Netflix's Cuties

[Varysblackfyre321]

 

This video by every possible angle seems like a bad idea to stream, and if Netflix was wise the trailer for it should be taken down and any plans to actually premier it canceled.

The general premise of the story doesn't seem bad.

Young Muslim girl tries to fit in French society where the girls/women are much more liberated.

Nice. Didn't need the twerking aspect.

Kinda defeats any social-commentry one could have about media tends to commodify girls as objects to be lusted after, and how that could negatively impact girls in real society.

[Heartofice]

11 year olds twerking.. as a story of liberation.. who the hell signed off on that one?

[Varysblackfyre321]

5 hours ago, Heartofice said:

11 year olds twerking.. as a story of liberation.. who the hell signed off on that one?

It’s bad.

It is really a perfect encapsulation of the exploitative practices and trends young girls fall prey to which the film’s creators said was supposed to be indicted on screen.

It's a shame to see used as irrefutable proof of why it was bad to stop being dicks to gays, or Qanon.

[Ghostlydragon]

I watched the trailer. This is awful. The story could work if the girls were teenagers and the actors were even older but this is really messed up. 11 is way too young.

[Week]

https://www.vulture.com/article/movie-review-netflixs-cuties-a-moving-coming-of-age-drama.html

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French-Senegalese director Maïmouna Doucouré’s touching, observant coming-of-age drama Cuties, about an 11-year-old Muslim girl who joins an all-girl dance group. The film, which won an award at Sundance earlier this year and was picked up for distribution by Netflix, recently found itself at the center of controversy when a poster seemed to sexualize its very young characters, featuring them in tight clothes and weirdly suggestive poses. (The ad was a new one, apparently created by Netflix, who promptly removed the image — albeit after the damage was done.) The movie was condemned sight unseen by many online, even as those who’d actually viewed the film insisted that it was in no way exploitative. Since then, perhaps unsurprisingly, the anti-Cuties cause has also been embraced by various trolls and conspiracy nuts; I’ve heard from a couple of defenders of the film that they’ve been targeted for harassment.

Even so, on the surface, you’d think that this controversy might prove to the picture’s ultimate benefit, turning it from a foreign-language obscurity (the kind of movie that tends to get lost on Netflix) to a must-see flash point. And Cuties certainly deserves to be seen. But it’s also a delicate work that strikes a very careful balance in its portrait of the world, and that balance is upset if a viewer is more worried about social propriety than the truth of lived experience.

Huh. 

[Ghostlydragon]

Now this has been released, has anyone seen It?

[Ran]

13 hours ago, Ghostlydragon said:

Now this has been released, has anyone seen It?

I've watched it thanks to the controversy. It's sensitive and affecting. It's complicated. It's about the empowerment of young girls while it's also about the dangers about what that can mean in the world we live in now, where the message about what empowerment means swings wildly between overtly sexualized imagery (think about the celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton whose claims to fame include, among other things, sex tapes, or the recent phenomenon of OnlyFans) and judgmental, patrionizing efforts to encourage "modesty" and conformity. 

It's a particular combination of Anglo-American pedophilia hysterics combined with a lack of sophsticated discernment that causes this controversy. This film very much merits the positive critical reception, such as the Vulture review linked above. Anyone with a modicum of intelligence who looks at the film as a whole artistic work rather than focuses on single scenes taken out of context will understand that the film is concretizing the complicated extremes of the world girls and young women live in today. Netflix screwed up with that poster, absolutely, but the film itself is nothing like what the poster might intimate. These 11-12 year old actresses are twerking, yes, but the film underscores that they very clearly have no real understanding of sexuality, that it's all mimicry and going through the motions in an awkward simulation of being "sexy" becuse that's what they're bombarded with on TikTok and Instagram and whatever else they're looking at. 

(Decided to watch it after a top thread on Reddit featured a recently-popular Youtuber named Wubby going on about the film negatively. This is the same guy who let his Patreon sponsors get him to drive around in a vinyl-wrapped car  featuring  hypersexualized anime "waifu" characters in lewd poses. The video of his getting the car wrapped was actually kind of funny in an absurd way, but it is really rich of him, of all people, to be the banner-bearer for Reddit dullard outrage about a movie they haven't seen and don't understand. I suspect there's a strong congruence between people outraged about this online and incel culture.)

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

Couldn't agree with Ran more, it kinda reminded me of Kids (1995) while that movie goes further in its depictions of prepubescents discovering' sexuality, in both these films the kids clearly dont completely understand just what theyre signing up for. You also understand that for them , indulging in those activities is also a way of liberating themselves from the shit fest at home. This was a really good film, not a hint of any exploitative vibe.

Got a  'little miss sunshine' vibe from this as well, although i gotta say the girls in this one are far more ruthless and the movie as a whole much more gritty and realistic.

[kairparavel]

I haven't seen it but my readings reminded me of Thirteen. It was a Sundance darling and also received some pushback on drug use and sexual behavior. But it was made by and depicted white girls in the US so you know, totally ok. 

Anyways, the country that brought the world Dance Moms and Toddlers and Tiaras can get way the fuck over itself. The Venn diagram of people supporting six year olds in skimpy sequins and spandex, loaded up on eye shadow and lipstick and also up in arms in about this movie is very much a giant circle. 

[Zorral]

https://slate.com/culture/2020/09/netflix-cuties-controversy-explained-why-conservatives-are-obsessed-with-the-movie.html

 

[Ghostlydragon]

11 hours ago, Zorral said:

https://slate.com/culture/2020/09/netflix-cuties-controversy-explained-why-conservatives-are-obsessed-with-the-movie.html

 

This isn't an American production. Why do people have to bring politics into it?

And this should never have been a fictional film. If they are trying to spread a message about what things young girls can do nowadays, this should have been a documentary.

[Ran]

5 minutes ago, Ghostlydragon said:

This isn't an American production. Why do people have to bring politics into it?

Everything is political. The choice to "not bring politics into it" is a political choice.

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If they are trying to spread a message about what things young girls can do nowadays, this should have been a documentary.

You can watch the popular, aforementioned Dance Moms and Toddlers and Tiaras but you'll find that the message they send is not the message you're thinking of. This piece of fiction has done more to make people think about modern society and the place of young girls in it than the combined 17 seasons of those two shows. Because it's art, and it's well-told, and it's challenging.

[Vaughn]

On 9/11/2020 at 4:42 PM, Ghostlydragon said:

Now this has been released, has anyone seen It?

No, they just reposted canned right-wing talking points, slagged the creators without watching the movie and moved on. Neat stuff, this culture war.

[Melifeather]

I agree with Ran also, and came here specifically to locate people that have not only watched the film, but are intelligent enough to discern presentation from promotion. If you haven't seen the film then you are basing your opinion on a poster. This film does not exploit children, but it will shock and disgust you. 

[Melifeather]

Hopefully this isn't going off on a tangent...but...children and women should not bear the responsibility of how their appearance makes someone else "feel". OK, I admit this is a tightwire I'm walking on, because I do find it disturbing to see children acting out a striptease or wearing something that I think is inappropriate, but at the same time is it really their fault if their clothes excites a pedophile? Isn't that putting the burden of blame on the child rather than the pedophile? This is a similar argument for women. Should it even matter what women wear? Isn't how you feel your problem?

[Red Tiger]

59 minutes ago, Melifeather said:

Hopefully this isn't going off on a tangent...but...children and women should not bear the responsibility of how their appearance makes someone else "feel". OK, I admit this is a tightwire I'm walking on, because I do find it disturbing to see children acting out a striptease or wearing something that I think is inappropriate, but at the same time is it really their fault if their clothes excites a pedophile? Isn't that putting the burden of blame on the child rather than the pedophile? This is a similar argument for women. Should it even matter what women wear? Isn't how you feel your problem?

I get where you're coming from, I agree that it isn't the fault of the people wearing what they wear. It's kinda like certain idiotic people saying "Women dress loosely, thus they're responsible for catching the eye of their rapist". Uhmm, no, people may dress a certain way, but ultimately the criminal is responsible for his vile acts.

[Melifeather]

There’s no doubt Netflix made a mistake with that pose poster. It’d be like showing a cropped shot of bare breasts on a poster for a breast-feeding documentary. Would you expect to see bared breasts in a breast-feeding documentary? Of course, but if you chose to advertise the film with a poster of only naked breasts then it would look like the film was about objectifying breasts. 

[DaveSumm]

10 hours ago, Melifeather said:

This film does not exploit children, but it will shock and disgust you. 

I’ll say upfront that I haven’t seen the film. But my understanding is that is has something to say about the sexualisation of young children, and it’s just a little odd to depict 11 year olds twerking in a movie where that’s your goal. People keep blaming Netflix for the poster, but did they CGI that from scratch? Or does that appear in the movie? Was it absolutely critical they show that to make their point?

10 hours ago, Red Tiger said:

I get where you're coming from, I agree that it isn't the fault of the people wearing what they wear. It's kinda like certain idiotic people saying "Women dress loosely, thus they're responsible for catching the eye of their rapist". Uhmm, no, people may dress a certain way, but ultimately the criminal is responsible for his vile acts.

I wouldn’t dream of blaming the actresses, so the analogy doesn’t quite work. The film makers decided to depict these scenes and film them so everyone across the world could see it, it’s that decision that’s in question. 

I’m just not sure it’s quite as black and white as “Netflix chose this poster: horrible” “directors filmed the scene but in context so it’s: 100% fine”. There’s some grey area there. 

[Heartofice]

Yeah I also don't want to get into the same territory as the JK Rowling thread, commenting on something I haven't seen, but my understanding is that the movie is commenting on the false sense of liberation that social media etc places on the over sexualisation of young girls. 

As a general comment rather than specific to the movie then, it's hard to disagree with that position. While I understand the sexual liberation women have encountered, certainly in contrast to the old 'lay back and think of england days' is a good thing, there does seem to be a movement equating liberation and basically pornography, and I don't see it as healthy in any way. It's a highly confused issue for some. 
 

[Ran]

1 hour ago, DaveSumm said:

But my understanding is that is has something to say about the sexualisation of young children, and it’s just a little odd to depict 11 year olds twerking in a movie where that’s your goal.

It's not odd at all. Depiction is not endorsement. Depiction in this case exists to create discomfort that underscores the message of the film. 

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People keep blaming Netflix for the poster, but did they CGI that from scratch?

No, but the image they chose, and the way they described the film, wildly misses the point of the film and makes it look like a generic "Spunky gal pals get popular and famous!" film when it's not that, at all. Netflix's marketing team decided it would be easier to mislead people to watch the film than to tell them it's a serious, indie foreign-language film.

 

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The film makers decided to depict these scenes and film them so everyone across the world could see it, it’s that decision that’s in question. 

The vast majority of "questioning" comes from the place of "OMG, pedophiles may see this film and get off on it!" But that leads to absurdity: little children kept home, or put in burkas, never allowed to go the beach, etc., because "OMG, pedophiles!" It is absurd, and it is absurd to take this questioning seriously. 

The intended audience of this film are not pedophiles. One cannot make movies by trying to check off the list of people who might take unintended pleasure in your film. The intended audience of this film are people with enough critical faculties to appreciate the thematic commentary that is obviously intended. The depiction creates discomfort which solidifies the message.

The right wing panic over it is particularly ironic because, really, fundamentally this is basically a film with a fairly conservative message, and whose key turning point in the final act is a paean to the importance of family and what conservatives would consider "traditional values":

Spoiler

Amy and her friends determinedly perform their routine in front of a disapproving crowd, not an iota of any emotion beyond concentration on their faces (underscoring that they don't understand what they're doing, it's a simulation), when Amy hears her mother's traditional Senegalese folk song in her head (which opens the movie) and stops, breaks into tears, and runs back home to confess to her mother, who accepts her back, comforts her, and helps her find a path through the traumatic event of that day. The film ends with her returning to a normal girlhood, not as introverted and isolated as she was in the past, but no longer trying to mimic adult behavior.