The Role Of Gender In The Film 'Precious'

One of the first scenes where the role of gender is evident is when we’re introduced to Precious in her classroom staring at her teacher, Mr. Wicher. Precious states that she “loves math” but mainly because of her teacher whom she lusts after. While staring at him, she says “I pretend he my husband, he like me too, I know it, he always lookin’ at me, smilin’”. We’re seeing how , like in many other films, the role of the young girl is to fall in love with her male teacher, all attention is on the older, authoritative male , and the young girls goal is to impress the male. Mr. Wicher is portrayed as a young handsome teacher.
Another interesting aspect of the film that deals with gender is Precious’s mother; Mary. Mary goes against all traditional values of a nurturing mother in a film. She’s abusive, intimidating, dependant of her daughter, she constantly tried to make her daughter feel low, she never shows any love or compassion towards her daughter, and she allows her husband, her daughter’s father, to sexually abuse and rape Precious whenever he wants. Mary is portrayed as an evil woman, allowing audiences to develop very hostile feeling towards her. She is portrayed so that an audience has no sympathy for her or for her own problems because of how awful she is to her daughter, viewers find it difficult to understand her, and find her lack of maternal instincts and lack of protection for Precious
Wicher is portrayed, the majority of the men in this film are portrayed negatively. From the first time we’re introduced to Precious’s father Carl, we are witnesses to him raping her. This scene creates a very uncomfortable and sickening feeling with an audience, how we see the loosening of his belt, his sweating, protruding stomach and Precious’s helplessness as she tries to escape. Carl is controlling and manipulative, he pins precious down and sexually abuses her, knowing Precious’s mother would not intervene because she’s