Cultural Consumption and Rejection of Precious Jones: Pushing Disability into the Discussion of Sapphire's Push and Lee Daniels's Precious

Abstract

Sapphire's novel Push (1996) and Lee Daniels's film Precious (2009) provide multiple and intersecting representations of race, gender, and class, which have been recognized and analyzed by film critics and academics. The representations of disability in the novel and film, however, have rarely been connected to these categories of identity (or oppression). Because disability—"obesity," Down syndrome, HIV—and culturally pathologized and disabling traits—illiteracy, poverty, abuse—are intricately woven into rhetorical discussions about the film, critical disability studies provides a crucial theoretical framework for analyzing the cultural consumption of Precious Jones. Resisting either a blanket celebration or dismissal of Precious , the article argues that the intense emotional reactions evoked by the film—from inspiration to repulsion—have much to say about the broader cultural tensions around reading disability within the registers of race, gender, and class dynamics. The article focuses on systemic, intersecting forces of oppression by placing into dialogue Daniels's film, Sapphire's novel, and the popular public discourse around the film. Central to this analysis is the figure of Precious Jones—embodied by actress Gabourey Sidibe—and the "problems" this figure elicits and reveals.

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