Harlem homage

Yesterday I went to see Precious, which I had thought I’d need several boxes of tissues to get through. It turned out not to be such a tearjerker, although the subject matter (black, obese, impoverished teenage girl in Harlem, pregnant with her second child by her father and abused by her mother, struggles to learn to read and get out of her situation) certainly is not something to giggle about. That, combined with the film’s setting of 1987 Harlem meant that I certainly did not expect to be coming away from it with many styling tips as I’m not really into the whole hip hop scene (which I think Harlem is about? I know NOTHING about Harlem!). But some of the girls in Precious’ ‘alternative school’ had some really mean style. I couldn’t find many shots of Xosha Roquemore, who plays Joann, but she has some crazy huge glasses and also wears leather pants which somehow look really NOW in one scene, and a twinset sort of thing in a scene where she’s visiting Precious in hospital… this is the only close up shot I could find, it’s not the best but at least you can see the glasses, which I am coveting, even though I doubt I’d have the attitude or hair necessary to pull them off. This shot is from DrJays.com .. hope it’s OK for me to use it (am really confused about whether it’s OK to use pics from other sites, but everyone else seems to do it!) .. looks like Xosha could be one to watch for styling tips…

Also, if I could have any accent in the world, it would have to be Jamaican… another of Precious’ classmates Rhonda (Chyna Layne) really rocks!! If I could work out how to do it I would have a sound gadgetty thing playing her explanation of what ‘unrelenting’ means… I could just listen to that and admire her Josephine Baker hairdo all day.
Which reminds me, I also loved the character of Tia Dalma in Pirates of the Caribbean for the same reason – that insanely cool accent and turn of phrase. Plus, she has an excellent house in a scary river that is full of second hand crap (although the animal bones etc aren’t really so appealing). Even if I somehow managed to learn (?) to speak Jamaican English though, it wouldn’t exactly work unless I also got the killer dreads and serious confidence thing happening.