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Precious Movie Analysis

Decent Essays

In the movie Precious, a 16-year old girl named Claireece Jones also known as Precious is physically, sexually, and verbally abused by her parents. Precious has one child and is now pregnant with her second child which causes her to be kicked out of school. She transfers to an alternative school. Precious is illiterate; however, she learns to read, write, and to gain self-respect from her teacher at the alternative school. In the end, she becomes a woman, learning to stand up for herself and she raises two healthy children. There are three different types of abuse Precious faced from her parents. An example of how Precious mother physically abused would be when her mother would get out the chair and beat her daughter by throwing things at her, because she did something minor or nothing at all. Precious mother verbally abused her daughter by calling her “stupid, fat, and she will amount to nothing”. An example of how Precious father sexually abused her would be he raped ever since she was three years old, impregnated her with two children, and he also gave her HIV. The movie faced several biological and environmental issues in the family. One example of a biological issue faced in the movie would be when Precious was hungry, needed water, and sleep. She needed to have this because she was pregnant with her second child. In the movie, it shows Precious goes into a restaurant, to order some food, and runs out without paying. She stole the food because she was starving and her mom did not give her any money. An environmental issue would be Precious was from Harlem, New York. During that time, Harlem was a city in poverty, so she grew up with hardly any money. The income her mother got from her welfare check, she did not give Precious anything. I feel the parenting strategies used were behavioral parenting and social learning theory. Precious parents did not teach her anything, she basically had to learn and fend for herself. She learned different things from school or just walking the streets. The parenting style that was used the most was the authoritative style. The effect it had on Precious was that it made her feel sad and alone. Her mother yelled and abused her with anything she can get her hands on.

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