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Ep. 36: How 'Precious" Pushes the Boundaries of Modern Storytelling
23 Plays1 day ago
In this episode of 'Adaptation: The Book to Movie Podcast,' Nate and Chris discuss Sapphire's novel 'Push' and it's film adaptation 'Precious,' directed by Lee Daniels.
They discuss how and why the story came to be, as well as the ways it's been viewed by the public at large for several decades now. Additionally, they discuss the importance of Mariah Carey, Lenny Kravitz, Oprah Winfrey, Tyler Perry and Mary J. Blige to the film's trajectory of success.
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Hosts: Nate Day, Chris Anderson
Producer: Nate Day
"Adaptation Theme"
- Written by: Chris Anderson, Jem Zornow
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Transcript
Intro
Introduction and 'Push' Discussion
00:00:29
Nate Day
Welcome to Adaptation, the book-to-movie podcast. I'm Nate.
00:00:33
Chris
And I'm Chris.
00:00:35
Nate Day
And today we are discussing Push by Sapphire and its film adaptation, Precious, directed by Lee Daniels. But before we get into that, a couple of quick notes. First of all, much like in our Color Purple episode, which I imagine we will probably evoke a handful of times in this discussion, Push is a novel full of...
00:00:56
Nate Day
really difficult content to read abuse in all forms really inflicted on in particular, a young black woman and Chris and I want to make sure that if you're sitting down to listen to this, that you're prepared to hear conversations about those things, uh, because they're really, it's, it's really brutal. and we just want you to know that you can take the space that you need if you need it.
Sanderson's Novels and Popularity
00:01:22
Nate Day
But before we dive in, how are you, Chris, what have you been reading?
00:01:26
Chris
Good. I am doing well. Beautiful and sunny out here today. i right after we got done Literally right after we got done with our last episode, Rebecca, I hit the road and did my 30-hour quest across the country from Denver back to Brooklyn.
00:01:36
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:01:45
Nate Day
Nice.
00:01:46
Chris
And in that drive, I went cover to cover on the second book in the Mistborn series of Brandon Sanderson called The Well of Ascension. Are you up to date on your book talk on our boy Brando Sando?
00:02:01
Nate Day
Not these ones specifically, but that name, Brandon Sanderson, has been, I've heard it a thousand times this year. One thousand times.
00:02:10
Chris
He's the... he's the Boys of our age version of the Sarah J. Maas and the fairy smut realm.
00:02:22
Nate Day
Okay.
00:02:23
Chris
I mean, you know I love those books, but stereotypically attributed to the female audience.
00:02:25
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:02:29
Chris
These are the, all of the boys in my book club absolutely love him.
00:02:30
Nate Day
Sure.
00:02:33
Chris
I do not dislike him. i just don't. necessarily understand the hype, but undeniably, the dude pumps out books and books, and they are pretty overwhelmingly well-received.
00:02:48
Nate Day
and Okay. Are they also fantasy and sort of sexy and things like that?
00:02:52
Chris
Fantasy, not sort of sexy.
00:02:54
Nate Day
Oh, okay.
00:02:56
Chris
Yeah, bummer, but Yes, fantasy. He does very cool world building. He does, I don't know, it was the perfect book for a 30-hour road trip because it's fun, exciting. It is an intriguing world, but also absolutely not going to be offensive or difficult emotionally in any way.
00:03:18
Nate Day
Sure. Okay. so Well, that's exactly why they become so popular, that accessibility, you know.
00:03:23
Chris
Yes, 100%. Yep. yep
00:03:25
Nate Day
But I think I know that I think you and Jay mentioned him in the last episode. He may have come up a few other times this year. But I mean, I've even heard his name, like on TV and in the news. He's a big deal right now.
00:03:39
Chris
Huge. Well, I mean, when I say prolific writer, the quantity of just like words per day published published and selling is extraordinary.
00:03:54
Chris
Absolutely insane. I don't even know how many he's put out at this point, but it's...
00:03:58
Nate Day
Is he like a James Patterson type? you know how Was it James Patterson that always had like two books a year and you're like, how did this what what is this new book? How could you possibly have more?
00:04:07
Chris
Right, you're like, how? How? Okay, so Mistborn Saga seven.
Film Experiences and Adaptation Challenges
00:04:12
Chris
Stormlight Archive has five. Here we go.
00:04:15
Nate Day
oh I've heard of, i think,
00:04:16
Chris
MostRecommendedBooks.com. All 79 Brandon Sanderson books in order.
00:04:25
Chris
79. And these are not small books.
00:04:26
Nate Day
Well, I mean, good for him for being able to communicate all of those ideas, you know?
00:04:36
Chris
Yep. And it works. It's not, it's not lazy writing. It's not the, what was the, was it Danielle Steele? What was the like mom novels that were like, okay, swap out a couple names and turn the plot slightly this way and put another one out.
00:04:52
Nate Day
Yeah, it might have been Daniel Steele.
00:04:55
Chris
But I mean, your, your comparison, uh, James Patterson, Clancy for a while there,
00:05:01
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:05:01
Chris
yeah Again, not saying any of these are bad writing. If you enjoy them, you really enjoy them. But yeah, Sanderson has found himself a place. I've never been huge into them, but I just...
00:05:13
Chris
Something for the road. It worked. It was good.
00:05:15
Nate Day
Yeah, good, good.
00:05:18
Chris
What's been on the TV for you? Or at the theater, I suppose.
00:05:21
Nate Day
At the theater, at at home, I've been watching a lot of Spielberg movies because I'm so excited. Next weekend is is Disclosure Day. So i'm I've been watching a lot of Spielberg at home.
00:05:32
Nate Day
But at the theater, i went and saw, let's see, I'm looking through my letterbox here. I Love Boosters. Loved that movie.
00:05:43
Nate Day
Really fantastic about a group of shoplifters. it's really just like a leftist, uh, fever dream. It was so awesome.
00:05:55
Nate Day
I saw the back rooms movie. Have you seen ads for this?
00:05:59
Chris
I haven't seen the ads for it. I've seen the meme responses.
00:06:04
Nate Day
Okay. So were you familiar with like the, I don't know what you call it. This like online thing that was back rooms before the movie came out. Okay, so this YouTube guy, he's 20 years old, the guy that directed this movie, so which is insane.
00:06:19
Chris
Wow.
00:06:21
Nate Day
And he's so brilliant. I've listened to several interviews with him, and he's so – I'm like, how are you almost a decade younger than me? You sound so much much more adult and put together.
00:06:33
Nate Day
But anyway, he started this video series. It's all about liminal space and how spooky it is. And so this movie is about people crossing into this, I guess it's a new dimension.
00:06:47
Nate Day
don't fully understand it because it's, it's kind of one of the, it's very internet coded, very like Gen Z coded.
00:06:53
Chris
Uh-huh.
00:06:54
Nate Day
So I'm just a little bit outside of the bubble, but they, they step into this new dimension. That's just like empty office space basically, but it's very nineties coded.
00:07:06
Nate Day
So everything is like fluorescent lights and carpet and it's it's creepy and things are backwards and don't totally understand it but it was certainly an interesting watch.
00:07:19
Nate Day
Probably not for you because was pretty spooky.
00:07:21
Chris
I gathered that much.
00:07:23
Nate Day
yeah And then I saw Power Ballad which is the movie about Paul Rudd. He's a wedding singer whose original song gets stolen by a pop star. Total cheesy.
00:07:37
Nate Day
popcorn movie and truthfully not very good, but kind of a fun watch. And he's, he's such a funny guy and he's so fun to watch that was okay.
00:07:42
Chris
Hmm.
00:07:46
Nate Day
It was all right.
00:07:48
Chris
I feel like I would give just about anything with his name on it at least a try.
00:07:53
Nate Day
Yeah. And it, it was, you know, he, he does a lot of singing in the movie, which I think is the first time in his career that he's done that. So it was, it was interesting, at least in the, the,
00:08:06
Nate Day
Paul Rudd canon, you know, that's pretty much, you you pretty much walk away from the movie, like feeling grateful for, for Paul Rudd.
00:08:09
Chris
Mm-hmm.
00:08:15
Nate Day
That's kind of the big takeaway, you know? Yeah.
00:08:19
Chris
I like it.
00:08:19
Nate Day
So interesting stuff, but we have something a little more serious to talk about today.
00:08:26
Chris
Oh gosh, that was an understatement.
00:08:29
Nate Day
Yeah. why don't you tell us a little bit about Sapphire's novel, Push?
00:08:35
Chris
I got a little too into your description there and like forgot how serious the rest of this episode was going to be.
00:08:42
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:08:43
Chris
Okay. So, reset. I will say once more to repeat what Nate already did, just in case you've gotten this far. And if some of these are difficult content areas for you, this may be your time to take the off-ramp.
00:09:01
Chris
This book... and How do trigger warnings work? Contained in this book... Incest... Rape.
00:09:11
Chris
rape of minors, drug use, drug abuse, family homicide, and AIDS. I don't know if that's a trigger warning, but infectious disease affecting your family.
00:09:24
Nate Day
yeah
00:09:28
Nate Day
Yes, very serious topics.
00:09:30
Chris
Yeah.
00:09:31
Nate Day
Heavy.
00:09:31
Chris
Yeah. So just just wanted the warning now before something comes out of left left field for you, our dear listener. Okay. Because I also did not have any of that warning, and I tried to start this book as a before-bed book, getting ready for this, and yeah, that it was not.
00:09:46
Nate Day
Oops.
00:09:48
Nate Day
Sorry, should have probably prepped you for that.
00:09:51
Chris
I remember you saying something. I don't remember what it was, and certainly it was not in my brain when I went and downloaded it and said, time to start the next book.
00:10:00
Nate Day
Right. It was probably while I was like patting you on the head, sending you off, you know, across the country or something.
00:10:05
Chris
Yeah.
00:10:06
Nate Day
I was like, by the way.
00:10:07
Chris
Yeah, I think so. By the way, the next one's a little serious. I was like, cool, thanks, bud. Yes, Push by Sapphire, as you said, written well written in 95, but published in 96.
00:10:21
Chris
Initially unpublished, and then kind of, from what I gathered, quickly turned into this massive bidding war after Sapphire presented the first 100 pages and a bunch of publishing houses published
00:10:30
Nate Day
Thank you.
00:10:37
Chris
I think from what I saw, she said she was originally asking for $50,000. And it became this bidding war until finally... Not random, House. Who got it?
00:10:51
Chris
Oh, nuts. I'll find it while you're talking. Eventually was bought for, I believe, half a million. Went from $50,000 to $500,000 to get the publishing rights.
00:10:57
Nate Day
Damn.
00:10:59
Chris
I mean...
00:11:00
Nate Day
Whoa, in the 90s? Come on.
00:11:02
Chris
Right. And did well then. And there was a fun quote from an interview I saw of her saying she moved to New York City in 97, or excuse me, in 77, was big in the slam poetry scene and poetry scene, and said, when I saw a copy of Push on a bookshelf for sale at Penn Station, that's when I knew i had left bookshelf.
00:11:27
Chris
the The small circles that I once was part of. And this is her debut novel, which is insane.
00:11:32
Nate Day
Whoa, really?
00:11:34
Chris
Yes, had, I believe, two poem collections published previously, but first full-length novel.
00:11:34
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:11:38
Nate Day
Okay.
00:11:41
Chris
I'm getting ahead of myself a little bit. Born Ramona Lofton in California in 1950. I was waiting for what the cool story would be. What is this pen name? Why Sapphire... Perhaps it was a distillation because, again, it was just a snippet from an interview. But she said Sapphire was just what I could picture on the front of a book way better than my given name.
00:12:06
Nate Day
Wow. I mean, first of all, her given name's pretty cool, but so Sapphire.
00:12:10
Chris
Right? Ramona Loftin? There was...
00:12:12
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:12:13
Chris
there I am leaving out another part and I'm trying to... It was also... in a way, a reference to the the picture of the angry black woman.
00:12:25
Chris
I say those in uppercase, you know, as we discussed. You know what I'm talking about.
00:12:28
Nate Day
Oh, sure. yeah Yeah.
00:12:30
Nate Day
Stereotypes.
00:12:31
Chris
Yes, yes. But I didn't fully understand the connection there.
00:12:36
Nate Day
Okay.
00:12:36
Chris
But yes, it's it's more than just that. But I did think that was like, hey, that's a great reason to choose your pen name.
00:12:41
Nate Day
It really is. And it is it's a cool pen name too, you know?
00:12:42
Chris
100%. hundred percent
00:12:46
Nate Day
yeah
00:12:47
Chris
yeah The forward to the book I had also was by another author, or the forward to the copy I got. And they said something similar along the lines of going from seeing Sapphire around these poetry scenes in Brooklyn and around New York, and then suddenly this published book, and they were like, oh yeah, she she did it.
00:13:09
Nate Day
Cool.
00:13:12
Chris
The plot.
00:13:15
Chris
How much you want, give you the first 20%, give you the TLDR.
00:13:22
Nate Day
tl yeah TLDR summary.
00:13:25
Chris
Okay, okay, so our... our Protagonist at the beginning of the book in in junior high still, but should be in high school, she is 16. Precious Clarice Jones finds herself being kicked out of her public school or suspended maybe. This was a long time ago, right at the very beginning of the book, because she is pregnant.
00:13:52
Chris
for the second time. And a counselor suggests this alternative school, like a GED pathway program.
00:14:02
Nate Day
yeah
00:14:03
Chris
Pushing against it, a lot of family problems. I'm going to go from our omniscient view, having finished the story, rather than from her view. It's very cool. It is from her point of view, the entire book. You find out later this is essentially her journal, and she's writing it and telling us her story.
00:14:20
Nate Day
Oh, great. Okay.
00:14:22
Chris
But the out-of-order, full-blown-up version is this is she had a child at 12 years old and is now pregnant again 16. Both children are her father's children.
00:14:35
Chris
Incestuous rape. And somehow he didn't go to prison after the second after the first one. She's living at home with her mom, who is living on Welfare, which is discussed heavily, especially at that time, you know, the post-Reagan, mid-Clinton administration, this was a huge question, this idea of welfare queens and, you know, are people just living off the system, having more babies, to which, of course, has been debunked since, but was a huge thing then.
00:14:59
Nate Day
Right.
00:15:08
Nate Day
Yep.
00:15:10
Chris
You know, this was like the new thing to go after, after Nancy's war on drugs didn't go so hot. Nancy Reagan, not Nancy, my mother.
00:15:18
Nate Day
Right. this
00:15:19
Chris
That's a Oh, my gosh.
00:15:20
Nate Day
I know. I'm just i'm laughing because every just it all goes back to the Reagans.
00:15:29
Chris
Screw them. Okay.
00:15:30
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:15:33
Chris
Goodness gracious. So she does... i'm so skipping parts here and i'm not going to say when i'm skipping parts this is really as quickly as i could get through it starts going to this screw uh starts getting more support she is functionally illiterate when she gets there uh tests at a second grade level for literacy skills again we find out later this test automatically gives you a two even if you don't put any answers so could have been lower than that
00:15:58
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:16:01
Chris
and finds this group at this alternative school. And there were some excerpts at the very end. i should have done more digging. I believe this is based on at least the lived experience of our author, Ms. Lofton Sapphire, teaching at an alternative program in New York. And there's a brief excerpt that I think was a real student's writing. I could be getting that wrong.
00:16:23
Chris
I believe that's what it's based on. Otherwise, this is Based on lived experiences, but not a true story, right?
00:16:30
Nate Day
Sure. Yeah.
00:16:31
Chris
But she meets all of these other students, and it is slowly revealed that they are all also having these very adverse, truly childhood experiences. They're all under 18.
00:16:43
Chris
And it is the author, the the author from the book's perspective, the protagonist's journey, Precious, coming to terms with these things, finding out, eventually getting out of her mom's home.
00:16:57
Chris
Her first child is born with Down syndrome, that lives with her grandma, has her second child,
00:16:57
Nate Day
Mm-hmm.
00:17:05
Chris
since she quit attending the public school and went to the alternative school, her dependent check from welfare is cut off from her mom. So when she goes home, her mom attacks her, not for the first time.
00:17:15
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:17:17
Chris
And so she leaves, finds her way to a halfway house, is raising her infant, and just It's this simultaneous journey as we watch the very impressive and motivational quest that she has, this determination to learn to read and write, to fight through...
00:17:40
Chris
her experience with the education system, as more and more things are discovered that her mom was also raping her, that her dad died of AIDS, and she goes and gets tested and finds out she also has AIDS, of meeting all of these other girls in the program and learning their stories, just very brutal, and yet also, as we know, is absolutely happening in its various forms.
00:18:11
Nate Day
All the time.
00:18:14
Chris
Such a facet. It does end at kind of a unique moment. We're given the classes book coming out at the end, and there are a couple of things sort of coming to a head in the plot that are not shared with us, but I think that's okay because they are besides the point.
00:18:31
Chris
Does that make sense?
00:18:32
Nate Day
Yeah. And my understanding, if I can interject here, is that there is a I don't sequel is the right word, but a companion novel that is from... am i getting ahead of you here?
00:18:45
Nate Day
That is...
00:18:45
Chris
No, no, no. good Continue.
00:18:47
Nate Day
It's from the son's perspective, her second born.
00:18:51
Chris
Yes, there is a sequel from Abdul's perspective
00:18:54
Nate Day
Abdul, that's right.
00:18:57
Chris
titled The Kid. Yes, and I'm very curious about that one.
00:19:01
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:19:04
Chris
But essentially, from what I saw, she did not write this with the intention of writing the sequel. It was received so positively that she decided to write the next one.
00:19:13
Nate Day
I can believe that, especially coming from a poetry background, there's that sort of like holistic performance. What am I trying to say here?
00:19:24
Nate Day
Like completing the story, there's more to it.
00:19:27
Chris
Yeah.
00:19:27
Nate Day
there's There's more elements than just what you're consuming on the surface level. So I can see her expanding, you know?
00:19:35
Chris
Yes. Yes. And I think you hit the nail on the head. I mean, the the book it is very evidently, I think, written by a poet. We have a lot of... It felt almost jarring initially.
00:19:46
Chris
We have a lot of Precious's personal poetry woven in. And you're kind of scratching your head initially because you're like, so you're going to tell me this girl hated school, has literally only just now learned to read at 16, and then also dove straight into writing poetry.
00:19:50
Nate Day
Oh, OK.
00:20:03
Chris
But also there is a very raw and real aspect where the teacher says, you know, poetry doesn't have to rhyme.
00:20:09
Chris
The classic thing that I think all of us had to be told at some point.
00:20:12
Nate Day
Mm-hmm.
00:20:13
Chris
And she's just telling these heart-wrenching not not stories, essentially details of her personal timeline, but the punchiness, the lack of punctuation of poetry, the way that you can manipulate it physically on the page, makes it such a brilliant outlet for it that you can very reasonably connect the dots for yourself and say, oh, she's had this great teacher at the alternative school, Miss Rain.
00:20:35
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:20:38
Nate Day
Mm-hmm.
00:20:42
Chris
Of course, she had told her, you know, maybe you would find expression easier in poetry. that's as much as the plot as I want to go to right now.
00:20:53
Chris
Okay.
00:20:53
Nate Day
OK, Uh-huh.
00:20:54
Chris
So there are two aspects that I think are very cool within this book. The first one, much more surface level, the writing tone, the style and dialect chosen is probably the only simple thing to talk about. And we've already touched on it. The protagonist is illiterate at the start and we see it in the writing. She includes,
00:21:18
Chris
how she's spelling or well, lack thereof, inability to spell these words, lack of knowledge of these higher tier academic words.
00:21:26
Nate Day
Cool.
00:21:27
Chris
And as it goes, she's going to school, she's learning more and her writing is getting better.
00:21:32
Nate Day
That's cool.
00:21:33
Chris
Yeah. Very cool. Very, very cool. And also, She maintains the same tone that she had at the beginning. It's just written more eloquently, which it's just a remarkable feat of writing on the part of Sapphire to to hold both of those things and achieve it, which is very remarkable.
00:21:48
Nate Day
Yeah. Cool.
00:21:49
Chris
And it it it also makes it feel so personal. I mean, you feel like you're reading someone's diary, right?
00:21:56
Nate Day
Sure, totally.
00:21:58
Chris
the The content is where it obviously gets much more difficult. It's been criticized, as we discussed, the number of, I mean, calling them adverse childhood experiences is like the clinical way now.
00:22:13
Chris
That's so sanitized. But these horrific life experiences that this young girl's being put through, the the criticism has been, okay you've now reached a point that's unrealistic.
00:22:17
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:22:25
Chris
This is fiction. You've made this character up. And she's had two babies by her own father, and been abused by her mother, and then was homeless briefly, also found a halfway house while she was getting literate and raising her second child, and then found out she had AIDS? Like, this is getting crazy, essentially, is the criticism.
00:22:45
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:22:45
Chris
But that misses the point entirely. And I think, actually, in a subtle and brilliant way, the author, maybe not foreseeing that complaint, but kind of answers it herself within the book anyway.
00:22:47
Nate Day
yeah
00:22:59
Chris
At the end, they do the class book where everyone's writings are brought out. We hear Jermaine's story. We hear... Oh, nuts. What's her name?
00:23:10
Chris
Shoot. A couple other characters' stories. Rhonda's. And they're... You know, I don't want to boil it down to, oh, what's their issue? But their their story of how they also ended up in this place, right?
00:23:25
Nate Day
Yeah, sure.
00:23:25
Chris
And again...
00:23:27
Chris
very recognizable real things happening around us it it can seem like a trope or contrite in written form when you have so many of them together but she so brilliantly blends it as no no they're all meeting together at this point because they have this shared goal they want to become literate and get their ged this just happens to be the life they've had which obviously not the same extent or variety of big t trauma
00:23:49
Nate Day
Right.
00:23:56
Chris
you know, we we can't relate on that level.
00:23:56
Nate Day
Sure.
00:23:58
Chris
But the this is their life story. Here she is now. And the I think a lot of what that achieves by letting... We hear bits and pieces of each of their stories all along.
00:24:09
Chris
But by having this whole book together at the end, one, it's cool because the class is talking about putting it together, and then we get to read that. You know, it's a little meta.
00:24:15
Nate Day
Yeah, that's cool.
00:24:17
Chris
But it also...
00:24:21
Chris
It shows us, no, the point is not that this one individual had a horrific experience and you know thrived and survived despite it. It's lots of people are going through lots of issues. That's not the problem here. The problem is the marginalized individuals not being seen, not being helped.
00:24:44
Nate Day
Yeah. Yep.
00:24:45
Chris
Does that make sense?
00:24:45
Nate Day
hundred percent. Yeah, totally.
00:24:46
Chris
Okay. and i I wrote that I want to tread lightly here because one, this discussion very immediately becomes we are quantifying life circumstances, right?
00:24:57
Chris
Oh, who was better off, the girl whose dad shot her mom or, right?
00:24:59
Nate Day
Sure.
00:25:01
Chris
And that's not the question here.
00:25:01
Nate Day
Yeah. Right.
00:25:03
Chris
Okay. And the the second thing is, regardless of whether this is a quote-unquote realistic or unrealistic lived experience someone could have, the fact is individuals absolutely are living with their unique comorbidities and intersections of difficult difficult circumstances. And I think that's what Sapphire was trying to get across.
00:25:27
Nate Day
Yeah. Yeah, I agree.
00:25:32
Chris
Oh my gosh. did Some, you know, it goes up and down, obviously there are high points. But man, some of these were scenes were just so brutal to get through.
00:25:44
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:25:45
Chris
And,
00:25:47
Chris
Oh shoot. I got ahead of myself.
00:25:49
Chris
My final point on that was the the idea of presenting us with such varied backgrounds and then Precious finding she's putting it off, putting it off, finally going with her friend to the incest support group.
00:26:10
Nate Day
Oh, okay.
00:26:11
Chris
I think.
00:26:11
Nate Day
That's not in that movie.
00:26:13
Chris
Oh, interesting. Okay. She puts it off, puts it off, and then she finally goes with, and it's this very positive experience for her realizing I'm not the only one. And I think that was the point in this, not...
00:26:24
Nate Day
Oh, good. Yeah.
00:26:45
Chris
Other people have survived this, I can't. I think there's this positivity there that is, i suppose, subtle and difficult to grasp because it is an overwhelmingly not positive story.
00:26:56
Nate Day
Yep.
00:26:57
Chris
But I think that's what she was getting at, not that this one individual can survive all of these things, but that all of these things are real.
00:27:05
Nate Day
yep
00:27:06
Chris
Those of us who did not experience incest or sexual abuse or something very specific that's in this book that she named, that does not mean it's not happening. And as individuals who have not, ignoring it and not looking at it does not make it go away. In fact, it has proven time and time again that makes it worse.
00:27:26
Nate Day
Right.
00:27:27
Chris
So I think that was the idea behind this, and I find the criticism a bit lacking in, I think, looking at the story as a whole.
00:27:37
Nate Day
Yeah, yeah. And I would say the same thing about some of the criticisms of the movie, some of the criticisms.
00:27:42
Chris
Okay. Interesting. Okay. Okay.
00:27:44
Nate Day
Mm-hmm.
00:27:45
Chris
this is Well, this is the last thing I'll say about the book because that truly is all of the... Well, it's not. There's a lot you could talk about about the book. All of what I felt it was useful for us because there's also a point that I think becomes egregious on our part in the discussion where continuing to reference particular scenes both misses the point and is not...
00:28:06
Chris
I think that's a point where the discussion becomes not fruitful for society.
00:28:10
Nate Day
Yeah, sure.
00:28:12
Chris
So I'm not trying to skip past those aspects by any means. They are all very real, one, in our reality, two, in the story, in the text, and very graphic.
00:28:19
Nate Day
Okay.
00:28:23
Chris
I don't want to certainly not excuse it, but not skip past us discussing it. But as individuals who did not experience all of these things, I don't see any value in us digging into particular steps along this way more clearly.
00:28:38
Nate Day
Totally agree. Yeah. yeah
00:28:40
Chris
there is oh well There is one that i I suppose I did not discuss and I think is important. This understanding of what's happening around them and in their culture. One of the individuals whose story we get and is...
00:28:53
Chris
a significant departure from the other stories is Jermaine, who is going to this group and they all know that Jermaine is way better, has the reading and writing skills. They're like, what are you even doing here?
00:29:07
Chris
Went into the program knowing they were already at this level and could get a GED but did not. Knew that she wanted to wear men's clothing.
00:29:22
Chris
and liked girls at a very young age and is kicked out of the house for it.
00:29:26
Nate Day
who
00:29:27
Chris
And the the AIDS discussion in particular, one, was a shock when Precious brings it up, I think just because I did not see that coming. But two, brings out What was also a shock, these prevalent notions of her and her mom both went, well, how could we how could we have it?
00:29:46
Chris
We have not had anal sex like homosexuals do. I'm censoring all of the verbiage heavily from how Precious and her mom say it.
00:29:52
Nate Day
yeah
00:29:56
Chris
And so this misnomer of, oh, how does it genuinely work in society? And she's talking about it and needs to have this teacher say, what are you talking about? AIDS is not a problem just for individuals who are homosexual, nor is that a way to discuss it.
00:30:13
Chris
And it's, again, Sapphire just does it in such an eloquent way.
00:30:13
Nate Day
Right.
00:30:19
Chris
if If there were a way to separate it from the story and if I had more mature students who I think could handle the content, it would be, i think, a fantastic tool for for the classroom.
00:30:30
Nate Day
Wow.
00:30:31
Chris
As a whole, obviously, this would be
00:30:31
Nate Day
Okay.
00:30:35
Nate Day
That's a lot.
00:30:35
Chris
Tough to present.
00:30:35
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:30:36
Chris
Yeah, yeah.
00:30:39
Chris
But yeah, that was a particular story that I think was so valuable. And again, even if you think you don't know someone who's had that experience, I feel confident telling you you'd be surprised.
00:30:54
Chris
Last part, which is crazy because it's a whole discussion that unfortunately is like outside of the purview for us, but was incredible. ay I didn't check what year. I clearly have a much, much more recent reprint of it. There's an epilogue by Sapphire talking about this book from 30 years ago now and comparing it to what was happening during COVID.
00:31:19
Nate Day
Oh yeah, totally.
00:31:21
Chris
So, she yeah, this this has to have been a reprint in the last five years that she added this. And it's fascinating because she said at the time the discussion was why couldn't someone like Precious get access to the medication that she needs?
00:31:37
Chris
And essentially the push then was if you were a gay white man who had AIDS, you had access and everyone else did not.
00:31:45
Nate Day
Right.
00:31:47
Chris
And she drew an incredible comparison to exactly what we saw during COVID, which was exactly the same. It was not, you know, your race that had a and predisposition to responding worse to COVID.
00:32:01
Chris
It was the access to health care that you have, which sounds crazy when I say it in those terms that anyone would question it. But that's exactly what people have argued against.
00:32:09
Nate Day
Right.
00:32:11
Chris
Oh, it's insane. I'm sorry. I'm running out of steam. These are such heavy... topics.
00:32:17
Nate Day
You're doing great.
00:32:19
Chris
But yeah, that epilogue again caught me off guard because I felt like, boy, we have really discussed a lot. Oh, no. Oh, no more. And yeah, so silly of me to be worn out from reading and discussing this. That's so dumb. but But both things are true. Both know most of this book I have not had any lived experience with. And it needs to be discussed we need to be reminded and reminded that this is not just fiction this is happening in a city near you right now not talking about it does not does not solve that i'm not saying that our podcast is about to solve any of these things but ignoring it is also not the answer
00:32:49
Nate Day
Yep.
00:33:01
Nate Day
Right. and And you and I have struggled a little bit to program these stories, particularly centered around black women, which was something that we we really wanted to do at the outset of this. But we've struggled to find ones that aren't like this tonally. There are so few stories that sort of rise to that level of both publication and then adaptation that are not this or The Color Purple or Tina Turner's story, which are all about women experiencing the worst things that can happen to a person.
00:33:36
Chris
Mm-hmm.
00:33:49
Nate Day
And it's frankly, and damn near impossible to to find those. It's such a bizarre and unfortunate
00:34:00
Chris
Mm-hmm.
00:34:00
Nate Day
I don't even know circumstance, I guess, of living on earth.
00:34:07
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:34:10
Chris
You actually nearly verbatim said an argument that Precious makes in the book. I don't know if you knew that.
00:34:15
Nate Day
Oh, nope.
00:34:16
Chris
As we discussed earlier, the color purple does come up moderately frequently in the book.
00:34:22
Nate Day
Does it really? Okay.
00:34:23
Chris
Uh-huh. And Precious is talking about, she's got a poster of Alice Walker on her wall. And she talks about how people did not like exactly what we talked about.
00:34:35
Chris
She, this fictional character, she talks about how people were not happy with the publication of The Color Purple because it portrays black men in America in a poor light. And she's sitting there going, what are you talking about? a black man in America ruined my life.
00:34:49
Nate Day
right
00:34:52
Chris
And yeah, it's,
00:34:55
Chris
Yeah, you said it better than I did. But i yeah, I totally forgot that the color purple comes up we a good amount in this book.
00:35:03
Nate Day
Yeah, I think this was watching this movie for this podcast specifically was I think the third time that I've seen it and it jumped out to me a lot, the similarities, not just because of what are the protagonists go through, but, some of the sort of extracurriculars that help them,
00:35:23
Chris
Yes.
00:35:24
Nate Day
correct their course. I think, uh, there's a lot of similarities between precious and Celie in those moments as well.
00:35:34
Chris
she She references specifically a few things both Celie and Sug say in the book. I really, i mean, it is a stretch because I don't know it factually, but I feel confident suggesting that that was probably a very important book for Sapphire.
00:35:52
Nate Day
Oh, I'm sure.
00:35:52
Chris
as a queer black woman in New York in the 70s.
00:35:54
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:35:56
Chris
And the I say that out of her treatment of discussion of that book in this book. You need to know a text intimately to effectively weave it into a storyline with a fictional character you created in the way that she does.
00:36:03
Nate Day
Right.
00:36:10
Nate Day
Yeah. And I love that in, in movies, and I'm sure it happens to some degree in books too, when characters within the narrative are watching a movie or a TV show, I love to be like, what is that?
00:36:22
Chris
Yes.
00:36:24
Nate Day
And how does it work into this? Because I know you're telling me something, even if it's just character building. I'm like, I know that you're saying something that's such a deliberate choice. You know what I mean?
00:36:36
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:36:37
Nate Day
on that note, should we turn to the movie?
00:36:42
Nate Day
We will be right back.
00:37:03
Nate Day
Similar.
00:37:03
Chris
I was gonna ask if you found that fun fact.
00:37:06
Nate Day
Oh, yeah, I think I mean, I think it's fun. I hope it's the same one that you're thinking of.
00:37:10
Chris
I'm sure you'll get to it. Yeah.
00:37:12
Chris
We'll find out.
00:37:14
Nate Day
the movie Precious was released in 2009. It was written by Jeffrey S. Fletcher, excuse me, and directed by Lee Daniels. Lee Daniels is one of Hollywood's more prominent black directors, probably of about this era. I don't think he's quite as well regarded today as he was 10 or 20 years ago, but still one of the more recognizable by name, black and gay directors as well.
00:37:39
Nate Day
He has done a few other movies that you've probably seen. Have you ever seen The Butler?
00:37:44
Nate Day
It's about a black man that worked as a butler in the White House over the course of five or six presidents. And it was kind of a big deal because they had had like, yeah.
00:37:51
Chris
Oh, right. Like across a bunch?
00:37:54
Nate Day
So he directed that. And it's actually called Lee Daniels, The Butler, which i think was a really smart move because it made him...
00:37:59
Chris
Mm-hmm.
00:38:01
Nate Day
sort of a household name to have his name at the front of movie title. Uh, most recently he had a movie called the deliverance on Netflix, a horror movie was kind of only okay.
00:38:06
Chris
Mm-hmm.
00:38:11
Nate Day
And then the United States versus Billy holiday, which is the story of, uh, was it the CIA that tried to like ruin Billie holiday's life because of the song strange fruit?
00:38:23
Nate Day
Basically they, or maybe it was the DEA. It was the DEA because she struggled with addiction.
00:38:30
Nate Day
They screwed her up because her song about lynching became a huge deal here in that nation. And I share his filmography just to just to sort of highlight how this fits into it, because his storytelling is pretty much always about how black people are affected in modern America, society.
00:38:52
Nate Day
you know, loosely modern. and And the ways that that's been a through line sort of throughout history and and not gone away despite all of the Reaganomics Reaganomics and things that we do to to pat ourselves on the back and pretend like we're more supportive of the black community.
00:39:10
Nate Day
Anyway, I also threw in, he self describes his directorial style. I just thought this was hilarious. A little Euro, a little ghetto and a little homo.
00:39:19
Nate Day
And I think that's, I was like, yeah, I guess so.
00:39:22
Nate Day
The movie stars, Gabourey Sidibe, Mo'Nique the standup comedian Mo'Nique Paula Patton, Sherri Shepherd Lenny Kravitz, and Mariah Carey.
00:39:32
Nate Day
kind of a bizarre cast but but everybody's really really good in it and produced among others by oprah winfrey and tyler perry and i just share that to to sort of underscore how big a deal this was when this movie came out those are two of the biggest black like media figures public figures to kind of ever live i know obviously tyler perry is
00:39:33
Chris
wow
00:39:38
Chris
OK.
00:39:41
Chris
Yeah.
00:39:59
Chris
yeah
00:40:01
Nate Day
going through cancellation right now, but in 2009, he was a huge, huge, huge deal. That's a big deal to get the two of them on your movie. Lee Daniels said that he was attracted to this novel in particular because it reminded him him of a childhood experience when a young woman came to his family's home, knocked on the door and said, you've got to help me. If I go home, my forget now if it was her dad or her husband, oh, her mother, because her mother was going to kill her if she went home.
00:40:35
Nate Day
And so he when he read the book, he was like reminded of this visceral experience. And like you were saying, it the the book presents itself as an explanation that this stuff is happening out there somewhere to somebody.
00:40:42
Chris
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:40:50
Nate Day
And he specifically talked about not knowing exactly what the circumstances were around this young woman that came to his door, but that she was feeling these things that Precious was feeling.
00:41:30
Chris
Mm-hmm.
00:41:31
Nate Day
But yeah, so he was expecting this one to go straight to DVD until it became a hit at the Sundance Film Festival, which is one that happens earlier in the year for primarily for independent film.
00:41:43
Nate Day
And it became a huge hit there. People loved it, put it on track for a theatrical release by Lionsgate. And he's talked a lot, Lee Daniels, about how this movie really only happened under, or really only became a hit under very specific circumstances, particularly Oprah and Perry coming on board and helping to promote the movie.
00:42:04
Nate Day
You know, Oprah's also had a rough few years publicity-wise, but in 2009, if she was telling people to go watch a movie or to read a book, people were doing it.
00:42:14
Nate Day
So that was a huge, huge deal.
00:42:15
Chris
Wow.
00:42:16
Nate Day
part of like if she wasn't a producer on this, I don't think we'd know that it was out there to, to put on this podcast. and then in part, Mary J.
00:42:24
Chris
wow
00:42:25
Nate Day
Blige also recorded, the movie's theme song and was pretty instrumental in promoting the movie because the song was featured also on one of her albums.
00:42:35
Nate Day
I believe it was a single on one of her albums. So it was a lot of cross promotion from one of the biggest stars in, in music as well.
00:42:42
Chris
you
00:42:42
Nate Day
So, uh, I thought it was just really interesting that, Daniels was so has been so vocal about the support that he received and the way people sort of gathered around this project to lift it up was, was really cool.
00:42:59
Nate Day
had a pretty limited rollout. It was only in 18 theaters across the United States and it's opening weekend, which is really low. That happens a lot for indie films. And then they typically, will like increase the rollout in the coming weeks as they see how it performs and theaters decide whether they wanna dedicate screens to it.
00:43:21
Nate Day
But what was really remarkable was that in that weekend when it was only in 18 theaters, it was the number 12 earner at the box office nationwide.
00:43:30
Chris
Wow.
00:43:31
Nate Day
Yeah, so those 18 theaters were just raking it in.
00:43:32
Chris
Jeez.
00:43:36
Nate Day
I mean, like every so every showing had to have been sold out. over and over again.
00:43:41
Chris
Wow.
00:43:42
Nate Day
So the the rollout was expanded, and eventually it ended up grossing the movie, grossed over $63 million dollars on a $10 million dollars budget.
00:43:53
Nate Day
Mostly positive reviews for this. Some criticisms point to the film's like similarities to other kind of aspirational stories, right?
00:44:03
Nate Day
Like, the student was not doing very well and then connected with a teacher that changed their life. And then they do well, that is sort of the plot of at least the movie. And I assume, uh, the book as well, if you had to boil it down and and strip away a lot of nuance and detail, that's sort of what we're talking about.
00:44:18
Chris
lot.
00:44:23
Chris
a lot
00:44:24
Nate Day
Yeah. so I can see that. And then, and then there were some criticisms as well. Like we said about the color purple, some people didn't like the way that, there are There are so few men in this this movie that I don't think you can really criticize it for how it portrays men.
00:44:42
Nate Day
You've got Lenny Kravitz's character who's the nurse that delivers Abdul. And then the father is barely a character in the story whatsoever. but But people were more mad about this being sort of like the,
00:44:56
Nate Day
portrayal of the black experience in America, right? Because some people walked away without a nuanced take on it and and assuming that this story meant what it looks like on paper, as opposed to what it's supposed to mean on a deeper level, right?
00:45:00
Chris
Mm-hmm.
00:45:14
Nate Day
Which is that these things are real and exist in our world. There were also, i thought, some interesting criticisms around the movie specifically, calling it out for colorism because, Mo'Nique and Gabourey Sidibe are both very dark skinned black women, whereas pretty much everybody else in the movie, particularly everybody else that's kind of a hero in the story, whether it's Miss rain, or the nurse that delivers the baby or the social worker whose name I'm forgetting, who's played by Mariah Carey.
00:45:48
Nate Day
They're all light-skinned actors, Ms.
00:45:50
Chris
Miss Weiss
00:45:51
Nate Day
Weiss. Yes. They're all portrayed by light-skinned actors. So there were a lot of complaints about colorism in this film and the way that light-skinned characters tend to step in and save the day for these dark-skinned women or or Precious in particular.
00:46:00
Chris
Hmm.
00:46:09
Nate Day
Interesting.
00:46:11
Nate Day
It's a tough criticism for me because this movie probably wouldn't have gotten off the ground if it didn't star Mariah Carey and Lenny Kravitz.
00:46:18
Nate Day
but it's not a But it's not wrong. You know what I mean?
00:46:22
Chris
and Interesting.
00:46:22
Nate Day
Particularly, think a really interesting factoid in line with that is that Sidibe has not, she was Oscar nominated for her role, best actress in a leading role.
00:46:22
Chris
Okay.
00:46:35
Nate Day
and has had struggled a lot in her career since then. And Mo'Nique in fact, won an Oscar for her role as, as the abusive mother. And both of them have struggled since then. They don't get great work, uh, which is unfortunately a very common thing for dark skinned women.
00:46:54
Nate Day
overweight women. and it's, you know, you can, you can get the highest and second highest honor in the land, but, you don't turn around and get the career that like Mariah Carey and Lenny Kravitz have their musicians. So it's a little bit of a different conversation, but they're much more famous than either of those women that I have, have just mentioned. So interesting sort of how inside and out there's some real issues with colorism.
00:47:21
Nate Day
around this movie. ultimately nominated for a lot of Oscars, best picture included and best director, uh, and best editing.
00:47:23
Chris
yeah.
00:47:32
Nate Day
Like I said, best actress nomination for Sidibe ended up winning for supporting actress for Mo'Nique And then, best adapted screenplay for Fletcher as well, making him the first black person to win an Oscar for writing a screenplay.
00:47:48
Nate Day
So cool.
00:47:49
Chris
Oh, wow.
00:47:49
Nate Day
Yeah, some cool, you know, history making there. And then the last thing I wanted to mention was that this movie has sort of taken on a new life in the couple, last couple of years through memes, particularly sounds on TikTok, which I'm not going to mimic here for a number of reasons,
00:48:07
Chris
I get it. I get it.
00:48:08
Nate Day
but that's, that's the movie.
00:48:11
Nate Day
Let's, uh, let's dive into our discussion questions. What do you have for me?
00:48:17
Chris
Yeah. I, I will probably just have to keep apologizing every week, but this just comes up for me so much in these heavier books that we do.
00:48:25
Nate Day
All
00:48:26
Chris
The glaring difficulty I see in adapting this is the strongly graphic nature. We're given very vivid pictures and descriptions in the text that absolutely could not be made into a film.
00:48:39
Chris
So my question is two. One, pragmatically. how How do they get whatever ideas they could through to the audience?
00:48:49
Chris
And then to do you feel that it loses some of the effect? Because if the point was censorship, we saw the book censored or banned in many places because of this, then the book wouldn't exist at all.
00:48:57
Nate Day
Right.
00:49:03
Chris
So when we do have to censor that graphic nature, what are we losing?
00:49:08
Nate Day
Yeah. You get very, very quick flashes of what Precious goes through for the most part.
00:49:12
Chris
OK.
00:49:17
Chris
OK.
00:49:24
Nate Day
Her mother, it's more outright. he You see a lot of, not the sexual stuff with her mother, but the the physical abuse, her mom like just kicking the snot out of her while she's pregnant.
00:49:28
Chris
All right.
00:49:39
Nate Day
And that's visceral enough of an image that you really only need it once or twice before you're like, I can't look at this anymore.
00:49:42
Chris
Okay.
00:49:46
Nate Day
like I get the picture.
00:49:47
Chris
Yeah.
00:49:48
Nate Day
And that's obviously a privileged image. perspective, but that's also the perspective. If you're sitting in a movie theater or at home on your couch and are electively watching this, you're going to have that privilege to a certain degree that that the character of Precious did not have.
00:49:59
Chris
Right.
00:50:04
Nate Day
But that's sort of one of the differences. I mean, the big differences between books and movies is that because you have that additional stimulus of like visual stimulus that I think you're body and emotions are processing things a little bit differently.
00:50:19
Nate Day
I don't know that you need, you know, I'm just exaggerating and and pulling a number out of my butt here, but I don't think you need 14 instances of her going through what she goes through in order to kind of get, get the memo if it's in a movie, whereas a book, you might need more of that because you're also building character and and building more
00:50:31
Chris
Yep.
00:50:38
Chris
Yep. Yeah,
00:50:45
Nate Day
of the story at once, maybe. Does that make sense?
00:50:49
Chris
yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah
00:50:51
Nate Day
The other thing that the movie includes, this might be a good tie-in to my next question, actually. She has a lot of these fantasies, Precious does, and i think yeah the fantasies are so like rich and and almost over the top that you get the sense that she needs desperately to have this fantasy world. And I think that that also helps to feed that idea that she's just in the most miserable circumstances a human being could be in for the most part.
00:51:27
Nate Day
So I i think it's that's how it's addressed. I think largely like the translation to visual medium makes it maybe maybe even more jarring because you're actually seeing it.
00:51:31
Chris
Okay.
00:51:38
Chris
Right.
00:51:39
Nate Day
You know what I mean? It's not just kind of in in your head,
00:51:41
Chris
Right. Right.
00:51:44
Chris
Okay. No, that makes sense.
00:51:47
Chris
Oof.
00:51:47
Nate Day
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's a rough watch for a lot of reasons.
00:51:50
Chris
Mm-hmm.
00:51:52
Nate Day
But that does segue nicely into my question. The film is narrated very lightly by Precious, which I've actually talked, I've been on this record or on the record on this podcast saying that I don't.
00:52:04
Nate Day
care for narration, but it works really well here because so much of the story is about Precious's interiority responding to exterior events and events and and people, I guess, and including fantasies. How, how is this book crafted? Is it written similar to The Color Purple, which was like a series of letters or prayers?
00:52:34
Nate Day
is Is this book written as if it's a book that Precious wrote?
00:52:41
Chris
Essentially, yeah, we're kind of reading, like, basically her notebook that Miss Raina signed. Right, right for 15 minutes every day. One day they finally start doing right, like more or less your life story.
00:52:51
Nate Day
OK. Oh.
00:52:56
Chris
And then it starts with that. And then the in between is it actually goes back in time a little bit to when she first started writing in her notebook and she would write sentences and then Miss Rain would write the corrections underneath. And we actually see that we see her writing.
00:53:13
Chris
ill illiteracy and then Miss Rain's corrections, respelling. And then her poetry, suddenly there'll just be a poem that she wrote. Yeah, that's how I mean, that that also made me quite curious how they did it in the film, because it is virtually entirely besides some of these responses from other people and then the other kids' stories at the end.
00:53:28
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:53:36
Chris
It is from this one first-person view, non-omniscient narrator, like the whole time, her just telling us her story.
00:53:40
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:53:46
Nate Day
Yeah. I think the movie, first of all, two things. The movie... really only hints at some of her classmates' perspectives or stories. you You get to know them.
00:53:56
Nate Day
We know that there's a student who's probably queer and there's some that are immigrants and they are given enough characterization that we can draw the conclusions we need to, but this is very much Precious' as story.
00:54:13
Nate Day
they're They're very minor characters and and they're not given a ton of
00:54:14
Chris
Yes. Yes. Okay. Hmm.
00:54:20
Nate Day
time, especially individually. the The class sort of does end up rallying around Precious in a lot of really important ways, but they're they're acting more as an entit the class, as an entity instead of Rhonda and,
00:54:28
Chris
Yep.
00:54:35
Nate Day
I don't know, that's the only name that stands out because she said it like 100 times.
00:54:40
Chris
This
00:54:43
Nate Day
It's a small class in the movie. It's like six or eight kids.
00:54:45
Chris
one I'm forgetting. Yes. Yes.
00:54:46
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:54:46
Chris
No, it's only six people. Yeah.
00:54:48
Nate Day
but the other cool thing, when you said that, uh, some of the sort of journal entries were her misspellings and then the correct spelling underneath. When the movie opens, you know, there's always a few credits that that say like Lee Daniels Entertainment directed by Lee Daniels, written by George Fletcher. They're all misspelled in terrible handwriting and then text in the correct spelling comes up.
00:55:16
Chris
Interesting.
00:55:17
Nate Day
It's kind of cool underneath it.
00:55:18
Chris
That's a cool way to do that.
00:55:18
Nate Day
It is cool.
00:55:19
Nate Day
And I wondered if this was the first time I caught it, that it was like that. And I, I was like, well, obviously they're getting at her, you know, illiteracy, but, uh, knowing that it comes straight from the book is even cooler now. I feel like that that's like really,
00:55:19
Chris
Yeah.
00:55:40
Nate Day
forgive the pun. I really don't mean it, but it's really precious, a really precious way to, to honor it. It is though. I mean,
00:55:46
Chris
Yes. Yes. No, it's it's a very important part of the book the whole time.
00:55:48
Nate Day
Just so endearing.
00:55:52
Chris
So she never figures out how to spell syndrome. She says, my daughter is down cinder.
00:55:56
Nate Day
i don't know how to I don't know how to spell that either.
00:55:59
Chris
but the The whole book, she spells it S-I-N-D-E-R.
00:56:05
Nate Day
Okay, yeah.
00:56:05
Chris
The opening line, I had two babies by my father, F-A-V-E-R.
00:56:11
Nate Day
Hmm.
00:56:12
Chris
It's very, very impactful.
00:56:15
Nate Day
Yeah. Yeah. Isn't, I think color purple is kind of that way too, isn't it? Doesn't it start with misspellings and then as she learns to read interesting.
00:56:21
Chris
Yeah, with the the tone of how they're talking. Yeah.
00:56:27
Chris
There was another famous one like that, too. the Harrison Bergerac? I was just talking to someone about this.
00:56:36
Chris
Shoot. but It'll come to me. I'll remember it.
00:56:39
Nate Day
Okay. All right. Well, what else do you have for me?
00:56:43
Chris
Yes. So...
00:56:47
Chris
There may not be a good answer to this one, so sorry in advance. But I just could not stop thinking about it.
00:56:50
Nate Day
Doesn't matter to
00:56:53
Chris
There's an amount that I just feel flabbergasted at the end of a story like this. It is powerful. It is incredibly important that we face it, not ignore it.
00:57:01
Nate Day
me. Okay.
00:57:06
Chris
But also, I get done with this. I finish the book. I put it down, and I go, okay, what now?
00:57:14
Chris
Do you know what I mean?
00:57:15
Nate Day
Yeah.
00:57:15
Chris
And I have no good. I mean, you know, you by you're sitting there the whole time just thinking, man, I wish I could help this girl.
00:57:25
Chris
Clearly, logically, I know there's someone who is 16 and pregnant, probably within one mile radius of me.
00:57:33
Nate Day
Right.
00:57:35
Chris
And that's it. And I, again, I don't know that there's a good answer to that. So the question that I wrote was just, how did you feel at the end of the film?
00:57:42
Nate Day
Yeah, this was an interesting one. Again, that I've watched it several times, and this time I was thinking a lot about how you and I would consume this story because it is very important that she has a teacher that she connects with.
00:57:52
Chris
of
00:57:56
Nate Day
You are a teacher and you've connected with students. not in these circumstances, but in very difficult ones of their own and helped them, you know, guide them through school and, and keep their life, on a healthy path. And then I work in social services and we see, unfortunately I see stories like this.
00:58:20
Nate Day
maybe not to this magnitude, but again, that's not exactly the point. pretty Pretty much every day, my job is to make sure that people going through this know that we are here to offer help.
00:58:23
Chris
Mm-hmm. Mm.
00:58:33
Nate Day
That's my specific job within the social services agency I work for. So I think I have a little bit of... like a safety cushion almost where I can pat myself on the back and and pretend like I'm doing something to prevent all of this because I can log on to work and feel good about myself, right?
00:58:55
Nate Day
but
00:58:56
Chris
We have.
00:58:58
Nate Day
and And maybe there's some of that, I'm not saying you're feeling the same way, but but there is an opportunity for a teacher to feel the same way after reading this book specifically because of the way Miss Rain is valorized by the text, which is not a criticism of the text, really.
00:59:13
Chris
We have.
00:59:16
Nate Day
It's a criticism of the way that society allows white people like you and me to do too little too late and feel too good about it, right?
00:59:25
Chris
Yeah, yeah.
00:59:27
Nate Day
All of that is just to say that i I don't have an answer for your question. I don't know what to do after reading it. Besides recognize that the things that we can do, you and me are often too little too late and we feel too good about them, but we have to, we have to try, you know what I mean?
00:59:47
Nate Day
We have you and i you and i specifically, it's so bizarre that I've worked out this way, but you and I are presented with opportunities to be the Ms.
00:59:48
Chris
yeah yeah
00:59:56
Nate Day
Rain and Mrs. Weiss in, in the real world. And we just have to do it.
01:00:04
Chris
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:00:05
Nate Day
you know, and I think, it's the film ends on such like, uh, it's like ultimately triumphant.
01:00:16
Nate Day
It's like triumphant with an asterisk. You know what I mean? Like, it,
01:00:19
Chris
Right.
01:00:21
Nate Day
it that there just isn't a, there's not a nice button on top that leaves you, it's not a feel good story.
01:00:28
Chris
Mm-hmm.
01:00:37
Chris
Yeah,
01:00:41
Nate Day
So i I don't know. I mean, I think the the most important thing is just to recognize, like you're saying, that these these stories are out there and they're out there just like this one. They're out there in fractions of this one. And it's just our our responsibility as citizens of Earth to try and put forward what we can.
01:01:03
Chris
yeah, yeah. yeah No, that's honestly more answer than I expected.
01:01:08
Nate Day
what, what were you thinking? I mean, were you just sort of, okay,
01:01:12
Chris
I didn't even try to guess how you would answer. I just couldn't get the question out of my head and I was like, fuck it.
01:01:17
Nate Day
well, and that's, yeah, and that's, I mean, like I said, it's not a good, what I have is not a good answer.
01:01:25
Nate Day
That's not, going to save the world or, or solve this problem. But,
01:01:31
Nate Day
I don't know. You're not supposed to walk away feeling like, yeah, that was a great evening of reading or, or movie watching.
01:01:41
Nate Day
you know
01:01:42
Chris
I did not enjoy a minute of reading this.
01:01:45
Nate Day
Right. And you're not supposed to. And I think maybe that's, that's the takeaway.
01:01:47
Chris
No, no.
01:01:52
Chris
the And some some things, obviously, it feels like, you know, you can abstractly help. Obviously, we all know things like cancer and AIDS are horrible and we want to solve them.
01:02:03
Chris
So what, you send some money to a researcher who can do something? I don't know what. But like,
01:02:06
Nate Day
Yeah.
01:02:08
Chris
Okay, logically, this is in fact, unfortunately, not fiction. And there are minors out there who are being raped by family members right now.
01:02:19
Nate Day
I mean.
01:02:19
Chris
I mean, I guess it's not my job as an individual to stop that. But also, what if if if I wanted to? What do you, you know, it's like, absolutely unanswerable. how do it
01:02:29
Nate Day
Right.
01:02:30
Chris
Clearly, I presume all of the people that I love and care about and I'm friends with, know, hey, I shouldn't and won't do that.
01:02:39
Nate Day
Right.
01:02:40
Chris
i don't i don't know. I don't. Yeah.
01:02:43
Nate Day
I guess we'll cross that bridge when we get to it and we'll look back and thank Sapphire for illuminating it, you know?
01:02:52
Chris
Yeah.
01:02:54
Nate Day
Yeah, heavy stuff.
01:02:56
Nate Day
And this next question is going to be any easier.
01:02:56
Chris
Yeah.
01:02:59
Chris
Oh, gosh.
01:03:00
Nate Day
Tell me a little bit about how colorism is addressed in the book. And I'm asking because
01:03:04
Chris
Oh.
01:03:05
Nate Day
Like I said, it was unavoidable is not the right word for the for the movie, but it the movie probably wouldn't exist if it didn't sort of exploit colorism.
01:03:17
Nate Day
And I'm just curious, given how reverently Daniels seems to have been to the text, I wanna if there's maybe some context that didn't translate.
01:03:18
Chris
Mm-hmm.
01:03:30
Chris
Well, actually, it's interesting. Essentially, everything you described is what the book was, and people just didn't like it. But they discussed it more explicitly within the book.
01:03:40
Nate Day
Okay.
01:03:43
Chris
First of all, and I might not be remembering correctly, but i if I remember correctly, I believe the nurse Lenny Kravitz plays was a woman in the book.
01:03:51
Chris
So they just outright changed that.
01:03:52
Nate Day
Oh, funny. Okay.
01:03:54
Chris
And then I don't know if they said her race explicitly, but I feel in my reading, I felt very certain Ms. Weiss was white.
01:04:02
Nate Day
Well, it is a Jewish last name, right?
01:04:02
Chris
So.
01:04:07
Nate Day
Or maybe Eastern European.
01:04:07
Chris
Weiss, at least Central European. Yeah.
01:04:10
Nate Day
Yeah.
01:04:12
Chris
But it comes up constantly in the book. She's talking about how much easier it would be if she were lighter skinned or her fantasies about, like you said, having this cute light skinned boyfriend or being lighter skinned.
01:04:25
Chris
The friend in the program who's there because she became a dope addict because her dad shot her mom. It is virtually the entire storyline of hers, which is such a,
01:04:38
Chris
not footnote, but very small portion of the collected book at the very end, where her mom is Latina, her dad is white, and her dad gets so angry at her mom and says, quit speaking Spanish to them.
01:04:41
Nate Day
Right, right.
01:04:51
Chris
Look at our skin. She looks like me, not you. My kids are white. like it is Colorism is addressed heavily within the text, and so it's... almost comical that it's a criticism of the movie because they from what I'm hearing Daniels did stay very faithful to what those characters were intended to be they perhaps just did not speak to it so explicitly
01:05:10
Nate Day
Yeah.
01:05:15
Nate Day
Okay. I wondered if that was the case.
01:05:18
Nate Day
on that note, tell me what you would rate this book. this book
01:05:24
Chris
Yeah. I gave it a four. The writing is absolutely brilliant. I did. I mean, yes, I did not enjoy as in it's not this fun little fantasy novel to fall asleep to, but I did very much appreciate reading it.
01:05:39
Chris
I think the only difference is it's, you know, a genre that I've read so little of. It wouldn't be a five for me. Like I would, I would, I'm actually very interested in reading her sequel now, but I probably wouldn't return to this text.
01:05:51
Nate Day
Oh, sure.
01:05:53
Chris
So not a five for me.
01:05:54
Nate Day
Okay. yeah
01:05:56
Chris
What about the movie?
01:05:57
Nate Day
I gave it a four as well. it It just wasn't perfect for me because
01:06:04
Nate Day
the second half of the movie is essentially her, it doesn't skate through the abuse, but it a lot of time is,
01:06:13
Nate Day
sort of like a light switch. You know what I mean? Like she gets out of her mom's house and I understand how big of a deal it is to remove yourself from that situation.
01:06:17
Chris
Oh.
01:06:23
Nate Day
But the movie sort of skates through what challenges would have come next.
01:06:23
Chris
Oh.
01:06:27
Nate Day
You know, her, her becoming more literate is not extremely prevalent in the movie, but I know that that would have been something she really, really, really struggled with.
01:06:36
Chris
oh
01:06:40
Nate Day
There's like one or two scenes where she's working with, um, with,
01:06:45
Nate Day
with miss rain on reading and one of those early scenes she's struggling to or read the word i forget if it's eight or r a r e or a t uh and if that's the case that i mean that is very very illiterate right and then we kind of drop it because we're maybe we're it's because we're focused a little bit more on
01:07:06
Chris
Right.
01:07:08
Nate Day
the legal situation to get her children back into her care and some of the other things.
01:07:13
Chris
Mm-hmm.
01:07:13
Nate Day
And and you probably couldn't adapt the novel one-to-one to film because it's too much, right?
01:07:20
Chris
No.
01:07:20
Nate Day
Too big. But, I just felt like
01:07:22
Chris
Yep.
01:07:26
Nate Day
that interiority was not honored, I suppose, uh, as well as it could have been.
01:07:31
Chris
Mmm.
01:07:34
Nate Day
Yeah.
01:07:36
Chris
So really, books are indeed superior to films.
01:07:39
Nate Day
In certain cases... I can see how this one maybe works better
Lee Daniels' Directorial Style and Film Performances
01:07:44
Nate Day
than as a book than as the movie.
01:07:45
Chris
Mm. Mm.
01:07:48
Nate Day
But I will say that it it does it's still a good movie.
01:07:49
Chris
Mm.
01:07:51
Nate Day
And I think that like Lee Daniels' style particularly works for this story.
01:07:55
Chris
Mm-hmm.
01:07:57
Nate Day
His his visual style is very gritty and like works really well for New York in the 80s,
01:08:01
Chris
Uh-huh.
01:08:03
Nate Day
And the one thing that stands out to me that also stood out to many of the people that wrote reviews is that the performances across the board are are just fantastic. I mean, even down to...
01:08:15
Nate Day
i couldn't but I still can't believe that Mariah Carey is good in this movie because she's just such a larger-than-life figure for her to like strip down to this no-makeup role and and be good at it.
01:08:23
Chris
Uh-huh.
01:08:26
Nate Day
I'm like, whoa, that is crazy. And same thing, Lenny Kravitz is super charming.
01:08:26
Chris
Uh-huh.
01:08:30
Chris
Yeah.
01:08:31
Nate Day
I mean, of course he's charming. He's ley Lenny Kravitz. but But it works so well in the movie.
01:08:34
Chris
He's Lenny Kravitz. Yeah.
01:08:38
Nate Day
yeah, the performances are just just outstanding. So I keep rambling in this episode. It's my turn, apparently, instead of yours.
01:08:45
Nate Day
But four stars is the the final verdict there.
01:08:45
Chris
Uh-huh.
01:08:49
Chris
Well, keep rambling. Who would you recommend this to?
01:08:51
Nate Day
Okay. Well, first and foremost, I think this section also has to have that sort of asterisk that it is so incredibly difficult to watch and and I'm sure read.
01:09:01
Nate Day
It's very adult and very complex.
01:09:03
Nate Day
So if you like these sort of gritty slice of life dramas, especially ones that end on sort of an upbeat, this is the one for you. I do think, you know, we talked about the color purple.
01:09:16
Nate Day
Moonlight is another movie that I think has some similarities here. Room, which is the the story of a woman who was like kidnapped and kept in a single room and then had to have a baby and
01:09:27
Chris
Oh, yes. Yep.
01:09:32
Nate Day
raised the baby in the room and convinced him that that was the whole world. And, uh, it reminded me a lot of this story just because it was so much about how do you build what protects you psychologically.
01:09:45
Chris
Yep.
01:09:47
Chris
Yes.
01:09:55
Nate Day
But I also think that it fits best if you understand Lee Daniels filmmaking style. So if you're a fan of any of his films, this is a for sure his best film, but but fits in very nicely if you do feel like his films are something that you enjoy.
01:10:14
Chris
Okay. Okay.
01:10:16
Nate Day
How about you?
01:10:20
Nate Day
It's hard. This is a hard one.
01:10:20
Chris
What a question. Yeah. I, well... What's crazy is it does not feel hard, but it's not a pragmatic or a satisfying answer.
01:10:29
Nate Day
Okay.
01:10:30
Chris
Because my very first thought was, oh, no problem. Because it's it felt like such a pivotal scene when Precious finally goes to the support group with her friend and has the aha of, oh, I'm not the only one who's gone through this.
01:10:39
Nate Day
Mm-hmm.
01:10:46
Chris
And again...
01:10:49
Chris
perhaps not incest, but I hope all of us have had the experience of having our struggle, what we face most intimately, personally, and deeply, and have had the the the joy, the reassurance of meeting others who have said, no, no, we see you, we understand, we are going through the same.
01:11:11
Nate Day
Yeah.
01:11:12
Chris
And so along those lines, in my mind, I'm like, well, yeah, I've had a number of students who were 16 and pregnant.
01:11:20
Nate Day
Yep.
01:11:21
Chris
Cannot imagine handing them push and just going, this will help, you know?
01:11:26
Nate Day
Yeah.
01:11:27
Nate Day
That'd be crazy.
01:11:29
Chris
Yeah, so I'm not sure.
01:11:31
Chris
I think those readers in my life who I know do not want just... A fantasy novel, a fun little escape they want to read to feel and examine the world.
01:11:45
Chris
I think that would really be who I would say, yeah, this is the one. Like, are you ready to cry a little?
01:11:48
Nate Day
Right.
01:11:50
Chris
Are you ready to look at the unpleasant underbelly of reality?
01:11:58
Nate Day
Yeah. Yeah. I had a similar, i guess that's sort of what I was trying to get at too, is that like, i i don't know who to say I recommend this to, but, but it would be clear.
01:12:10
Nate Day
in the moment because it's, it's somebody has to, is going to have to present me with some very specific facts about what kind of stories they're interested in for me to be like, okay, buckle up.
01:12:17
Chris
Yes. Yes.
01:12:21
Nate Day
But
01:12:22
Chris
This is the one. Yep.
Naming and Character Analysis in 'Precious'
01:12:24
Nate Day
yeah.
01:12:24
Chris
Exactly.
01:12:25
Nate Day
Yeah.
01:12:26
Chris
Exactly. We've fallen into the old Supreme Court definition of porn argument.
01:12:31
Nate Day
What? oh you know it when you see it.
01:12:33
Chris
Famously in a case. Yeah.
01:12:36
Nate Day
Yeah. Obscenity. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
01:12:39
Chris
can't define it, but I know it when I see it. Yeah, I cannot define to you who I would recommend this book to, but I know I will.
01:12:41
Nate Day
Yeah.
01:12:45
Chris
And in that moment, I know it will be so jarringly clear, and I have no idea what that'll be.
01:12:49
Nate Day
Yeah. Yeah. I can't believe you saved that punch for the very end of the podcast. oh, I didn't really address why it was called precious instead of push.
01:13:00
Nate Day
I must not have written it down.
01:13:01
Chris
yeah
01:13:03
Nate Day
mostly because there was another movie in 2009 coming out called push.
01:13:08
Chris
Uh-huh.
01:13:08
Nate Day
But also anybody that's in marketing knows that push is a very difficult a word to build. I mean, SEO didn't exactly exist in those days, but you couldn't really look up push and and find it sort of like, you know, when HBO changed to Max, I was like, that's not going to work.
01:13:26
Chris
ahha
01:13:26
Nate Day
What do you do? Google Max? And guess what? They changed their name. So similar to to that, I guess. They wanted to make it.
01:13:35
Chris
Yeah, the exact same thing.
01:13:37
Nate Day
But actually, i think I alluded to this in the Rebecca episode. The technical name for the film, let me pull it up because don't want to get it wrong.
01:13:46
Nate Day
It's called Precious, colon based on the novel Push by Sapphire, is the full name of the movie.
01:13:53
Chris
Okay.
01:13:53
Nate Day
but more colloquially and famously known as Precious.
01:13:57
Chris
Yeah. but Of course.
01:14:00
Nate Day
But that'll do it for our conversation on Push by Sapphire and its film adaptation, Precious, based on the novel Push by Sapphire.
01:14:05
Chris
Oof, duh.
01:14:11
Nate Day
Chris?
01:14:11
Chris
It's so, it's actually, that's such a bummer too, because Push is such a, it's apparent during the text. I love when it's quite clear that the title was deliberate and intentional and yeah.
01:14:22
Nate Day
Yeah. i I did read a little bit about, I don't know, how did it come up Maybe in all of the research on why it was renamed, I read about what that title means, and I was like, damn.
01:14:23
Chris
Anyway, yeah.
01:14:33
Nate Day
You know, like, that's the story.
01:14:34
Chris
Yeah.
01:14:36
Nate Day
and and and And that's the title.
01:14:37
Chris
Yep.
01:14:37
Nate Day
But, pre I mean, Precious is obviously a great one, too, because she is the main character, but she is a precious character. You know, everything that she goes through, you just want to give her a big hug and and and cheer her on and
01:14:52
Chris
Especially when she alludes to it herself. Oh, I'm supposed to be precious, but I was not precious to these parents.
01:14:54
Nate Day
Yeah.
01:14:58
Chris
She says it at the meeting and just, I have friends now. Her friend buys her a hot chocolate. And she says, I've barely known these people at all, and they love me. My parents named me Precious, and they never could.
01:15:09
Chris
What's the deal? And I'm like, if that's not the most relatable part of this book for all of us.
01:15:17
Nate Day
Sure.
01:15:19
Chris
Yeah.
01:15:20
Nate Day
Heavy.
01:15:21
Chris
Yeah.
01:15:21
Nate Day
Good stuff, heavy stuff. Why don't you announce what we're doing next because I think you'll be excited.
01:15:28
Chris
Yes, I am excited. Sorry, I was reminiscing on what I literally just said. Sorry in case that was unclear. I love my parents and they love me. I'm saying finding your
Next Episode Preview
01:15:39
Chris
people and feeling connected is relatable.
01:15:40
Nate Day
Yeah.
01:15:42
Nate Day
Right, yes. and
01:15:44
Chris
Okay. Okay, up next.
01:15:48
Chris
we've got Minority Report by Philip K. Dick, adaptation directed by Steven Spielberg. And I believe a little guest for you in the mix.
01:15:57
Nate Day
Good. and That'll be a fun one. I know it's one of your favorites, so I'm excited to talk about it.
01:16:01
Chris
Love it. Love it.
01:16:03
Nate Day
Great. Well, thank you for joining us today. We look forward to next time. Have a good one.
01:16:09
Chris
Bye.