Saving Big Mike and Precious

I waited anxiously for two new films to reach Little Rock this past week: The Blind Side and Precious. Both did not disappoint. Though the Sandra Bullock movie was a bit flashier, both contained similar stories of two young people, Big Mike and Precious, who struggled to be successful in life. Both were the product of violent absentee fathers, single mothers in poverty, and ghetto influences with the temptation to do nothing. Yet both of these young people are successful by the end of the movies. What has made the difference for them but not for hundreds, or thousands, of others?

Once again the answer seems rooted in having an adult role model, or savior if you will, to care about these high risk students. In the Sandra Bullock film, Leigh Anne Touhy is the Anglo mother who takes the almost eighteen year old, Big Mike, into her upper class home. She becomes his legal guardian, pays for tutoring, and loves him unconditionally. The same happens for Precious who is a student in an alternative school in New York. Her teacher does this for her as well. By the conclusion of the movies, the viewer is hopeful that these students will be successful.

One of the articles in Newsweek regarding the film Precious lamented the fact that, for the one who might be saved from circumstances such as Precious and Big Mike found themselves in, many more were not saved. That should not be an excuse, however, in my opinion for failing to save just one if possible.