a terrible story, but (at the risk of sounding crass?) if I watched a work of fiction that went like that, I’d think it over the top. I’d find it even more so if her physical appearance were as striking as Precious’s. I remember reading “The Glass Castle” last year and thinking if it were a work of fiction, I’d have been irritated by it.

190

This also reminds me of * A Million Little Pieces*; his life as an addict wasn’t bad enough, so he had to ratchet it up to 11.

191

It might have been droning…if the person “droning” wasn’t a billionaire media mogul who could finance Gabourey’s next several film projects with the change she finds in her pockets when doing her laundry. Between Oprah and Tyler Perry she could have a successful film career if she never worked in Hollywood again.

From what I can tell, Farley died of a heart attack brought on by a drug overdose and Candy was a heavy smoker as well as being fat. What other risk factors does Sidibe have?

She was excellent in a recurring role on The West Wing.

192

Chris Farley had advanced atherosclerosis and John Candy probably did too. Maybe Sidibe is the picture of health but the odds are against her due to her weight.

193

The thing is, John Candy and Chris Farley are the go-to example for “fat guy who dies too young”, and they are not particularly good examples as they both smoked, drank and abused drugs (Candy’s body received no autopsy at his wife’s request).

194

I have never heard about John Candy being associated with drug abuse…

And yes, I assume that he was very possibly an occasional dabbler, knowing the generation he hailed from and the circle of peers he was in with, but no one ever came forward with inside info and blamed anything but obesity and cigarettes for his early death—I think if he was a heavy duty druggie, it would have come up by now…

195

They’re the go-to celebrities but honestly, I know a lot of obese people with diabetes and other health issues linked to weight. I also know people who died way too young of a heart attack.