I just wanted to rant about this because if I do it on twitter i'd be harassed by Qanon peeps lol. If you have not heard about this movie here's a quick background about and the controversy around it:
Cuties (Mignonnes in its original French) is a film about a 11 year old immigrant girl who becomes interested in a dance group at her school and starts rejecting her conservative upbringing to dance in a competition with them. That's the plot of the film but the message and the commentary the film is trying to make is about the sexualization of young girls in today's society through apathetic/not present parents, exposure to porn, and social media "rewarding" objectification.
Netflix announced it would be streaming the film and released a trailer and poster that was met with enormous backlash. Currently, the trailer has 1.8 million dislikes and since the films release 'Cancel Netlfix' has trended on twitter and the reviews on google have been bombed so that the film has a 1.3 rating. People accuse the film of child exploitation and sexualization and American lawmakers have called for Netflix to remove it.
Now my rant:
TL;DR:
Americans (mostly conservatives) are freaking out about the film and accusing it of doing what it speaks out against, mainly because they cannot pick up on the messaging of the film and only take it at face value, or have not watched it at all, or are using it for political purposes.
Cuties (Mignonnes in its original French) is a film about a 11 year old immigrant girl who becomes interested in a dance group at her school and starts rejecting her conservative upbringing to dance in a competition with them. That's the plot of the film but the message and the commentary the film is trying to make is about the sexualization of young girls in today's society through apathetic/not present parents, exposure to porn, and social media "rewarding" objectification.
Netflix announced it would be streaming the film and released a trailer and poster that was met with enormous backlash. Currently, the trailer has 1.8 million dislikes and since the films release 'Cancel Netlfix' has trended on twitter and the reviews on google have been bombed so that the film has a 1.3 rating. People accuse the film of child exploitation and sexualization and American lawmakers have called for Netflix to remove it.
Now my rant:
WHY DO MY FELLOW AMERICANS INSIST ON BEING STUPID? I had heard about the film and seen the trailer and was apprehensive at first myself but then I looked it up and found out it was actually a social commentary. I watched the movie myself to see if it was well done or not and thought it did a fantastic job but i'm not shocked that Americans (our politicians especially) did not catch onto the message.
The film is told through the young girl's perspective so every thing that happens to her that drags her into situations girls her age shouldn't be in aren't obvious to her but they are to adults. From her friends watching porn, to talking to older men online, to mimicking sexy dances of older girls/women all these things adults know to be bad for children but since she's a child she does not know. The film itself actually gives you big hints throughout that are basically: Why get mad at these young girls when they don't know/understand and we do not teach them?
I think one scene in the film that really captures that the young girls are innocent and don't understand what they are doing is when one finds a condom and because she touches it the other girls say she's going to get a std because "those are used by people with stds" and her friends refuse to come near her because they don't want to catch an std from her. This leads to the girl crying and saying, "How was I supposed to know?" AND THAT'S LITERALLY THE MESSAGE OF THE FILM.
Besides not understanding how the story holds the message people have really missed the points on how certain things were filmed. In the dance scenes where the girls are doing really sexual dances the close ups and angles of the shots were supposed to make you incredibly uncomfortable. If you aren't uncomfortable watching this film then you have a problem. The film is literally asking you to feel this same uncomfortableness whenever you see the sexualization of a child.
So yeah Americans are pretty film illiterate which should not have been a surprise since people still think that Walter White in "Breaking Bad" was supposed to be the good guy. But it is frustrating to see them attack a film especially when 95% definitely have not seen it and even if they did probably would not understand it. There is also the element of our politicians using it to appeal to Qanon folks who believe Trump is taking child sex trafficking secretly so there's that as well.
The film is told through the young girl's perspective so every thing that happens to her that drags her into situations girls her age shouldn't be in aren't obvious to her but they are to adults. From her friends watching porn, to talking to older men online, to mimicking sexy dances of older girls/women all these things adults know to be bad for children but since she's a child she does not know. The film itself actually gives you big hints throughout that are basically: Why get mad at these young girls when they don't know/understand and we do not teach them?
I think one scene in the film that really captures that the young girls are innocent and don't understand what they are doing is when one finds a condom and because she touches it the other girls say she's going to get a std because "those are used by people with stds" and her friends refuse to come near her because they don't want to catch an std from her. This leads to the girl crying and saying, "How was I supposed to know?" AND THAT'S LITERALLY THE MESSAGE OF THE FILM.
Besides not understanding how the story holds the message people have really missed the points on how certain things were filmed. In the dance scenes where the girls are doing really sexual dances the close ups and angles of the shots were supposed to make you incredibly uncomfortable. If you aren't uncomfortable watching this film then you have a problem. The film is literally asking you to feel this same uncomfortableness whenever you see the sexualization of a child.
So yeah Americans are pretty film illiterate which should not have been a surprise since people still think that Walter White in "Breaking Bad" was supposed to be the good guy. But it is frustrating to see them attack a film especially when 95% definitely have not seen it and even if they did probably would not understand it. There is also the element of our politicians using it to appeal to Qanon folks who believe Trump is taking child sex trafficking secretly so there's that as well.
TL;DR:
Americans (mostly conservatives) are freaking out about the film and accusing it of doing what it speaks out against, mainly because they cannot pick up on the messaging of the film and only take it at face value, or have not watched it at all, or are using it for political purposes.