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I'm Stephen Metcalf, and this is the Slate CultureGabfest, cute versus evil edition.

This is also the daily podcast from slate.com for Wednesday, November 11, 2009.

On today's program, indie revelation or poverty porn, the newly Daniels film, Precious film precious Dana it has a longer and stranger

title than that doesn't it it's precious colon based on the novel by push well done julia

no based on the novel push by south of shoot okay right anyway um I knew between us we'd get it right

and 20 years since jubilation brought down the Berlin Wall.

And finally, the nauseating, exploitative menace known as cute. Joining me today, our Slate's deputy

editor, Julia Turner. Hello, Julia. Hi, Steve. And our film critic, of course, Dana Stevens.

Hey, Dana. Dana, I don't know if this is going to be a problem for our segment, but I saw Muppets take Manhattan by mistake, but I assume I can substitute that in for the experience of watching this film. They're very similar, I hear. But for those of our listeners who haven't seen the movie Precious, why don't you tell us a little bit what it's about and set up the...

Yeah, let's set it up really briefly. I mean, it's a movie that's really a flashpoint right now. It's dividing critical opinion very sharply. And I want to make sure we don't spoil too much of it because it's also a surprising box office hit. People have really flocked to it over the weekend. And a lot more people are seeing it, I think, than the producers hoped. So, Precise is the main character of this story.

She's a 16-year-old. people are seeing it, I think, then the producers hoped. So, Precious is the main character

of this story. She's a 16-year-old Harlem teenager. She is still an eighth grade. She's

illiterate. She's pregnant with her second child. She's dirt poor and on welfare lives with

her mother in what seems to be public housing. The woman who plays her is actually quite a bit older than the character. She's in her early 20s, I believe, and her name's Gabri Cidabee. It's her first major role, and possibly her first role in a movie ever. And she's getting a lot of, I think, deserved plaudits for her performance. I mean, no one can sort of deny that the two women that drive this movie are kind of acting powerhouses. And the woman who

plays her mother, her, I think, overdrawn and really horrible mother is the stand-up comedian Monique.

Anything else we need to mention without spoiling? I would only add that the lead character is obese

and is meant to be physically imposing and unattractive. I mean, she's meant to be

at the bottom of every conceivable social index. Yeah, that's important for our discussion,

as well as the fact that she's very dark-skinned, right? Even darker skinned than her mother. And that

comes up several times in the movie as well, because in these fantasies she has that are interposed

...