Why Gabourey Sidibe’s Blue Oscars Gown Was so Controversial
Despite Hollywood’s reluctance to accept her, the ‘Precious’ star still marched triumphantly down the red carpet
It’s like she wakes up and checks her calendar, and says, ‘Gee! The Golden Globes are this weekend. I wanna wear…YELLOW!’ And somehow a yellow dress shows up, and come that weekend, she’s on the carpet in a yellow dress thinking, Fuck yeah! YELLOW! while somewhere in the background I’m sweating with one heel in my hand, trying to find my seat, and hoping that my dress photographed well so that those bitches on Fashion Police don’t talk shit about me.
The first profiles written about Gabourey Sidibe were all pretty much centered around one thing: The twentysomething from Harlem was not actually the abused teenager she played in the movie that made her famous. A New York Times story from 2007 — two years before Precious, based on the novel Push by Sapphire, would hit theaters and garner Sidibe her Oscar nomination — flat-out said it: “Desk-job ambitions or not, Gabourey Sidibe is not Precious; she is a natural performer.” A Guardian piece took it even further, opening, “Just for the record, Gabby Sidibe is not a functionally illiterate high-school girl.” It seemed like no matter how often it was written, people refused to believe it.
