WARNING: This Article May Contain Spoilers
This probably is the most apt time of the year to write an article about Mariah Carey seeing as she is considered by most people as the Queen of Christmas. Notice how I said most people, because if I’m completely honest – I’m rather bored of the song. Anyway, we’re not here to talk about her singing just her acting.
The Butler
Based upon the true accounts of Eugene Allen, this film traces the life of Cecil Gaines from a young age through a 34-year career as butler to different American Presidents. Carey features in this film as Hattie, Cecil’s mother, who is a sharecropper. I’ll be honest, before I did any research I was sceptical about her casting but it seems that two thirds of sharecroppers were white. Doesn’t mean that I don’t have questions about the skin tone they’ve given her as a Mulatto woman, considering based on the definition of the word she is Mulatto already. Maybe it was the dirt of working in the fields that made it look so strange. We don’t see her much in the film and amazingly she never actually speaks! You could put that down to the fact that her first introduction is being taken off by the landowner to be raped and the trauma of that, and losing her husband, had struck her dumb but she doesn’t speak before that either! Since the film moves through the decades so quickly, this is the only time that we see Mariah’s character of Hattie so I guess there’s not much more I can say about her other than the fact that she plays the quiet game really well!
Precious
Much like the above, this is another ancillary role for Mariah, but I would say that she is more pivotal to the plot than just appearing for a couple of moments at the very beginning. This film centres around the heartbreaking story of Clareece ‘Precious’ Jones and her two pregnancies at the hands of her father. The hardest part about this whole film isn’t the sexual abuse that Precious suffered from her father or the physical and verbal abuse inflicted by her mother since. It’s the way her mother blames her daughter for her boyfriend leaving claiming she stole her man when Precious didn’t ask for anything that had happened to her. Carey plays Precious’ social worker Ms Weiss, a character that Mariah herself described as being unlikeable but I disagree. Yes, she comes across as abrupt and rough at first but she is only pushing Precious to open up about her home life. Her role is still pretty small, only a few of scenes, because of course the focus is on Precious and her mother but she’s pivotal because Precious opens up to her about the sexual abuse from her father, albeit by accident. She is also one of two people who believed in Precious along with Ms Rain.
WiseGirls
I was fooled by the introduction image for this film. With Mariah being front and centre, I was lulled in to believing she would be the lead character but turns out this was not the case. Having said that it is probably the largest role she has in this whole article. We’re introduced to her character of Raychel about 10 minutes in and I guess the best way to describe her is that she comes across as your typical Boston girl – that you see in TV shows and films I mean. You can tell straight away that she definitely not the same shy character as Meg by the way she handles the customer that slaps her butt. Because of her “taking no crap” attitude, people actually listen to Raychel in the restaurant. She also seems to be the only one of the three lead females who truly knows what’s going on. As the film continues, Meg’s friendship with Raychel brings out her confidence but also provides her first unknowing step into the seedy underworld that the restaurant is involved in. Outside of that, there really isn’t much more to her character in the grand scheme of things.
Honorary Mentions
I was expecting to have more to say here but it seems that outside of The Bachelor and Tennessee, these are the only three films that she has made where she doesn’t sing and it isn’t just a voice role. There’s been TV appearances here and there like Candy Cushpin in Ally McBeal and Kitty in Empire but very little else
