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I am torn about the Netflix movie Cuties. Having watched it, I found it very disturbing, and I think there are ways the movie could have been made to still amplify its message. Certain scenes did not need to be shown. On the flip side, I do understand the director’s intentions, despite the troubling execution.
Mob Rule and Censorship
Before I continue with this post, I want to stress that I am not a fan of mob outrage. I do not think that any art should be banned, no matter how awful it is. We can choose what to watch as consumers. If someone finds something disturbing, they need not watch it.
No matter how much we find something harrowing or uncomfortable, it’s a slippery slope when we start insisting that things be ‘banned’ or ‘cancelled’ because of our personal sensitivities. So no, I do not personally think that this film should be banned or taken down from Netflix. I understand that is not a popular opinion, but as an artist I cannot agree with the censorship of art, even art that I find personally disturbing. (I do think that there needs to be a content warning though.)
The Problem with Cuties
Cuties is a very disturbing film. The entire movie is not one big child-porno as some make it out to be. However, there are scenes in the film that definitely make for uncomfortable viewing.
For those who haven’t seen Cuties, the film follows a French girl who comes from a strict Muslim family, who joins a dance crew of girls who dress and act far too provocatively for their age. The film does show the differing cultural dynamics between the misogynistic culture that the girl comes from, and the hyper-sexualised culture that the dance crew are part of.
Cuties attempts to make a point about how society sexualises young girls through the influence of social media. Sadly, it sexualises those same girls in the process. There were about four dance scenes where the girls were all dancing far too sexually. I would have seen little issue with this if the girls were sixteen.
But these girls were eleven.
Teenage Protagonists Instead of Children
If Cuties had been the same movie, but with the protagonists all being sixteen, I doubt there would have been much controversy. The message could have been easily rung home, and probably made more sense. This could have been a movie showing how teenage girls are influenced by the pornographic images shown on social media and in popular music. We could have seen a girl struggling to ‘fit-in’, and how she went from dressing ‘conservatively’ to a more ‘hip, sexual’ style with her friends.
I still don’t think there was a need to have such overtly sexual dance scenes thrown in. We certainly didn’t need to see a member of the rival dance crew have her breast slip out on video. (Even for teenage girls, that is inappropriate.)
There was a scene where the eleven-year-old protagonist took a picture of her vagina and posted it on her Instagram. Unnecessary much?
If the protagonists were sixteen-year-olds, it would not have been as bad. We are all clearly aware of the societal pressure among teenage girls to be sexy, desirable, alluring, etc. Many sixteen-year-olds girls are already sexually active (hopefully with guys their own age, not paedophiles), and compare themselves to other girls. Issues of body dysmorphia and female comparison are rampant at that age. A novel which I think highlights this very well is Only Ever Yours by Louise O’Neill.
Cuties could have made its message of societal pressure on girls to sexually objectify themselves much more rampant. Most people aren’t naive enough to pretend that sixteen-year-old girls are all innocent. When the plastics in Mean Girls dance the Jingle Bell Rock, no one minds how sexually they are dancing because they are teenagers. The actors were all older as well.
But Children Also Experience This?
One may say that in this day and age, showing teenage girls struggling with sexual identity isn’t enough. It is true that children are more exposed to sexual imagery far too early on. Ten-year-olds are given smartphones. So perhaps we should commend Cuties for attempting to show the truth, that children are sexualising themselves at too young an age?
Unfortunately, it is hard to do this. To me, the film doesn’t make enough of a point about social influence on child sexualization. It comes across as exploiting these children by having them prance around a stage in front of dance contest judges. I wonder, why didn’t the judges tell them to stop? Why did the film seem to encourage this sort of behaviour, rather than condemn it?
Cuties could have shown scenes where the girls watched dance videos from Nicki Minaj or Cardi B and tried to copy the moves. Then later, at the contest, they could have copied those moves, and the judges could have stopped them and insisted that their dancing was inappropriate. This would have been a clearer way to tell the audience that sexualising children is not something to be condoned. It also would have made a good point about pop music’s over-sexualization of women, and how this spills over into the psyche of children.
Content Warning Needed
Content warnings are there to inform people about potentially distressing content. Some content warnings are too extreme, like a sexual content warning for kissing. But cuties is a film that definitely needed a content warning.
A thirteen-year-old should be able to make an informed decision about what they watch. Without a content warning, they cannot make an informed decision. Before the film credits rolled, there should have been a message saying ‘contains sexualised imagery of children, some viewers may find distressing.’
At the beginning of my book Every Last Psycho, I have a content warning saying ‘contains graphic depictions of violence, sexual assault, and drug abuse.’ This isn’t about protecting people’s feelings. It’s about making sure that someone who has PTSD can make an informed decision about the content they are consuming. Cuties fails to do this.
What Next?
Ultimately, Cuties has attempted to start a dialogue about the sexualization of children in media. Sadly, the film’s disturbing dance scenes and vague execution make the film come off as a bit of a mess.
Have you seen Cuties? What is your takeaway? Let me know!
Things are getting worse with the exploration of Tiktok now. Sometimes I wonder the media is the cause or the media just portraying the real life of children now (I mean kids love copying adults), or both.