General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNetflix Cuties controversy explained: Why conservatives are obsessed with the movie
Sparked by a promotional image featuring the movie’s tween stars in revealing clothing and suggestive poses, the controversy around Netflix’s Cuties has only grown as the film has finally arrived on the streaming service. Maïmouna Doucouré’s first feature is, according to an interview with the French Senegalese filmmaker posted by Netflix this week, a “deeply feminist film with an activist message.”* It debuted at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won the award for direction in the World Cinema section. But weeks after a petition charging it with being produced “for the viewing pleasure of pedophiles” garnered hundreds of thousands of signatures, the movie finds itself at the toxic intersection of QAnon delusion and right-wing moral panic, with a smattering of leftist outrage on the side. Brietbart has posted about the movie a half-dozen times in the past two days, singling out critics who praised the film, several of whom have received death threats and been harassed off social media. And Thursday night, Tucker Carlson made it a centerpiece of his show, accusing a nonspecific “they” behind the movie of wanting to “destroy young girls.”
Considering how few of Cuties’ attackers have actually seen the film, countering their criticisms with facts feels a little like bringing a knife to a gunfight. Those labeling it child pornography seem to have adopted a modified version of Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s adage: They know it when they don’t see it. By definition, pornography requires intent, and whether or not Doucouré succeeded (and the reviews are divided on this point), her intent is clear. The movie’s protagonist, Amy, is an 11-year-old bouncing between the repressive culture of her conservative Islamic upbringing, where she is warned that “evil shows itself in the scantily clad women,” and the hypersexualized environment of Western culture, where images of adult women doing strip-club gyrations are emulated by tweens on social media for likes. The movie presents those images in order to critique them, in a way that could not possibly be more clear: When Amy and the titular dance troupe she’s formed with three schoolmates finally perform in front of an audience, Doucouré repeatedly cuts away to the disgusted adults watching them, some booing, some covering their children’s eyes.
Instead of the Potter Stewart test, Breitbart’s John Nolte presents what might be called the Floyd Test. The initial marketing campaign, he writes, was “aimed directly at the naked-guys-in-a-raincoat-named Floyd crowd,” and as for the movie itself: “Naked Floyd’s gonna love it.” The point isn’t the filmmaker’s intent—although he later gets around to dismissing that as “bullshit,” too—it’s that Cuties might turn perverts on. That may be true, but it’s also true of countless more innocent images, and the diligence with which Nolte jotted down every purported crotch shot, at least until he “lost count after five,” speaks to its own kind of not-entirely-uncreepy obsession.
https://slate.com/culture/2020/09/netflix-cuties-controversy-explained-why-conservatives-are-obsessed-with-the-movie.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)sexual attraction to young girls, but few of us are outraged at attempts to induce sexuality to them. Bemused, mild disgust, perhaps, but not outrage. We just look away and pass on.
What were those TV shows that dressed and made up 8-year olds to look like bridesmaids? I watched one once out of curiosity and was bored, but did see its probable attraction to pedophiles.
But, perverts are attracted to damn near anything. I have no doubt they watch PBS to get off on the daytime kiddie shows. NY Times editors knew well that a lot of guys got off on the Fashions of the Times section. Frederick's seems to be going out of business all by itself, but shouldn't be put out of business just because of all those guys who subscribe to the catalog, but don't have wives or girlfriends.
A lot of this goes back to the Victorian Cult of the Child. Lewis Carroll was was suspected being a pedophile because of his fascination with the many Alice's in his fiction. More likely he was obsessed with the innocence of the sheltered young girls of the time. An innocence that would soon pass. The looking glass was the passage into womanhood, and trouble.
So, aside from the stupidity of people who jump on the outrage express without understanding what they are outraged about, I suspect much of this sort of outrage is to suppress the guilt, or fear, of actually being turned on by this sort of thing.
dsc
(52,160 posts)of how awful it was that she was dressed up as an adult when she was a very young child. I would even describe the reaction as outrage.
stopdiggin
(11,301 posts)(female) 6 yr old into a close approximation of a 25-30 yr old adult (lipstick, makeup, bouffant hair styling) is -- a strange goal.
(granted -- children like to play dress-up -- but there is something else entirely at play in this instance.)
PTWB
(4,131 posts)They sexualize children and the entire charade is creepy.
eppur_se_muova
(36,261 posts)You've probably read that there are some remote tribes whose sense of numbers is so primitive that the only numbers they use are one, two, three, and "more than three". Conservatives are slightly more advanced than that, so much so that they count all the way to "more than five".
forgotmylogin
(7,527 posts)"Cuties" is a poorly-chosen title for this film. I'm sure it's supposed to be ironic, but without context it's impossible to put that title and an actual image from the movie together without it somehow coming off in the same way that pornography is usually advertised.
Takket
(21,563 posts)this first flared up two weeks ago with a clearly sexualized poster from the film that was... bad. netflix actually apologized and removed it. the disgust from twitter, where i found this, was pretty rampant. but then i read a few notes about how, while the poster was bad, netflix did an AWFUL job getting across what the movies was actually about, here is the ACTUAL poster from the movie used in France (which was completely innocuous)...... so i just let it go........
Then a day or two ago this all flared up again. and i was ready to cancel again but what got me was all the people on twitter driving the outrage were right wing people........ tucker carlson........ ben shapiro....... now, i don't know a damn thing about the movie, but i am smart enough to know that when people who make careers of spreading lies, disinformation and propaganda are telling me to believe something... i probably shouldn't believe it.
So thanks to the OP for actually bringing some legit information to the table. I'm never going to watch it, but i'm not going to cancel netflix either. It sounds no worse and probably even less exploitative than "Dance Moms" which sucks in millions of viewers........
irisblue
(32,969 posts)Link to tweet
Gabbard is being hailed by the QAnon crowds on reply to her tweets.
Netflix shot their foot off with the publicity poster w/ 3 WOC adolescents and a prepubescent blonde.
And, I gotta say I do not disagree with Gabbard here, about the show premise as Netflix presented it.
Netflix--https://www.netflix.com/title/81111198
snip-Eleven-year-old Amy starts to rebel against her conservative family’s traditions when she becomes fascinated with a free-spirited dance crew.
Starring:Fathia Youssouf, Médina El Aidi-Azouni, Esther Gohourou
TheBlackAdder
(28,188 posts)irisblue
(32,969 posts)
Sympthsical
(9,073 posts)Have you seen any part of this film?
I have. It is mortifying. I'm at a loss as to why the movie was filmed the way it was.
If you think camerawork zooming in on 11 year olds' vaginas as they spread wide in provocative dance moves for excruciatingly long sequences is awesome, this pedophile bait may be for you.
There are a hundred ways to make a point about the sexualization of children without the endless shots and cinematographic choices made by the film makers.
I spend a decent amount of time on Reddit. It isn't exactly a bastion of right-wingers. Almost to a person people are appalled by the film.
I seriously question the motives of the people ardently defending this film. It is not "intellectual" or "artistic" to defend this thing. The whole thing should've been canned from the get go, and Netflix exercised insanely poor judgement in picking it up.
"Look at their vaginas! Watch 11 year olds tap their assholes! Hey, want to watch an 11 year old take a pic of her vagina and upload it to social media? We can show you that!"
What. The. Fuck.
It's indefensible.
Just because conservatives are against something doesn't mean we need to be reflexively for it. This is a very horrid example of where that attitude is going to bite you in the ass.
irisblue
(32,969 posts)Those are different. This is not a criticism of you Sympthsical.
Planned Parenthood-https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/health-and-wellness/sexual-and-reproductive-anatomy/what-are-parts-female-sexual-anatomy
The vulva is the part of your genitals on the outside of your body — your labia, clitoris, vaginal opening, and the opening to the urethra (the hole you pee out of). While vaginas are just one part of the vulva, many people say “vagina” when they really mean the vulva.
I know I am moving off topic, but female anatomy is misunderstood and so often misnamed.
Sympthsical
(9,073 posts)But always a good reminder!
irisblue
(32,969 posts)An analogy for me, your lungs are in your chest, but your chest is not only your lungs.
And yeah, reddit & 98% of social media uses vagina for vulva.
cwydro
(51,308 posts)TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)Seems like anyone complaining about these shots should also complain about budding ballerinas and gymnasts and their "obscene" poses.
irisblue
(32,969 posts)On my phone screen, 3 inches by 4 inches, details are not sharp enough to see. I am sure you are right, the complainers will overlap.
exboyfil
(17,862 posts)Not so cool when an 11 year old does it. There is a fundamental difference between the two. Ballerinas and gymnasts are not behaving sexually.
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)intentions of those who say they do.
csziggy
(34,136 posts)Especially in the South where I grew up, and even more in the Deep South states where my cousins lived. In some areas his songs were banned from the radio stations and TV stations blacked out his performances on shows such as Ed Sullivan.
The white Christians just could not handle Elvis' pelvic thrusts. 
kskiska
(27,045 posts)He appeared on the Steve Allen show and they showed him only from the waist up.
TreasonousBastard
(43,049 posts)Sympthsical
(9,073 posts)Jesus, I cannot believe the defenses this is getting. Horrifying. I don't think conservatives are the problem here.
Now vehemently objecting to the sexual exploitation of young girls is wrong because, you know, "art".
jcmaine72
(1,773 posts)I don't want to fight with anyone here, but to me, having eleven-year-old girls grabbing and photographing their own vaginas in a movie isn't about politics or artistic freedom. It's about decency and child safety.
I don't give a rat's greasy ass if the right is in a lather over this flim. It's disgusting and does the very thing its makers claim they're condemning - it sexually exploits children, and that's always WRONG.
It says a lot about some people that they're willing to defend child exploitation rather than concede that something the right finds reprehensible might actually be just that. Politics should have no place here.
exboyfil
(17,862 posts)Don't want to get on the wrong side of this argument. The libertine Harlan Ellison complained about the sexualized pre-teen pageants in his column in 1970 that was collected into The Other Glass Teat ("Our Little Miss"
.
Celerity
(43,333 posts)kskiska
(27,045 posts)Pervs see what they want to see in many unsuspected places.
ProgRocknProgPol
(143 posts)Well, one point of disagreement, I did not see any part of this film and never will. Just reading some reviews was enough/too much.
frazzled
(18,402 posts)in which a young girl (innocently but shockingly) performs an extended lewd dance at a child beauty pageant, was a huge success. It was nominated for 4 Oscars (including Best Picture), and won Best Feature at the Independent Spirit Awards.
Now, I haven't seen Cuties, and might not like it (or I might). But it sounds like both films (while one is a comedy) are trying to address the problems for children in relation our sexualized culture. (Little Miss Sunshine is equally, or more so, a critique of gender stereotyping and the whole "beauty pageant" culture of hypocrisy).
Cuthbert Allgood
(4,921 posts)Full disclosure: I didn't watch the whole film. My wife watched it last night (she didn't like it) and I caught parts of it while I was reading comic books.
Little Miss Sunshine is an incredibly well made movie. I didn't see the parts of Cuties that people are losing their minds about, but Cuties was just a cringy movie from a film standpoint. I didn't think it was well made. The acting was meh.
Also, the dance scene in Little Miss Sunshine is clearly done as a not-serious dance and is an incredible moment of a girl being secure in who she is. I can't comment on the Cuties scene, but it sounds like they are being a little more like a dance video (even though I get the feeling it is a satirical points about sexualizing kids), so those scenes don't sound the same.
frazzled
(18,402 posts)(1) Try to remove your ethnocentric glasses and understand this from a Senegalese/French perspective (growing up Muslim in an all-things-go Western culture). And "cringy" is not a legitimate cinematic term of analysis. Many films have made some people cringe; some of them have been cinematically praiseworthy.
(2) Not everyone agrees with you that the film wasn't well made.
Doucouré was named best director in the world cinema category at this year’s Sundance Film Festival and received a special mention at this year’s Berlinale festival in Germany.
(3) Don't blame the filmmaker for examining the culture. Take a look at what the kids are watching in the crotch-rubbing, twerking, highly sexualized production numbers at the Grammys or MTV awards, and in music videos every day. You think they're not (innocently) imitating these? Think again. This is a problem that needs to be shown and discussed, not something to criticize for having pointed it out.
Sorry that Q-Anon is working its mag
frazzled
(18,402 posts)Last edited Sat Sep 12, 2020, 02:16 PM - Edit history (1)
Removed
Sympthsical
(9,073 posts)As you noted, Little Miss Sunshine is a movie that made the point well. The film maker's choices worked to push the overall message without being exploitative. And, as you noted, it's more comedic.
Having seen Cuties, there is a point to the movie. The main character's choices are meant to be poor ones.
However, the camera lingers and lingers and lingers in agonizingly long sequences of young girls in hyper-sexualized movements that wouldn't be out of place in a strip club. The camera comes in low and zooms in on genitalia being rubbed. It does this repeatedly. The point could have been made with maybe a sixteenth of the imagery. But the sequences go on for minutes upon excruciating minutes at a time.
I don't shoot someone to prove guns are bad. I don't beat my spouse to prove domestic violence is bad.
And people shouldn't make a soft core with 11 year olds to prove that sexualizing children is bad. That's what happened here.
Where were the parents of these actresses? There's some irony for you. Subjecting their daughters to highly sexualized roles to may some bucks. And then you think about how the director and other members on set were doing take upon take of this, directing the actresses to do this, for god knows how long.
The defenses of it raise my hackles to holy hell. I have a niece I adore who is 11. If her parents saw anyone try to get her to "act" in something like this, there would be bodies.
stopdiggin
(11,301 posts)perhaps the "intent" of the movie was exposure or illustration. But the grinding portrayal -- of blatantly offensive (cringe worthy) shots ... Just obliterates and degrades whatever positive intent there might have been in the making. Is there a story here? Probably. Was it well presented and accessible. Think I'd have to vote no. (without defending Q-Anon hysteria)
At the same time -- I'm not really surprised that the film has won praise and awards. It's not the first time that the critical and artistic community have sung paeans to really jarring imagery or content. Perhaps there's a place for that. Now whether Netflix will continue to seek a market here ....
Sympthsical
(9,073 posts)First, the casting/auditions process lasted six months (!) featuring dozens of girls. So there's footage floating around of all these young girls being taught all kinds of sexualized behavior. What on earth was going on there?
Second, they had therapists on set and talked about the heavy therapy being provided to the actresses on a daily basis. So they acknowledge what they were doing was harmful. Just because you come armed with band-aids doesn't mean cutting someone is a great idea.
Third, these actresses were 11. Part of the point of the movie is that 11 year olds may mimic things without understanding the sexual or societal implications of what they've done. Well, aren't they doing exactly that with these actresses? The internet and this movie are now forever. What happens when they grow up and decide they didn't understand what they were being subjected to? That, looking back, they wouldn't have made that decision?
In a film about the dangers of exploiting young girls . . . they exploited young girls.
The film makers do not seem like great people to me, and the parents who okayed this completely are completely baffling.
There is a movie to be made from the material here. It just really wasn't this one. Child services needed to step in after the first week of filming. How adults went along with this, I'll never understand.
Baclava
(12,047 posts)I don't know how this even became a left vs right thing. Sexualuzing minors and the general scuminess of the movie industry to brazenly sexualize minors (cause this isnt the 1st movie to do this) should be a Universal no no across the board 
Crunchy Frog
(26,579 posts)who wanted to push the buttons of the Qanon whackos, who have turned it into a cause celebre, and "proof" that their paranoid delusions are true.
People are torn between wanting to condemn a bad movie, and not wanting to feed into crazy conspiracy theorists.
Quixote1818
(28,930 posts)I don't know much about it not having seen it, but it sounds like the message of the film is against this type of thing. However, I am not sure why the dancing is so explicit. Seems to be contradicting the message but hard to tell by not watching the entire film.
Hekate
(90,662 posts)I intend to. You can make up your own mind.
This country has gone stark raving mad.
LanternWaste
(37,748 posts)Then there's the "I saw bits of it..." crowd-- who would go apoplectic if they only "saw bits of" Mark Twain's or Shakespeare's writing.
We're watching knees jerking in real time, and the simultaneous pretense that said jerking knees are merely a thoughtful analysis. Oh, and the "what about the children?" veneer, layered in indignation are themselves, worthy of an Oscar.
cwydro
(51,308 posts)It is clearly a movie speaking AGAINST the sexualization of children.
The girl, Amy, is being brought up in a Muslim family, while living in France and surrounded by the messages girls deal with everywhere - told that her body should be hidden and hell is the result if not hidden - by her family, and told how popular she can be if she flaunts it.
Then she finds friends in a dance group, learns of the allure of social media, thinks she has found something great, and then misery ensues.
The movie ends as she returns to childhood, jumping rope with friends.
The director of this film came from the same sort of background; sad the message is being lost.
garagedoor
(119 posts)I agree 100 percent with your post!
Like most well thought out films, "Cuties" is touching on multiple themes. It's not simply decrying hyper sexuality of social media that young girls are copying. It also addresses the clash between traditional religious cultural norms of women (in this case Senegalese culture) and 2010s "tween" culture. That clash seemed more pronounced in the film. I cried when the grandmother was verbally accosting the 11 yr old granddaughter as though we were in the movie "Exorcist."
The movie and the film maker have been shat upon by the right wing noise machine. I wonder how many people will now try to watch it for themselves. I also wonder how many of the RW minions have watched the entire film.
I am just weary of the outrage of the day. And, as usual, those demonizing this interesting film are revealing more about their personal "stuff" than the film portrays.
cwydro
(51,308 posts)There was only one part of the movie that I found really disgusting, and of course, that's when the protagonist comes to the same conclusion.
Yes, the parts where she is berated by the older women in her family are awful, but no one seems to care about that. Or that her father is bringing home another wife to live in the home. So many issues in that film.
A real shame the message is now going to be lost.
TeamPooka
(24,223 posts)of a movie or any show so it doesn't surprise me that they don't get the point of this one too.
"The movie presents those images in order to critique them, in a way that could not possibly be more clear:"
A perfect past example: The film Wall Street was an indictment of corrupt investment banking and insider trading in the 80s but all Americans took away from it was, "Greed is good" the exact opposite message of the film.
Just stupid as shit.
At times I'm quite embarrassed to be an American.
Quixote1818
(28,930 posts)Critics Consensus
A thoughtful look at the intricacies of girlhood in the modern age, Cuties is a coming-of-age film that confronts its themes with poignancy and nuance.
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/cuties
cwydro
(51,308 posts)The movie is AGAINST sexualization of children.