I watched the movie, and in a vacuum, I can see where the more controversial scenes can be interpreted as lascivious. But in the context of the movie, it really didn't feel out of place at all. The scenes are intentionally awkward, and I think part of the film's message is to make you feel uncomfortable. It tackles several themes, actually, and has quite some depth. Really, the biggest complaint I have is the movie is rather boring.
I tried to watch some videos, but every single one is a reactionary take that uses a hammer when a chisel would be far more appropriate. Anyone come across any reviews or videos that take the issue rather seriously, but can also critique the film on its own merits?
I don't think the film looks good. Its pretty problematic.
I wonder if the person who made it had swing and a miss or if their is some weirdness going on.
Why I Made Cuties | Maïmouna Doucouré Interview
Doucouré says it’s clear from the backlash that people upset with her film have not streamed it, telling Zora, “I realize that the people who have started this controversy haven’t yet seen the film. Netflix has apologized to the public and to myself. I’m hoping that these people will watch the movie now that it’s out. I’m eager to see their reaction when they realize that we’re both on the same side of this fight against young children’s hypersexualization.” -source
I’m eager to see their reaction when they realize that we’re both on the same side of this fight against young children’s hypersexualization.”
The problem here is that her words and the text of the film may say one thing, but the way she shoots the scenes says another. Film is a visual medium, and she shoots the scenes of the children in extremely sexualized ways- she's playing into the thing she says she condemns. Lindsay Ellis has a great video about the way the text of a film and the way it's shot can send different messages.
I don't think comparing an independent, Muslim French-Senegalese production to a multi-million Hollywood blockbuster Michael Bay franchise like Transformers is in the same realm, but I do buy that people will interpret art in different ways, and sometimes in contrast to authorial intent.
I guess my problem with the way she shot it is that the pedos who are jerking off to her movie don't give a shit that her intent was to condemn them.
And I think Elizabeth Bruenig has raised some good points about it on twitter.
Do you hold similar consternation to the desensitization and glorification of violence? Also, should we apply strict "no dancing" for minors restrictions on social media?
And I like Elizabeth Bruenig, but I try not to take my moral cues from self-professed theists. There's always a catch. Twitter handle for anyone who wants to follow along
Do you hold similar consternation to the desensitization and glorification of violence?
Well, like everything, it depends on the context. I
Also, should we apply strict “no dancing” for minors restrictions on social media?
I don't think so, because I'm generally against censorship, but how social media should be regulated is a whole different can of worms. I never suggested that Cuties should be censored in any way, I just said that I disagree with the director and I don't like how she shot it. I think the director is guilty of the very sexualization she condemns.
I've only seen PayMoneyWubby's video on it, but:
Seems to me like they could have made the movie and still got their point across without all the shots zoomed in on the crotches and asses, no? Like, couldn't they have still had the same dance numbers but maybe like zoom out the camera a bit?
Does the film critique the hypersexualization of young children? Cause that wasn't really covered in Wubby's video and I don't care enough to watch it myself. Like, was there a point to the movie? Save for generating controversy?
without all the shots zoomed in on the crotches and asses
I take it you haven't watched the film. There's panning shots, but those close-ups and zooms are frame-grab thumbnails created to form an impression on you. Anyone could do the same with video of a gymnastics exhibition.
And of course PayMoneyWubby wouldn't cover the nuance; he's straight-up on that cryptofascist grift. I remember when he first hit the reddit front page with a video complaining about kids twerking on tik tok. It was a 20-min. reaction video montage. Like, he literally "exposed" 20 mins of dancing kids with him shaking his head and feigning outrage.
I disagree.
I watched the movie yesterday and I did find the close ups on just body parts where their faces weren’t even in frame to be excessive.
I felt like the wide shots got the point across that the girls were trying to be sexy but they’re just children.
The dance number on the steps was the part I found the most gratuitous and the final dance number was the other one I thought went too far.
I think my issue is that there have been studies that show men view women as a collection of body parts while they view men as a whole. So when I see children shot the same way we shoot women, zoomed in on just a body part like a stomach or a butt, I know that people are viewing that part sexually and detached from it being a child.
I get that she probably wanted to make the audience uncomfortable, but the result is still children’s bodies being objectified.
Overall, I still think it’s a decent movie, but I do wish the dances were filmed a little differently.
I take it you haven’t watched the film.
Didn't I say as much in my comment?
You also didn't answer any of my questions and instead chose to attack Wubby. I don't recall defending him at any point in my comment?
Ah sorry, have ADD and like 20 tabs open.
Does the film critique the hypersexualization of young children? Cause that wasn’t really covered in Wubby’s video and I don’t care enough to watch it myself. Like, was there a point to the movie?
Yes, it does. The point of the movie was to tell a story and use contemporary culture as the vehicle.
Save for generating controversy?
That's some bold framing. Perhaps try to watch the movie and draw your own conclusions.
The point of the movie was to tell a story and use contemporary culture as the vehicle.
How does it do that though? I've established that I'm not going to watch the movie, hence why I'm asking you for your analysis of it. But so far all your posts here just seem to be saying "guys it's not not actually that bad, come on" without engaging in the actual points that have been raised.
I'm not trying to say "this movie IS bad and you're wrong," I'm just trying to understand why it isn't as bad as it looks.
Honestly, I can't answer that because it comes down to each individual and their own visceral reaction to the content. I watched it and went, "Yup, that's a reflection of reality." And it didn't bother me.
We're all slaves to conspicuous consumption, to a degree, and I don't think anyone would deny that our culture promotes a weird fetishization of teen sexuality. This film explores that realm and how impressionable youths feel pressure to subsume that culture in a search for relevancy. Again, check out the movie, or maybe wait for a censored version.
lol the rush to "Islamophobia" is the kind of reactionary BS I'm trying to steer away from.
I appreciate that, I guess I was more referring to my title explicitly asking for NON-reactionary takes.
i dont see why a major corporation would ever relese a pro pedo movie can you sum up the plot and stuff because i wont bother watching it but im interested in how it potrayed the uuuum 12 year old sexualisationm thing
pro pedo movie
First let's start on the same page. How do you define "pro pedo"?
And it's a coming-of-age film about a young girl battling tradition (family, religion, culture) and trying to assert her place in this world and channels it into provocative dance, to the horror of all the adults in the film. It's a take on the hypersexualization of our youth.
ive only read about in in some internet sies you make it sound a lot better than some posts about the promo pictures
Because outrage sells, but more sinisterly, there's an agenda at play. My guess is to push censorship, in the vein of Mike Cernovich. It's getting review-bombed harder than Captain Marvel, if that gives any indication.
Exactly. I don't know enough about the scene to speak on it, but the right has isolated drag shows featuring minors as their catch-all. And apparently some convicted sex offender was involved with a YT channel, but instead of canceling the individual, their narrative is, "Well, clearly they're okay with pedos let's shut they entire scene/movement down."
mood. one of my relatives left a bunch of old dresses at our house and no one ever touched or wore them and id sneak them on to explore my brainspace. tbh didnt do anything for me but it did make me learn a bit about my gender.
i repressed the shit out of it all for a while. im really frustrated about it
It's all a part of the moral panic the fringe right wing is trying to foment. It's a trojan horse to push standard conservative values: nuclear family, anti-gay, anti-feminism etc. We can talk about "sexualization" of children and how saturated pop culture is with sexual content but obviously the right should not be setting the terms of that discussion. Also isn't the movie centered on a black girl? There's a racial element there that shouldn't be ignored.
What bothers the fuck out of me is that well-meaning people are getting swept up in the panic about pedophilia that the right is using to tar liberals (and the left by extension). The sad part is that those online shouting out pedophilia probably know an abuser irl and instead choose to larp against hollywood on facebook
I didn't care about this movie the first time it came out, when it was called Thirteen
I believe Hasan did a video on it, but that was just when the trailer came out.
i dont think i'll watch but this is my devils advocate : https://www.google.com/search?hl=&site=&q=child+pageant
Comparing a thing to an abstraction of the thing is the sort of mindlessness I think this movie was aiming to avoid.
Richard Brody has a positive review. He's had some weird, weird takes in the past - see especially his review of Clint Eastwood's The Mule . . . or any of his latter-era Clint Eastwood reviews - but he's emphatically not a right-winger. (In fact, the weirdest thing about his Eastwood reviews is that he tries to give those films a "woke" reading.)
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/cuties-mignonnes-the-extraordinary-netflix-debut-that-became-the-target-of-a-right-wing-campaign
“Cuties” is a film of the center, and it’s aesthetically of the center—it depicts the unconsidered without advancing to the realm of the subjective, and it doesn’t allow its young protagonists much discourse, outer or inner. It’s not a movie of introspection and self-consideration; it’s more a story of the rule than of the exception, of what’s unduly extraordinary about the effort to live an ordinary life. As such, it’s a story of French society at large—its exclusions and the exertions demanded to overcome them. Though many of Amy’s actions are dubious, her spirit of revolt is nonetheless sublime and heroic. “Cuties” dramatizes what people of color and immigrants endure as a result of isolation and ghettoization, of not being represented culturally and politically—and of not being represented in French national mythology. Its underlying subject is the connection of personal identity to public identity—and the urgency of transforming the very notion of French identity, of changing the idea of who’s considered the representative face of France. That idea is brought to the fore in an extraordinary, brief, symbolic ending; it’s enough to give a right-winger a conniption.**
