In this episode of Newz and Booze, P&C review the controversial Netflix film “Cuties.”
The movie itself
It starts with a cute little girl cutting out pictures for her mother, which is a nice touch to calibrate the audience to the age of the main character, Amy.
She is in a very strict Muslim culture. In one scene, where a bunch of women are gathered to talk about their faith, we hear, “The devil dwells in the bodies of uncovered women,” and “therefore we must strive to protect our decency.”
Amy is told to study hard and do well in school, so this is not crazy “don’t educate girls” Islam.
She’s exposed to sexy music and dancing when a girl in her apartment building does a sexy dance in tight leather-like pants. Honestly, that was disturbing. Your brain is torn between “she’s hot” and “gross, she’s 11.” I think that sort of thing is one of the main problems with this movie. We don’t need movies that make 11 year olds look sexy.
Amy is living in and torn between two worlds: the conservative world of her family and culture, and the crazy world of contemporary France.
We learn that Amy’s father is taking a second wife, and the mother is pressured to be okay with that. She’s not, but she puts on a show because that’s what her culture expects.
At this point you have to wonder, “What the Heck, France?” On the one hand, the over-sexualization of children is okay, but on the other hand, bring your second wife.
The “cuties” are a wannabe dance team. They’re a collection of rotten, catty girls being raised by the internet. They’re foul-mouthed bullies with no manners. They know nothing about sex, but what they see online is that hyper-sexualized behavior makes women popular, so they want to get in on it.
Amy steals a phone from her uncle. She starts looking at pictures of young tarts on the phone and tries to imitate them. She watches videos of girls twerking and learns to do it herself.
She gets in with the cuties and ends up dancing with them. Some of the dance moves are very inappropriate and simulate sex.
All the cuties have daddy issues.
Amy gets in a fight with a rival dance group. During the fight her pants are pulled down, exposing little girl panties, which brands them all as little girls. Which they are, of course, but they want to be seen as older. Amy wants to prove she’s a woman so she posts a picture of her crotch.
Cue the economics of sex: the other girls say, “now that you’ve done it, we’re expected to do the same.”
The final dance is way too sexual. Parents in the audience are shaking their heads and covering the eyes of their children.
During the last dance, Amy cries and can’t finish. She runs home, changes into modest clothes, doesn’t go to her father’s wedding, but does jump rope outside. She has rejected the culture of her father and the over-sexualization of the culture.
Commentary
Several things can be true at once.
- The message is good: the over-sexualization of children is bad.
- The story is good: it’s well told. It’s the story of little girls trying to grow up in an over-sexualized culture. Also, there’s the clash of cultures in modern-day France.
- Did it go too far: Yes. It didn’t need to go that far to make the point. E.g., the camera should not have been focusing on crotches and butts, and the dance moves didn’t have to be that sexual to make the point.
- Does it exploit children? Absolutely. Think how many girls had to audition for this, and what those auditions were probably like.
- Does it encourage pedophilia? Maybe. It will certainly be a favorite of pedophiles.
- Is the movie as bad as some people say? No.
We need to distinguish the intent of the director from the intent of Netflix in promoting the film. Look up the difference between the poster in France and the poster on Netflix. People are right to criticize Netflix for that.
The movie raises a common question. When you have a movie about some difficult subject, like rape or violence, does the movie expose how awful rape or violence is, or does it promote and normalize it? There’s the same issue here with the sexualization of children. Are they exposing the problem, or are they normalizing it?
We live in a culture where WAP by Cardi B is acceptable. And have you been to a dance recital recently? It’s very common to sexualize little girls.
The movie highlights two things our society hasn’t come to terms with. First, what level of sexuality is appropriate in society generally, and second, when should girls get involved in that?
Good to see P&C took the opportunity to view the movie for themselves. Overall, I’d agree with your description and commentary. It was insightful and thought-provoking. I’d add a few caveats:
QUOTE: Does it exploit children? Absolutely. Think how many girls had to audition for this, and what those auditions were probably like.
I’d have to understand more before I’d say it was absolutely exploitive. We can’t assume they used the same degree of over-sexualized dances in auditions. They could have simply tested to see if the actresses could dance and the rest was developed as a part of the creative process after the cast was confirmed. It seemed the director was trying to balance realism with decency. It tipped too far for my taste in some parts and it was uncomfortable to watch. Yet, it seemed there was larger message than the salacious parts. I’d say some aspects of the film were inappropriate. But, not sure I’d say it was exploitive.
QUOTE: Does it encourage pedophilia? Maybe. It will certainly be a favorite of pedophiles.
Although distasteful in some scenes, I don’t see the movie*encouraging* pedophilia. Given the unfettered access to Internet child porn, it seems more reasonable to assume pedophiles would prefer that to wading through a feature film for a few salacious scenes (with no explicit nudity or sex scenes). Would a confirmed pedophile enjoy seeing something like that?…possibly. Yet, given the focus and structure of the film I just don’t see it as endorsing or motivating pedophilia. I suspect this will be a matter of personal conviction as to how much it would take to be viewed as “encouraging”.
We know that children were involved in the making of the movie. Based on Crowhill’s description, at least that number of children were exploited, regardless of how the auditions were conducted.
More of the same … related comments …
Yes, it is exploitative of children. Given that the movie itself is so suggestive, it is more than likely that the auditions were also exploitative. Anyhow, since actual children were involved, it is highly questionable whether this movie should have been made.
Good review, Greg! And yes, it ‘encourages’ pedophilia. It is soft-core pedophilia that will entice men toward more hard-core pedophilia. Of course, true hard-core pedophiles will just skip this movie entirely and hop on the next plane to pedo-island.
Did you watch the movie?
No, I did not. I am going off of Crowhill’s description, however. I will allow for the small possibility that he (and several other reviews I’ve read) entirely made up the parts about little girls dancing suggestively, teaching each other to dance suggestively, taking crotch pictures, and having conversations about crotch pictures. However, if he didn’t make those things up, then the little girls who were taught to do that, rehearsed doing that, and filmed doing that, were being exploited, by definition.
QUOTE: However, if he didn’t make those things up, then the little girls who were taught to do that, rehearsed doing that, and filmed doing that, were being exploited, by definition.
Okay, by your definition.
I can’t conceive of how it could not be exploitative to tell a little girl exactly what to do in order to appear to be taking a picture of her crotch, or to teach little girls how to talk about sexually suggestive behavior, for hours at a day, for days or weeks on end, in order to accomplish something that benefits the person doing it. I don’t know what the word “exploit” could mean whereby it doesn’t include that.
I don’t get the argument from “definition.” But whatever …
It seems to me that if you really want to promote social awareness about the sexualization of children a movie like this can be very effective. People get shocked into awareness when they see the images. I suppose that you could make a documentary that would involve showing images without having to “exploit” young actors or actresses, but documentaries don’t get nearly as many viewers as feature films do.
QUOTE: It seems to me that if you really want to promote social awareness about the sexualization of children a movie like this can be very effective. People get shocked into awareness when they see the images.
It seemed the director was trying to balance “shock” realism with decency. Whenever there was a focus on salacious behavior, there was also a clearly negative response to it. Albeit uncomfortable to see, at given moments, it seemed the film captured an honest portrayal of what’s happening in society. Hopefully, the “jarring” portrayal will motivate decent people to takes steps to address this issue. If so, then the director’s work will have been well served.
That said, given the nature of this film, it’s likely best for people view it for themselves and assess if it is or isn’t exploitive. After seeing the film, I had a very different impression than reading reviews.
I am amazed that anyone would take the time to watch something like this. It sounds to me that it is more about social awareness than art. But some people apparently demand that.
In the podcast we explain. We had some Japanese whisky, so we wanted to do a newz and booze episode. We needed a trendy topic, and we didn’t want something political, so we picked Cuties. If not for that I would never have watched it.
A new movie that I recommend is “I’m Thinking of Ending Things.” It is not at all salacious, but very rich in psychological food for thought.