Netflix Cuties becomes the next piece in an ever more idiotic culture war

Netflix's Cuties

  • Creative freedom should be fully free

    Votes: 6 23.1%
  • I believe in creative freedom but this isn't the hill to die on

    Votes: 19 73.1%
  • Ban this sick filth

    Votes: 1 3.8%

  • Total voters
    26
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Kwak

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Does that include acts like performing a striptease for a guy in order to manipulate them?
Does that include posting one's vag on the internet?

I think you are severely mischaracterizing this movie as an innocent coming-of-age story. This is a full-on, out of control, Requiem for a Dream horror story.
You keep saying "Girls aren't seeing themselves this way", but UNDRESSING FOR A GUY IN ORDER TO MANIPULATE THEM PROVES THAT THEY SEE THEMSELVES THE WAY GUYS SEE THEM

I've said this before in posts 69 and 74.
In a fictionalised movie. This PROVES it. This bit of exaggerated fiction PROVES that girls see themselves that way. In a movie. Versus a real woman telling you her experience.
Okay then.
 

lil devils x

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I think it's possible to criticize sex negativity and religious abuse without having your 11 year old actors twerking, rubbing their vaginas, smacking each others asses, and pinching each others clothing, primarily in front of an adult audience. Both in the film, and in life.

And I don't think that any of these are particularly healthy ways to explore sex positivity in media.

Edit: And I'm not convinced that these are particularly normal experiences, either.
Until you see the girls twerking on the sidewalk in front of your house. AT the height of twerking, it has reduced slightly as of late, but at the height, the girls walking home from the elementary schools were doing it and trying to do it upside down with the other 3rd and 4th grade girls holding their legs in the air...
That was all the girls in the movie were doing. It was no different. They were just goofing off dancing and having fun. Her family convinced her however that doing so was sinful and wrong and that she should be ashamed of her body.
 

lil devils x

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In a fictionalised movie. This PROVES it. This bit of exaggerated fiction PROVES that girls see themselves that way. In a movie. Versus a real woman telling you her experience.
Okay then.
That isn't even what happened in the movie. He obviously didn't see the movie to think the kid was even capable of manipulating anyone.
 

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I think it's possible to criticize sex negativity and religious abuse without having your 11 year old actors twerking, rubbing their vaginas, smacking each others asses, and pinching each others clothing, primarily in front of an adult audience. Both in the film, and in life.

And I don't think that any of these are particularly healthy ways to explore sex positivity in media.

Edit: And I'm not convinced that these are particularly normal experiences, either.
I don't know what a normal experience is. I can tell you that I lost my virginity at 14 and I was consideted a pretty late bloomer. Thats normal for me

Now, I didn't hear the about 12 yr olds having sex with anyone much older. And they could've just been making crap up.
 
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@lil devils x I would not even waste your breath on fOx. A guy that thinks the key to life is to censor everything, hide it, not talk about it, and see everything in such an ignorant, simplistic, black and white only view. Dude clearly does not know and understand everything like he thinks he does. You might as well be talking to a pile of rocks. But even that sounds more entertaining than trying to have a conversation with fOx.
 
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lil devils x

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I don't know what a normal experience is. I can tell you that I lost my virginity at 14 and I was consideted a pretty late bloomer. Thats normal for me

Now, I didn't hear the about 12 yr olds having sex with anyone much older. And they could've just been making crap up.
That is the truth of it, a lot of younger kids like to talk like they are " so mature" and experienced because they don't want to viewed as a " an immature child" so most of the time at those ages they just make it up, both boys and girls. Pretty much like that girl on American Beauty. When it came down to it she was just too emotionally immature to be ready for sex. OTOH kids who were molested/ rape struggle with even trying to define their " first time" due to trying to figure out if the attack counted s their first or not and how it may have impacted their relationships afterwards because it screws with their heads quite abit. I personally like to think of " my first time" being one where I felt I genuinely wanted, consented and enjoyed it, rather than what was forced upon me against my will. Those sorts of things people really just want to put out of their head but always seem to come back when trying to think about their first time, other events that were caused by that happening or how they viewed sex at the time due to that.
 

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This thread reminded me a long debate I had over Io's summer picture from granblue fantasy back in the old escapist, I was much in the same vein making the same points being made in defense of this film here, and using story explanations as to why she'd take a picture that looks like a pin-up shot (she is a fan of fashion and her story is about explicitly not wanting to be treated as a kid and idolizing adulthood) and she was also 11 too, but she is drawn in anime style and not depicted by real human kids, so it wasn't defended thus by folks defending this film.


Overall, this is my main point in this topic here, as I have a full support for freedom of expression and the arts. But yeah, if this sorta thing is fine as long as someone can conceivably articulate a plot or societal reason to show kids being sexual, you really will lose all future arguments and have lost all past ones retroactively when the subject of the argument is what is depicted in fictional or drawn mediums that doesn't even involve real people and has a story reason or a message to fight for by depicting whatever it may be depicting.
 

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@lil devils x I would not even waste your breath on fOx. A guy that thinks the key to life is to censor everything, hide it, not talk about it, and see everything in such an ignorant, simplistic, black and white only view. Dude clearly does not know and understand everything like he thinks he does. You might as well be talking to a pile of rocks. But even that sounds more entertaining than trying to have a conversation with fOx.
I know how fox is. LOL you're not telling me anything new. He is likely to see that the religious extremists have a point.
This thread reminded me a long debate I had over Io's summer picture from granblue fantasy back in the old escapist, I was much in the same vein making the same points being made in defense of this film here, and using story explanations as to why she'd take a picture that looks like a pin-up shot (she is a fan of fashion and her story is about explicitly not wanting to be treated as a kid and idolizing adulthood) and she was also 11 too, but she is drawn in anime style and not depicted by real human kids, so it wasn't defended thus by folks defending this film.


Overall, this is my main point in this topic here, as I have a full support for freedom of expression and the arts. But yeah, if this sorta thing is fine as long as someone can conceivably articulate a plot or societal reason to show kids being sexual, you really will lose all future arguments and have lost all past ones retroactively when the subject of the argument is what is depicted in fictional or drawn mediums that doesn't even involve real people and has a story reason or a message to fight for by depicting whatever it may be depicting.
You understand there is a difference though than what a girl is actually going through that is mistakenly perceived as sexual rather than creating a character that is promoting the sexualization of a child or child like qualities. When I view the girls dancing, I do not see it as sexual at all because I do not connect their dancing with sex. It is just dancing, which is about themselves and how it makes them feel rather than other people. They want to be strong, powerful, beautiful women. They want other girls to look up to them and think they are awesome as well. At that age, the attention the girls actually want from boys isn't related to intercourse. It is about wanting the boys to like them, think they are beautiful and give them attention because that is what a relationship is to a child. It isn't about sex.

It is viewing this activity as being sexual that is the problem, not what they are actually doing. Female anime characters are notoriously horribly written by male perspective that ties in male point of view rather than what girls generally think. Creating a child like character that sexualizes these child like attributes is the opposite of portraying a girl who behaves and thinks like a girl. If a girl who wants to be viewed as woman she would have created the character, she would have made the character a woman without the childlike features existing at all. Unless of course she is intentionally trying to write kiddie porn to pander to pedos. That happens, but that is exactly their intention with it when it does. when they write in things like mistaking her for a child or give her childlike attributes they are intentionally pandering to that demographic. That is not the same as a girl who doesn't want to have those child like attributes accentuated.

It is men being attracted to the woman that makes him see everything she does as sexy, rather than what she does actually being " sexy". Guys find everything from the way a girl moves her hair, walks, sips her straw, bites her lip even the way she reads a book as things they find very sexy if he is actually attracted to her. AT the same time, he doesn't find those same things sexy when he isn't attracted to the person. It isn't that the actions have sexual intent, it is that they are perceived that way when the guy finds her attractive. There is nothing wrong with the actions on their own, it is the perception and the perception written into the story that changes it.
 
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tstorm823

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Don't insult musical theater. I will fight you IRL on this. I love musicals and I am ready to die on this hill.
There's a lot of good musical theater. But my mother likes things like White Christmas, which is a 50 minute musical padded with an hour and a half of unrelated dance sequences. I have no problem with stories put to music, it's when you put the story on hold and dance for 5 minutes that I'm out.
I am guessing from watching it that due to the creator and their religious community, that it is likely being reviewed by a heavily religious community as well. Which is Also much more alarmist about what many just consider normal activity of girls dancing and goofing off. There are really no actual sexual scenes in the movie. The girl misunderstands and acts out like a child would do, but the guy treated her as a child accordingly and she as hurt by that because she wants to be seen as a woman and not child. No one inappropriately touched girls or anything like that. The marketing + religious backlash sounds like the primary controversy.

Sort of like those Southern Baptists, Amish and Quakers down here that think girls should not be allowed to wear shorts and should work hard in the fields.. Her " auntie" worked her hard doing chores and talked about how she was given away as a child bride and other horrible stuff seriously screwing with the kids head.
What I'm getting at here is that actual descriptions of the movie make it sound like a girl with family issues is treated as an adult in one sense, then tries to pursue a different kind of adulthood, and just ends up increasingly miserable. Like, everyone's talking about the sexualization, but I read that near the end she watches a girl almost drown after pushing her in a river to steal her spot in a dance competition? Like, that's messed up, and I don't know how people could see something like this as a celebration of preteen sexuality.

Oh wait, I know exactly how people might think that, because I haven't seen the movie, but I have seen the poster and the netflix trailer. And other then a fraction of a second of the girl crying right at the end of the trailer, it really feels like they're selling the story of a girl escaping an oppressive religious household through dance and friendship. All the cuts in the trailer with her family are dark and sad and violent, and all the cuts with the friends are happy laughing fun times, except for an apology for running late which seems to just be hugged out and they're friends again.
 
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lil devils x

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There's a lot of good musical theater. But my mother likes things like White Christmas, which is a 50 minute musical padded with an hour and a half of unrelated dance sequences. I have no problem with stories put to music, it's when you put the story on hold and dance for 5 minutes that I'm out.

What I'm getting at here is that actual descriptions of the movie make it sound like a girl with family issues is treated as an adult in one sense, then tries to pursue a different kind of adulthood, and just ends up increasingly miserable. Like, everyone's talking about the sexualization, but I read that near the end she watches a girl almost drown after pushing her in a river to steal her spot in a dance competition? Like, that's messed up, and I don't know how people could see something like this as a celebration of preteen sexuality.

Oh wait, I know exactly how people might think that, because I haven't seen the movie, but I have seen the poster and the netflix trailer. And other then a fraction of a second of the girl crying right at the end of the trailer, it really feels like they're selling the story of a girl escaping an oppressive religious household through dance and friendship. All the cuts in the trailer with her family are dark and sad and violent, and all the cuts with the friends are happy laughing fun times, except for an apology for running late which seems to just be hugged out and they're friends again.
The whole exorcism BS her family put her through seemed to screw with her head when any healthy family would have been supportive of her and tried to be there for her to talk to. She didn't really seem to have any sort of support system, either with her friends or family. The girl had no one to talk to or to help her deal with anything or help her work through her problems. There is no celebration of preteen sexuality in this and I can only think that anyone who hasn't seen it would get that idea. They pretty much portrayed what would have otherwise been harmless dancing and goofing off with her friends into something more sinister, because it was from her families religious point of view thus why they focused on trying to make it worse than it was, like it was being portrayed as dancing was evil and sinful rather than girls just being normal healthy girls having fun and trying to figure out who they are like any other girl that age. They made the girl feel ashamed of her body and that was really wrong to do to a kid. The most uncomfortable thing about this movie to me was how her family made her feel like her body was sinful and abused her both physically and psychologically. What kind of parent brings in a exorcist to get the demons out of their daughter because she wanted to dance?
 

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I know how fox is. LOL you're not telling me anything new. He is likely to see that the religious extremists have a point.

You understand there is a difference though than what a girl is actually going through that is mistakenly perceived as sexual rather than creating a character that is promoting the sexualization of a child or child like qualities. When I view the girls dancing, I do not see it as sexual at all because I do not connect their dancing with sex. It is just dancing, which is about themselves and how it makes them feel rather than other people. They want to be strong, powerful, beautiful women. They want other girls to look up to them and think they are awesome as well. At that age, the attention the girls actually want from boys isn't related to intercourse. It is about wanting the boys to like them, think they are beautiful and give them attention because that is what a relationship is to a child. It isn't about sex.

It is viewing this activity as being sexual that is the problem, not what they are actually doing. Female anime characters are notoriously horribly written by male perspective that ties in male point of view rather than what girls generally think. Creating a child like character that sexualizes these child like attributes is the opposite of portraying a girl who behaves and thinks like a girl. If a girl who wants to be viewed as woman she would have created the character, she would have made the character a woman without the childlike features existing at all. Unless of course she is intentionally trying to write kiddie porn to pander to pedos. That happens, but that is exactly their intention with it when it does. when they write in things like mistaking her for a child or give her childlike attributes they are intentionally pandering to that demographic. That is not the same as a girl who doesn't want to have those child like attributes accentuated.

It is men being attracted to the woman that makes him see everything she does as sexy, rather than what she does actually being " sexy". Guys find everything from the way a girl moves her hair, walks, sips her straw, bites her lip even the way she reads a book as things they find very sexy if he is actually attracted to her. AT the same time, he doesn't find those same things sexy when he isn't attracted to the person. It isn't that the actions have sexual intent, it is that they are perceived that way when the guy finds her attractive. There is nothing wrong with the actions on their own, it is the perception and the perception written into the story that changes it.
Yet you have a lot of people who view this film as being what you are putting on anime chars, purely on your subjective opinion on what is "well written" or "badly written".

Why does anyone have to care about your art analysis here? Why do we want to base anything on something so subjective or arbitrary? And why doesn't someone else's analysis supersede yours and damn this movie?

You legit have tons of people who believe based on their artistic interpretation and judgement of the writing of this film that the woman who made it, is indeed trying to pander kiddie porn to pedos and is making a flimsy diversity-infused excuse to do so in a climate that will give every benefit of the doubt to a black director woman. Yes.

Sure, it may sound absurd to you, but I have news for you, that feeling of it sounding absurd to you, that is what you sound like to me with how you describe anime characters, and that is 100% just as valid as your feeling of absurdity, as both are based on subjective art and writing based opinions.

Only, on top, anime characters are drawings on paper and not using live human beings to embody them.
 

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Yet you have a lot of people who view this film as being what you are putting on anime chars, purely on your subjective opinion on what is "well written" or "badly written".

Why does anyone have to care about your art analysis here? Why do we want to base anything on something so subjective or arbitrary? And why doesn't someone else's analysis supersede yours and damn this movie?

You legit have tons of people who believe based on their artistic interpretation and judgement of the writing of this film that the woman who made it, is indeed trying to pander kiddie porn to pedos and is making a flimsy diversity-infused excuse to do so in a climate that will give every benefit of the doubt to a black director woman. Yes.

Sure, it may sound absurd to you, but I have news for you, that feeling of it sounding absurd to you, that is what you sound like to me with how you describe anime characters, and that is 100% just as valid as your feeling of absurdity, as both are based on subjective art and writing based opinions.

Only, on top, anime characters are drawings on paper and not using live human beings to embody them.
Those who are attempting to claim that either have not watched it or have no problem with the physical and psychological abuse of the religious extremist. I am sure the people who tied me to a chair and made me read the bible aloud and who raped, beat and abused hundreds of children at the church assimilation school the US government kidnapped forced Native Americans to go to didn't have a problem with the way the girl and dancing were portrayed in this movie either. That does not mean they are right, or that it is even okay for them to do so.

You want to attempt to use this film as some sort of justification for the intentional sexualization of children in anime to pander to guys to get off to and there really is no comparison. There was no copping a feel of her breasts, The girls didn't even date anyone at all in this film, There were no sexual situations, no, the adults in the film appropriately treated them like the kids they were, not get off on it like they do in the Anime we were discussing.
 

tstorm823

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What kind of parent brings in a exorcist to get the demons out of their daughter because she wanted to dance?
(Again, if my second-hand understanding is correct) the family was ignorant of the dancing and held an exorcism because she stabbed a kid at school?
 

lil devils x

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(Again, if my second-hand understanding is correct) the family was ignorant of the dancing and held an exorcism because she stabbed a kid at school.
She put a pencil in the kids hand after he slapped her ass with it while she was walking to the teacher's desk. It isn't like she got into a knife fight. That wasn't why they did the exorcism though. They were more concerned about her dancing, her crop tops, shorts, and the fact she snapped a picture of her hoo hoo and uploaded it to " prove" she wasn't a kid anymore. When you listen to what her auntie and mom actually said they were more mad about that than her putting a pencil in the boys hand that slapped her ass. The build up to that was her "auntie" constantly on her about her being too sexy. and what they were primarily yelling at her about. Defending herself from a kid who inappropriately smacking her ass was the least of the concerns. They brought it up, but that was only one among many other things.
 

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(Again, if my second-hand understanding is correct) the family was ignorant of the dancing and held an exorcism because she stabbed a kid at school?
Regardless if your information is correct or not, and exorcism does not do shit. Being a parent and talking to your actual kid is the answer. And if you're my parents a belt to the bottom if you did something really stupid, and lied about it.
 

Dreiko

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Those who are attempting to claim that either have not watched it or have no problem with the physical and psychological abuse of the religious extremist. I am sure the people who tied me to a chair and made me read the bible aloud and who raped, beat and abused hundreds of children at the church assimilation school the US government kidnapped forced Native Americans to go to didn't have a problem with the way the girl and dancing were portrayed in this movie either. That does not mean they are right, or that it is even okay for them to do so.

You want to attempt to use this film as some sort of justification for the intentional sexualization of children in anime to pander to guys to get off to and there really is no comparison. There was no copping a feel of her breasts, The girls didn't even date anyone at all in this film, There were no sexual situations, no, the adults in the film appropriately treated them like the kids they were, not get off on it like they do in the Anime we were discussing.
No that's the point, there's lots of people who just disagree with that judgement that have nothing to do with any of the random things you list. Just average everyday people.

And similarly there's tons of different interpretations for a lot of anime too, which people are too quick to dismiss because of the evils of a "male perspective" or whatever other excuse you're coming up with.


Ultimately, both things are subjective, but at least only one thing uses real actresses, so until that one is fixed there's no leg to stand on to point at other things.

Personally, I'm for free expression, so my goal it so spread that sentiment to things folks ACTUALLY dislike, because that is what shows whether you support free speech or not. Supporting speech you agree with, as you seem to do so in the case of this movie, well, that doesn't take any effort. So while I don't think you need to have the girls be that young or take their tits out or whatever the hell happens in that film, if the director lady thought it needed to be there, cool, it's her movie, she knows best. Not my idea of a good film but I respect it as her idea of one.
 

tstorm823

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Regardless if your information is correct or not, and exorcism does not do shit. Being a parent and talking to your actual kid is the answer. And if you're my parents a belt to the bottom if you did something really stupid, and lied about it.
I agree, and I don't intend to defend to morality of a fictional family in a movie I haven't seen. I'm contesting the suggestion that the family are the exclusive bad guys in a movie where the secret second life of dancing leads to stabbing and drowning.
 
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lil devils x

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Regardless if your information is correct or not, and exorcism does not do shit. Being a parent and talking to your actual kid is the answer. And if you're my parents a belt to the bottom if you did something really stupid, and lied about it.
Yea, the religious physical and psychological abuse of the kid when she really needed her family to be there for her and help explain to her what she was going though was the worst part of this for me, it pretty much triggered memories the abuse we suffered at that forced assimilation church school when we were kids. That is what is really dumbfounding here, that people would seriously be outraged and upset over girls dancing and doing what girls normally do at that age instead of them abusing this kid? Of all things to be upset about, they ignore that and focus on kids being kids instead. It is messed up. I guess that sums up what is really messed up for girls in this world:
Abusing girls is fine, just don't let t girls EVER feel confident in their own skin. The lack of complaints about the abuse is what is astonishing here, but their brains melt over girls dancing.
 
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