Uproar over Cuties

[0Scarlett_nidiyilii]

Is 11-year olds wanting to dance provocatively really a thing? By the description of this movie it sounds like it would have been more realistic if the girls were 14 or 15. Most 11-year olds are prepubescent! Twerking etc. doesn’t seem like something a typical girl of that age would come up with herself.

11 year olds wanting to get attention is very much a thing.
11 year olds with no judgement is very much a thing.
11 year olds who want to be famous is very much a thing.
Stage Mothers are very much a thing.
That the film industry is a moral cesspool…oh yeah that’s a thing

 

[ReaderT]

ReaderT:

Freddy:

I think most people are missing this, but that’s the point the film makes!

Then we’re agreed. The crotch-grabbing / closeups of 11 year old bodies / exposed breasts belong nowhere - including in this film.

Kinda difficult to make a film to shock people into realising we’ve gone too far without showing how far we’ve gone. And yes, people do need a wake up call.

I understand the point but I disagree - it’s like making a film against animal cruelty but actively abusing animals in the film to get the point across

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

ReaderT:

Freddy:

I think most people are missing this, but that’s the point the film makes!

Then we’re agreed. The crotch-grabbing / closeups of 11 year old bodies / exposed breasts belong nowhere - including in this film.

Kinda difficult to make a film to shock people into realising we’ve gone too far without showing how far we’ve gone. And yes, people do need a wake up call.

I understand the point but I disagree - it’s like making a film against animal cruelty but actively abusing animals in the film to get the point across

A good point. Which would be valid if the girls in the film were filmed as part of a documentary. But they were acting.

 

[ReaderT]

But they were acting .

That is true, but so do porn stars. I don’t think it makes a difference - it’s still softcore CP

 

[tuffsmurf]

I won’t be seeing this movie and it sounds very inappropriate, but I don’t think it’s correct to call it that. Child pornography is sexual abuse on tape, which didn’t happen here.

 

[Irishmom2]

Definition of pornography​

1 : the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement

Not sure why you brought the word abuse into this, but @tuffsmurf, what is your definition of pornography if not the Merriam-Webster definition? The girls dances are meant for sexual arousal. There is nothing innocent about it. Maybe they truly don’t understand what their movements mean, but it was very sexual.

Or are you going to argue that it is not a photo or written?

 

[tuffsmurf]

Most countries have legal definition of child pornography, and that definition, in my country and many others, is something along with the lines of: a picture or a film that shows a sexual act with a child. Sexual acts with children are abuse, hence cp is films or pictures of sexual abuse.

 

[goout]

Wesrock:

tuffsmurf:

Is 11-year olds wanting to dance provocatively really a thing? By the description of this movie it sounds like it would have been more realistic if the girls were 14 or 15. Most 11-year olds are prepubescent! Twerking etc. doesn’t seem like something a typical girl of that age would come up with herself.

Yes, it’s a thing. And it’s not something they come up with themselves but what they emulate from things they’ve seen.

Exactly. There appears to be an amount of naivity exhibited in both threads dealing with this film. Of course young girls are doing this. Did anyone think the writer just made this up to shock people? She made it as a wake up call.

If it has done nothing else then it might help to inform people of what young girls think these days. The film is meant to prompt discussion about that.

So the film director is make a case for objective moral standards then? And using the film to portray the moral content and start a discussion about it?
Isn’t that what the Catholic Church does all the time? Maybe the producer of cuties is a really good Catholic trying to evangelize.

 

[Fauken]

Isn’t that what the Catholic Church does all the time? Maybe the producer of cuties is a really good Catholic trying to evangelize.

Do you have any idea what this sounds like? Your words are tone deaf at the very least.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

I have my doubts that the female director of this film made it with the intent of people getting excited over seeing a child imitating a booty dancer. She’s also French, and there are a lot of things in French movies that make American audiences gasp but in France they don’t have the same reaction. I’ve seen French movies where all of a sudden gratuitous full frontal male nudity shows up on my screen for no good reason, it’s apparently just how they roll as it’s not being presented in any sort of attractive or pornographic or exciting context, it’s just some guy walking around naked when they could have put pants on him.

I would say the woman who made “Cuties” is guilty of poor judgment. She also might not have expected her film to go into wide international release. A lot of times these films play a couple of art houses and international film festivals and are not viewed by people who aren’t film buffs.

I put much more blame on the Netflix execs who decided to push it to the general US audience knowing full well how it would go over and promoting it with a suggestive poster to boot, which I understand they did not discuss with the filmmaker before they rolled it out.

 

[Freddy]

Freddy:

Wesrock:

tuffsmurf:

Is 11-year olds wanting to dance provocatively really a thing? By the description of this movie it sounds like it would have been more realistic if the girls were 14 or 15. Most 11-year olds are prepubescent! Twerking etc. doesn’t seem like something a typical girl of that age would come up with herself.

Yes, it’s a thing. And it’s not something they come up with themselves but what they emulate from things they’ve seen.

Exactly. There appears to be an amount of naivity exhibited in both threads dealing with this film. Of course young girls are doing this. Did anyone think the writer just made this up to shock people? She made it as a wake up call.

If it has done nothing else then it might help to inform people of what young girls think these days. The film is meant to prompt discussion about that.

So the film director is make a case for objective moral standards then? And using the film to portray the moral content and start a discussion about it?
Isn’t that what the Catholic Church does all the time? Maybe the producer of cuties is a really good Catholic trying to evangelize.

I don’t know about the producers. But I believe the writer/director is Muslim (the film is about a Muslim family and their traditional values).

But yes, she is making a point with which the Catholic church would agree. As should most reasonable people.

 

[Freddy]

I have my doubts that the female director of this film made it with the intent of people getting excited over seeing a child imitating a booty dancer. She’s also French, and there are a lot of things in French movies that make American audiences gasp but in France they don’t have the same reaction. I’ve seen French movies where all of a sudden gratuitous full frontal male nudity shows up on my screen for no good reason, it’s apparently just how they roll as it’s not being presented in any sort of attractive or pornographic or exciting context, it’s just some guy walking around naked when they could have put pants on him.

I would say the woman who made “Cuties” is guilty of poor judgment. She also might not have expected her film to go into wide international release. A lot of times these films play a couple of art houses and international film festivals and are not viewed by people who aren’t film buffs.

I put much more blame on the Netflix execs who decided to push it to the general US audience knowing full well how it would go over and promoting it with a suggestive poster to boot, which I understand they did not discuss with the filmmaker before they rolled it out.

Apart from suggesting thaf Doucoure was guilty of poor judgement, I agree with everything here.

 

[27lw]

I don’t know, maybe the filmmaker was extremely calculating about this. She’s managing to get a ton of people watching and discussing the movie, and generating controversy, by suggesting CP and child sexual abuse without technically portraying it.
“Good job” clever director. Not.

 

[Polak]

“Good job” clever director.

It certainly wouldn’t be unreasonable to have suspicions. More often than not when a film, song or other piece of art causes controversy, the ‘artist’ intended it to do so, knowing controversy generates interest.

 

[DaveBj]

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

 

[Freddy]

27lw:

“Good job” clever director.

It certainly wouldn’t be unreasonable to have suspicions. More often than not when a film, song or other piece of art causes controversy, the ‘artist’ intended it to do so, knowing controversy generates interest.

I’m pretty certain that most people can tell the difference between art that depicts something controversial and art that is produced purely to be controversial.

. . . .

 

[Polak]

« Mignonnes » : La droite américaine se mobilise contre le film, les réalisateurs français contre-attaquent

Maïmouna Doucouré dit aussi avoir reçu un « soutien extraordinaire » du gouvernement français qui envisage d’utiliser Mignonnes comme un support pédagogique.

Translation

Maïmouna Doucouré also says she has received ‘extraordinary support’ from the French government, which plans to use Mignonnes (Cuties) as an educational tool.

(Thanks to @Anicette for bringing this article to my attention).

It is of course debatable what the French government wanting to use the film as an educational tool exactly means. I sure hope it doesn’t mean it’s going to be shown to children in schools.

 

[JimG]

Yet another article about the subject:

Italian Bishops’ Conference Newspaper Defends Netflix’s ‘Cuties’| National Catholic Register

 

[Irishmom2]

Unbelievable.

 

[Anicette]

It is of course debatable what the French government wanting to use the film as an educational tool exactly means. I sure hope it doesn’t mean it’s going to be shown to children in schools.

I hope too! There is too much shoking elements.

Nothing more had been precised.

I think the governement might encourage schools and teachers to use it, full or partial, or ideas for debate and educational purposes. But it would probably not become a mandate. if something is show it would not be without explanations from teachers.

I guess it may used for extra cessions or in classroom, for lessons such as French, history, moral and civil education, sex education.

They can use the film to bring messagessuch as over gender equality and gender “stereotypes”, the danger of premature sexualization and education on social medias.

I think all this international polemic may become an exemple that would be studied in class for education on medias and social medias, and informed judgement.