Precious: Movie Analysis

The imposition of the conditions of worth reinforces the conditional environment Precious is in because she is unable to maintain any self-esteem. Since Precious lives in a dysfunctional social setting, she has internalised the favourable norms of society, which is to be thin, have light skin and long hair. Thus, Precious desires to be someone she is not (Taylor, 2000). Moreover, Precious acknowledges the power of being white and that whiteness represents a privilege and blackness a burden. Essentially, Precious has perceived her self-concept as incongruent that does not correspond with who she really is. Incongruences foster a mental state of rigidity, and internal misperceptions where experiences are deemed unsatisfying (Weiten, 2015). Furthermore, Precious continuously weighs herself with a warped understanding of her experiences that do not correspond to her actualising tendency (Nelson-Jones, 2000). Thus, Rogers would have claimed that Precious’ organismic valuing

Carl Rogers Person-Centered Theory that aims for an individual’s own enhancement was applied to this film. As a result, Precious in the beginning falls into an incongruent reality where she had warped her actual experiences creating a fake-self. Thus, Precious’s organismic valuing process no longer determined her experiences in accordance with the actualising tendency because she was not making decisions that were best for her. However, her attendance at the alternative school initiated a turning point where Precious begins to regard her reality congruent with her experiences. As a result, Precious starts to view her real self-concept and finds confidence in herself reducing her anxieties. Thus, Precious’ actualising tendency enhances throughout the movie and creates a sense of freedom and autonomy for her to live a better