History Literature / Push

* AluminumChristmasTrees: [[spoiler:While being diagnosed as HIV+ is still a serious matter today, during the movie's late-1980's setting it was considered a death sentence. Mostly, because it was, as there weren't too many effective treatments for it at the time. It was also mistakenly considered to affect mostly gays.]]

A [[Literature/TheKid sequel to the book]] was published in 2011, called ''[[http://www.avclub.com/review/sapphireem-the-kidem-58831 The Kid]]'', about Precious' son Abdul. The book received mixed reviews.

* DarkIsNotEvil: Rita Romero, one of Precious' classmates and friends at Each One, Teach One. Despite her dark clothing and somber and sedate personality (especially compared to the other girls in the class), she's actually one of the most insightful, mature and friendly of the students there.

* DeusAngstMachina: Just when you think it couldn't get worse for Precious, [[spoiler:it's learned that her father died of AIDS, meaning she's now HIV-positive. A bright spot, however, is that both her children are HIV-negative]].
* EarnYourHappyEnding: [[spoiler:Despite contracting HIV from her father, Precious manages to dig herself out of the hell of her past life. She is reading at a near high school level by the end, has new friends, severs all ties with her mother, is in possession of both her children, and has gained a new lease on life. Her next move is to complete a GED test, which will allow her to graduate high school. The sequel reveals that while she ultimately succumbed to AIDS, she managed to make it to college before she passed away.]]

* DarkIsNotEvil: Rita Romero, one of Precious' classmates and friends at Each One, Teach One. Despite her dark clothing and somber and sedate personality (especially compared to the other girls in the class), she's actually one of the most insightful, mature and friendliest of the students there.

** The nurse actually does call the police after finding out about Precious' father being the father of her baby, and at least in the movie this is how Precious "made him leave", according to her mother. It's an especially ugly manifestation of this trope when the police are called in to handle a twelve-year-old incest victim who just gave birth and their response is to do absolutely nothing. Even social services is only involved for ''Mary's'' sake.

Clareece Jones, aka "Precious," is an obese, illiterate African-American teenager living in Harlem with her parents. As the story opens, Clareece is pregnant with her second child (both the child she has and the child she's pregnant with are products of rape by her father, Carl). Her relationship with her mother Mary, meanwhile, is even worse (mostly physical and verbal abuse, but there is some implications of sexual abuse as well). But things start to look up when she's transferred to a GED program. There, she makes friends with a kind social worker, Mrs. Weiss; a teacher named Ms. Rain; and a few students.

* WhoNamesTheirKidDude: Lil Mongo, Precious's first daughter. Yes, they named her "Mongoloid".

* AmbiguousEnding: The book ends on the note that Precious[[spoiler: , despite her diagnosis and the things she's gone through, starts to make something of her life, but we don't know what her future is like.]] We find out in ''The Kid'', [[spoiler: she passed away of AIDS but, before she passed away, she did attend college.]]
%%* AuthorAvatar: Ms. Rain

* EarnYourHappyEnding: [[spoiler:Despite contracting HIV from her father, Precious manages to dig herself out of the hell of her past life. She is reading at a near high school level by the end, has new friends, severs all ties with her mother, is in possession of both her children, and has gained a new lease on life. Her next move is to complete a GED test, which will allow her to graduate high school. As of her death at the beginning of the sequel, 10 years later, she makes it to college, too.]]

* AluminumChristmasTrees: [[spoiler:While being diagnosed as HIV+ is still a serious matter today, during the movie's late-1980's setting it was considered a death sentence. Mostly, because it was. It was also mistakenly considered to affect only gays.]]

%%* BreakTheCutie

* {{Determinator}}: Precious. "I cried the other day. I felt stupid. But you know what? ''Fuck'' that day. That's why God, or whoever, makes ''new'' days."

* MiddleNameBasis: "Precious" is the main character's middle name. Her given name is Clareece.

* WhoNamesTheirKidDude: Lil Mongo, Precious's first daughter. Yes, they name her mongoloid.

%%* SaveOurStudents

%% ZeroContextExample entries are not allowed on wiki pages. All such entries have been commented out. Add context to the entries before uncommenting them.

[[quoteright:300:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/push_by_sapphire.jpg]]

A 1996 novel by Sapphire, ''Push'' earned numerous accolades before coming to the screen in 2009 as ''Precious: [[InCaseYouForgotWhoWroteIt Based on the novel "Push" by Sapphire]]'', directed by Lee Daniels and starring Creator/GaboureySidibe as Precious.

The movie version, ''Precious: Based on the novel "Push" by Sapphire"'' was nominated for 3 Golden Globes, winning one (Best Supporting Actress for Mo'Nique) and 6 Oscars, winning 2, (Best Supporting Actress for Mo'Nique and Best Writing for Geoffrey Fletcher, also marking the first time an African-American has won that award solo.)

!The novel and film feature examples of:

* AbusiveParents: Precious's father has repeatedly raped her, and her mother has gone as far as to, among other acts, [[spoiler:toss a TV at her after falling down the steps with her son, Abdul. She also forces Precious to have sex with her -- which is explicit in the novel and implied in the movie.]]
* AdaptationalPersonalityChange: Subverted. Mary is still a raging {{jerkass}} in the film, but the film doesn't show the scenes in which she sexually abuses her daughter.

** In the book, it's not a secret that Precious is pregnant by her father at twelve or that her mother beats her; when she gives birth the first time, Precious tells the nurse filling out the birth certificate that she and her baby have the same father, but the nurse's only reaction is to tsk-tsk her over being pregnant so young and ''all'' of the adults in Precious' life (including her grandmother, neighbor, and elementary school teachers) utterly fail to intervene, and the social worker employed to check on Little Mongo falls for Mary's scam hook, line, and sinker. She doesn't find any kind of help until she's well into her teens.

* AmbiguouslyBrown: There's a scene where Precious and Miss Weiss are talking, and Precious can't tell what ethnicity she is, and asks if she's "Italian, or black, or some type of Spanish." In the book, Ms. Weiss is white and Precious does not fully trust her.
* AscendedExtra: The young actress who plays Ruby (the little girl in Precious' building) started out as an extra.

* BeautyInversion: Despite efforts to make the actresses more homely, [[AdaptationalAttractiveness the actors are much better looking than the characters as described in the book.]]
** Creator/MariahCarey as Precious' social worker is almost unrecognizable.
** Gabourey Sidibe is made to look larger using unflattering clothes and hairstyles along with a menacing, surly glower.
** Sherri Shepard as the receptionist at the alternative school. She has braids and is also almost unrecognizable, but not nearly as much as Mariah Carey.
** Mo'Nique plays Mary, who is morbidly obese to the point of not being able to fit in the bathtub; the scenes in the movie where Mary forces Precious to overeat actually [[TropesAreNotBad serve her characterization just as well]], if not better, than the book, because of Mo'Nique and Gabourey Sidibe's respective builds.
* BerserkButton: Calling Precious fat (in the film at least). One of her classmates learned the hard way.

* BullyHunter: In the book, Precious herself; she takes it upon herself to be a one-woman police force on behalf of her math teacher and keeps other rowdy kids in line. Despite her lashing out to cover her insecurities about being illiterate, they do seem to appreciate each other, and it's implied that this is how the school first noticed her aptitude for math.
* ButNotTooBlack:
** The saintly and fair-skinned Ms. Rain rescues poor, black-as-ebony Precious from a life of misery and woe. In the novel, however, Ms. Rain was actually darker skinned with somewhat messy dredlocks.
** In the book, Precious has a poster of Louis Farrakhan on her bedroom wall, and speaks about his sermons on self-respect. In the film, she has only white film stars on her wall. It's to emphasize her poor self-image (and how she believes that white people have it better than she does), but still. Precious also explicitly states that among her many dreams is to have a light-skinned boyfriend.

* DesignStudentsOrgasm: The poster, seen above. [[http://www.impawards.com/2009/precious_ver2.html This one's]] less Hitchcock-y. [[http://www.impawards.com/2009/precious_ver6.html This one]] tells the whole story.

* EarnYourHappyEnding: [[spoiler:Despite contracting HIV from her father, Precious manages to dig herself out of the hell of her past life. She is reading at a near high school level by the end of the film, has new friends, severs all ties with her mother, is in possession of both her children, and has gained a new lease on life. Her next move as the film ends is to complete a GED test, which will allow her to graduate high school. As of her death at the beginning of the sequel, 10 years later, she makes it to college, too.]]
* FatBastard: In the novel, Precious notes that Mary is literally too obese to bathe; she can't fit in the tub anymore. In both versions she forces Precious to overeat as part of her abuse pattern. [[spoiler: In the novel, Mary molests her when eating so much makes her fall asleep in front of the TV.]]
* FreudianExcuse:
** The reason for Precious's antagonistic relationship with her mother was [[{{Squick}} her mom being jealous that her husband would rather have sex with his daughter than with her]]. In her mother's eyes, Precious was stealing him away from her.
-->But, those... those things she told you I did to her? Who... who... who else was going to love me? WHO else was going to touch me? WHO else was going to make me feel good?
** In the novel, Mary doesn't have one, and the scene with Ms. Weiss is pretty different. She does hate Precious for taking Carl's attention away from her, but [[spoiler: she had been sexually abusing Precious ''with'' him since the first time he attempted to rape her when she was three years old. Precious recounts that her first memory was of both parents molesting her in their kitchen.]]
* HopeSpot: In the novel, after reading ''The Color Purple'', it dawns on Precious that it's possible that Carl might not actually be her biological father. [[spoiler: He is, but the sheer magnitude of her mother's ignorance on the subject completely eclipses anything else about it, and Precious moves on without giving the idea any further thought.]]

* InternalizedCategorism: Precious' internalized racism is ''painful'', particularly in the novel, where she muses that no one can tell she's like a white girl on the inside because she views whiteness as inherently good and valued. It's not until the end of the book that she develops a more positive view of herself, especially after [[spoiler: she attends a support group for incest survivors, and meets women of all ages, shapes and colors who have faced abuse similar to what she suffered.]]
* LoveMakesYouEvil: And dumb, and crazy, but not in the way those tropes suggest. Mary has been in love with Carl since she was sixteen, and thinks he can do no wrong, despite his raping of Precious since she was a toddler and having a wife and children on the side [[spoiler: and spreading AIDS.]] In the book, she happily tells Ms. Weiss how much she loved him even while he was raping their daughter while the three of them were in bed together, and it's implied that [[spoiler: Mary started sexually abusing Precious with him to keep his attention.]]

* NotIfTheyEnjoyedItRationalization:
** Mary's thoughts on Precious, particularly in the movie, where she explicitly blames Precious for everything Carl did because she didn't fight him off.
** Much worse in the book, when Precious orgasms while her father is molesting her, and he runs off laughing about how much she's into it.
%%* OohMeAccentsSlipping
* OneMarioLimit: For the film, as applied to titles. There was another 2009 film (an ActionMovie) titled ''Film/{{Push}}'', so whether the...erm...unique title of the film was planned ahead of time or not, it helped avoid confusion (one doubts that there's much overlap between the two films' audiences). They did however go a bit overboard calling it 'Precious (Base On Nol By Saf) (Based On The Novel 'Push' By Sapphire)' (mimicking the way Precious writes when she is first learning how to). When the movie tie-in edition of ''Push'' was released, the cover read "Push: A Novel by Sapphire. Now a Major Motion Picture 'Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" By Sapphire'" to the confusion of readers and booksellers alike.
%%* OscarBait: The film version.

* SoundtrackDissonance: In a few places. The movie has REALLY surreal moments. The most bizarre might be the scene where Precious and her mother fight, accompanied by a gospel Christmas song.
* TeenPregnancy: Twice, in fact Precious' first pregnancy is almost a preteen pregnancy. In the book, it ''is'' a preteen pregnancy; Little Mongo is born when Precious is 12.
* TheMistress: Mary, in the book. She calls him her husband, but Carl has a wife and two other children of his own. It's not clear whether they know about Mary or Precious, but Mary doesn't seem to care or count it as any kind of infidelity, despite how she feels about Precious [[spoiler: "stealing" Carl away when he rapes her.]]

* TooDumbToLive: Implied with Mary in the book. Precious tells her to get tested after finding out that [[spoiler: Carl died of AIDS; Mary responds that since she and Carl never had anal sex, she couldn't have HIV.]] While that attitude was pretty typical of the time, even Precious, illiterate and with a limited education, knows how amazingly ignorant it is. What's even more important, at the time there was virtually no [[spoiler: treatment for AIDS]] anyway.
* VomitIndiscretionShot: Precious in the movie.

* FreudianExcuse: The reason for Precious's antagonistic relationship with her mother was [[{{Squick}} her mom being jealous that her husband would rather have sex with his daughter than with her]]. In her mother's eyes, Precious was stealing him away from her.

%%* InnerCitySchool

* NotIfTheyEnjoyedItRationalization: Mary's thoughts on Precious, particularly in the movie, where she explicitly blames Precious for everything Carl did because she didn't fight him off.

* TheUnfairSex: Precious's mom is just as bad (if not worse) than her father in terms of how she treats her daughter. [[spoiler: Of course, we don't get a scene of her father being confronted or confessing in tears that he was also abused, either.]]

* TooDumbToLive: Implied with Mary in the book. Precious tells her to get tested after finding out that [[spoiler: Carl died of AIDS; Mary responds that since she and Carl never had anal sex, she couldn't have HIV.]] While that attitude was pretty typical of the time, even Precious, illiterate and with a limited education, knows how amazingly ignorant it is.
** What's even more important, at the time there was virtually no [[spoiler: treatment for AIDS]] anyway.

A 1996 novel by Sapphire, ''Push'' earned numerous accolades before coming to the screen in 2009 as ''Precious: [[InCaseYouForgotWhoWroteIt Based on the novel "Push" by Sapphire]]'', starring Creator/GaboureySidibe as Precious.

[[quoteright:050:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/push_by_sapphire.jpg]]

[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/push_by_sapphire.jpg]]

A 1996 novel by Sapphire. ''Push'' earned numerous accolades before coming to the screen in 2009 as ''Precious: [[InCaseYouForgotWhoWroteIt Based on the novel "Push" by Sapphire]]'', starring Creator/GaboureySidibe as Precious.

* TheEighties: The novel is set in 1987.