When I was growing up in Texas in the '60s and '70s, there was a lot of talk about colors applied to black women, be it lipstick, eye shadow, rouge, or even the color of clothing they wore . It was often felt that darker-skinned black women had no business wearing really red lipstick, for example. Now, if the sole objection were that many black people already have naturally pink or brown lips, that'd be one thing. My wife, for example, has a beautiful tone to her lips that is a mix of slight pink and soft brown. She doesn't need lipstick, just like many sisters. But she chooses to wear it, in shades from red to brown,a nd I'm cool with that. But the context was usually that the red lipstick looked bad against really dark skin. Of course, lighter skinned sister got more of a pass.
Clothing was a big thing too. I remember some of my aunts and older cousins saying things such as "I can't believe she's wearing that loud orange dress as black as she is!". It seemed that any bright colors--reds, oranges, yellows, etc--were verboten for dark skinned people. There were often comments about our kin from Africa who'd wear such loud clothing, and how it didn't look good on them. When I moved here to Atlanta, my wife and I attended a Caribbean parade. Talk about a breath of fresh air! I had never seen so many colors on so many people of so many hues, especially dark. Now, I had of course seen blacks dress in vivid colors all my life, such as high school bands, people in church, etc. But the number and variety in that parade was a whole new level. It helped me shake off the last vestiges of even entertaining that bright colors are only for "bright" people. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mr. Worf" <hellomahog...@gmail.com> To: scifinoir2@yahoogroups.com Sent: Monday, November 23, 2009 6:26:47 AM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern Subject: Re: [scifinoir2] Skin Color Prejudice in "Precious" Casting? I think that some areas were a little more "skin sensitive" than others but I do remember some of the controversy back then. Especially when Prince, the Debarges were big. On a side topic, there was a post that I read a few months ago that asked the question should black women wear lipstick. The author of the post believed that dark skinned black women should never wear lipstick. There were some other weirdness mixed into it that sounded a lot like pseudo-religious mess, but I thought that it was interesting. On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 3:12 AM, Daryle Lockhart < dar...@darylelockhart.com > wrote: Sadly, his casting of lighter actors works because of the time the film is set in. I remember New York in the 80s very well. We don't like to discuss this, but we were a pretty color struck society then. The popular actors and singers at the time were light. It's one of the reasons Spike Lee's School Daze worked. I have problems with the film but they are technical. I didn't like the way it was edited, for example. Also, some of the symbolism was a little heavy handed. But overall this movie's success is what indie film needed. Daryle Lockhart On Nov 23, 2009, at 2:41 AM, "Mr. Worf" < hellomahog...@gmail.com > wrote: I'm bothered that the director didn't change his or her perception of fat people until he made the film. He's no spring chicken. I think that the light skinned vs dark skinned thing is still going on but it is a lot more subtle. Hollywood still prefers the light skinned blacks as the good guy character. On Sun, Nov 22, 2009 at 5:02 PM, Keith Johnson < KeithBJohnson@ comcast.net > wrote: "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". --Lee Daniels, director of "Precious". *************************************************************** I will drop a review of "Precious" in the next couple of days. Short answer: I loved the film, though it's difficult to watch at times ( i will say, due to all the hype, it's not as bad as I'd expected, since I was prepared for a lot more graphic abuse depicted). One thing that does bother me about the film, now that I've heard it mentioned, is that the good people in it are all light-skinned. Indeed, Paula Patton, Lenny Kravitz, and Mariah Carey are all biracial. The "bad" people are all dark skinned. It's interesting that director Lee Daniels admits he's had some issues on the color line, as noted in the article below. Interesting discussion on skin colour, that's unfortunately still relevant today, and interesting that in a film meant to explore the issues we all have, some of the creative work behind it reveals some of the same problems. ***************************************************************** http://racerelation s.about.com/b/2009/11/08/what-precious-means-for-race-relations.htm What "Precious" Means for Race Relations Sunday November 8, 2009 The film " Precious " premiered in select cities Nov. 6, and reviews are pouring in about the movie with a Harlem teen whose life transforms through education. To say that the circumstances of Precious Jones' life are bleak would be an understatement. Precious is illiterate, living with HIV and has been victimized by her parents in numerous ways, including sexually. Her father has twice impregnated her, and one child she's borne by him suffers from Down syndrome . "Precious" tackles an array of issues. Because the protagonist is black, however, both the media and the public have raised questions about its effect on race relations. I've summed up two major questions about the film below: Why do white audiences eat up black films and novels that depict dysfunction, poverty and abuse? Why are the villains in "Precious" dark-skinned and the heroes light-skinned? "Precious" is based on the novel Push by Sapphire. Both the film and the book have been compared to Alice Walker's The Color Purple and Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye in that they, too, garnered praise from white critics and featured emotional and sexual abuse of black youth by family members. The fact that these works feature abuse isn't in and of itself a problem. The problem is how the mainstream receives these works. I have no problem if viewers and critics regard "Precious" et al. as representations of particular black families. On the other hand, I do object to viewers and critics who regard a film like "Precious" as the only authentic black experience and a television program such as " The Cosby Show " as inauthentic. The fact is both of these slices of black life are authentic. I do understand, though, why some members of the black community have criticized "Precious." Positive images of blacks in the media remain few and far between. In comedies, blacks are portrayed as buffoonish, cartoonish and uncouth. Films such as " Norbit ," " Doctor Dolittle " and " Big Momma's House ," not to mention any Tyler Perry flick, mock black womanhood. And on the dramatic end, we've had stories of gang warfare, virulent racism and abusive or absentee parents. There's no doubt in my mind that media portrayals of people of color can lead to racial stereotyping. I'm reminded of a former classmate from a Mexican-American family from East L.A. Her roommate freshman year was a Midwesterner who, upon seeing the gang film " Mi Vida Loca ," said that she didn't realize my classmate had lived such a hard life. My friend laughed and told her that she had little in common with the "Mi Vida Loca" characters. In the case of "Precious," critics not only fear that the film will lead to racial stereotyping but that it constitutes "poverty porn." This refers to films that cater to privileged moviegoers who get off on taking in images of poor people in desperate situations. After watching such cinema, the privileged feel like better people just for having seen the film but do nothing to make change in the world they've witnessed on screen. In a New York Times Magazine interview , director Lee Daniels confessed that he worried about screening "Precious" for a European audience. "To be honest, I was embarrassed to show this movie at Cannes," he said. "I didn't want to exploit black people. And I wasn't sure I wanted white French people to see our world." He added, however, that because the world now has a black role model in Barack Obama , a story such as "Precious" can be shared without fear of racial backlash. I don't agree with this, considering that Obama is likely viewed by those in the U.S. and outside of it as the exception rather than the rule as far as African Americans go. I was also eager to hear Daniels discuss how he feels about exposing audiences to the thread of " colorism " that runs through "Precious." While the evil characters in the film are dark-skinned, the benevolent characters are played by actors so light-skinned they're not easily identifiable as black. "I'm prejudiced against people who are darker than me," Daniels remarked in New York Times Magazine . "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." I'm glad that Lee's prejudice dissipated during the course of making "Precious," but that doesn't change the harmful message sent by the colorism in his film. In the book "Precious" is based on, a dark-skinned teacher with natural hair changes Precious' perceptions of dark skin from negative to positive. This powerful transformation is lacking in the film because a fair-skinned actress was cast to play Precious' teacher. If Daniels really did become less prejudiced about size and color while making "Precious," hopefully his next project will feature dark-skinned blacks of strong character rather than violent, exploitative brutes with dark skin. -- Bringing diversity to perversity for over 9 years! Mahogany at: http://groups . yahoo.com/ group/mahogany_pleasures_of_darkness/ -- Bringing diversity to perversity for over 9 years! Mahogany at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/mahogany_pleasures_of_darkness/
