Netflix facing indictment from Texas grand jury over "Cuties"

[lil devils x]

Could be wrong, but I always saw the relationship between Leon And Mathilda as a paternal one.

Mathilda came from a very damaged home, one in which she felt marginalized if not outright neglected as evidenced during the scene where she first encounters Leon after her family is slaughtered; the only person she feels any loss for is her baby brother.

Leon is the stoic hitman who's come to terms with his lot in life, lonely (or alone) by design, keeping to routines of Spartan simplicity until "business" has to be conducted where his only rule is "no women, no kids."

Suddenly this child in dire need is thrust upon him at a very tense moment, and even then, he considers what it means to upset his routine to help her and get involved. He reluctantly takes her in with the plan to offload her when appropriate, but circumstance dictate that that's to be later rather than sooner. They form bonds as he begins to feel "something" outside of cold, methodical calculation in pursuit of his profession again, and she begins to experience what it feels like to actually matter to someone, to be cared for.

Now, I'm not a young girl, but I've heard tell that young women from troubled homes/situations often try to compensate for damaged emotions and mental states in sometimes not so healthy ways, one of them being unmerited (and unwarranted) attraction to those who demonstrate value in their particular emotional voids, and that can lead them to further misconstrue their own feelings and act inappropriately. There's no doubt Mathilda loved Leon, but I think she misinterpreted it as the romantic love between a man and a women when in fact it was her desire for the love of a father. She tried to prove herself a worthy "lover" by demonstrating her adult side with romantic intimations, obedience, and even wanting to learn to be a "cleaner" like Leon. And I think for Leon's part, he intuited this in some way (being a stranger to certain softer emotions,) but I don't think he was reigning in any unethical desire to requite or take advantage of her; you see in the scene I posted, he's visibly uncomfortable with her sultry advances, and this moment is used specifically to add levity to the otherwise austere film. I think his struggle was more with the idea of his life being irrevocably altered, for the better, having to care for this child he's grown to love as a surrogate father.

I guess if one wanted, they could read into their more intimate exchanges and interpret under/overtones of pedophilia, but given the general universal praise for the film with some not-so-small names in it, I doubt they could have passed that one off as a [then] modern day "Lolita" without a lot of controversy.

TL;DR? Leon loved Mathilda as a daughter he never knew he could handle, and she him as the father she never knew she could have.

The part you have wrong here is that kids who come from very wealthy homes, Christian Homes, loving families, who have loving support structures, who come from the good homes and "best" families do all of the same things that kids with troubled pasts do. That really needs to be understood. Some of the worst situations come from the best homes. There are so many other factors that impact these things that it really needs to be clarified that the " broken home Myth" is just that, all of these same things happen in wealthy homes and neighborhoods, These things happen in all types of families of all incomes and how well they were raised or how good their parents and families were really doesn't necessarily impact these situations as much as people tend to think they do.

 

[Houseman]

The part you have wrong here is that kids who come from very wealthy homes, Christian Homes, loving families, who have loving support structures, who come from the good homes and "best" families do all of the same things that kids with troubled pasts do. That really needs to be understood. Some of the worst situations come from the best homes. There are so many other factors that impact these things that it really needs to be clarified that the " broken home Myth" is just that, all of these same things happen in wealthy homes and neighborhoods, These things happen in all types of families of all incomes and how well they were raised or how good their parents and families were really doesn't necessarily impact these situations as much as people tend to think they do.

Many studies disagree with you.
This is all I will say on the subject.

 

[Xprimentyl]

The part you have wrong here is that kids who come from very wealthy homes, Christian Homes, loving families, who have loving support structures, who come from the good homes and "best" families do all of the same things that kids with troubled pasts do. That really needs to be understood. Some of the worst situations come from the best homes. There are so many other factors that impact these things that it really needs to be clarified that the " broken home Myth" is just that, all of these same things happen in wealthy homes and neighborhoods, These things happen in all types of families of all incomes and how well they were raised or how good their parents and families were really doesn't necessarily impact these situations as much as people tend to think they do.

Oh, I don't disagree and it wasn't an omission; I was just speaking within the context of this specific film.

 

[Worgen]

A) Revy is more like our stalker
B) Wow, rude

then stop being rude to me.

Well, I can safely say none of us have made an even half serious defense of child porn or beastiality, so I think our taste is at least preferable.

All you can say about it is that its bad, you have no philosophic reason why its bad, just that its bad. That is a pretty shit way to say something is bad. I have actually given reasons why they are bad.

 

[Specter Von Baren]

The part you have wrong here is that kids who come from very wealthy homes, Christian Homes, loving families, who have loving support structures, who come from the good homes and "best" families do all of the same things that kids with troubled pasts do. That really needs to be understood. Some of the worst situations come from the best homes. There are so many other factors that impact these things that it really needs to be clarified that the " broken home Myth" is just that, all of these same things happen in wealthy homes and neighborhoods, These things happen in all types of families of all incomes and how well they were raised or how good their parents and families were really doesn't necessarily impact these situations as much as people tend to think they do.

Seems a bit insulting to say that bad homes have had no negative or lasting effect on children raised in them.

 

[Revnak]

All you can say about it is that its bad, you have no philosophic reason why its bad, just that its bad. That is a pretty shit way to say something is bad. I have actually given reasons why they are bad.

Nah. I have plenty of reasons. I just don’t argue about them on this website full of nerds.

 

[Worgen]

Thinking back to older discussions-- involving, yes, Danayl, I think was the spelling-- I think the main thing is that, compared to eating animals, fucking them seems very gratuitous. Perhaps the best moral argument against it actually comes from virtue ethics, which I hesitate to ever endorse-- and makes me a bit skeptical, actually. But essentially, extending from the above, you don't want to be the kind of person that does that sort of thing. Whereas eating a hot dog? That's whatever. Like wow, you eat nutritious things? Not exactly the makings of a horrible person. This argument doesn't have much force against 'Cuties', so far as I'm aware, because making questionable decisions with respect to making a movie is pretty normal among people who make movies and not usually regarded as morally outrageous. And also all the stuff lil devils x posted that make it clear that young children are often generating wank material for pedos (not intentionally, obviously) pretty viciously undermines the argument from virtue ethics because now you're arguing with an entire normalized practice.

*snipped for lengh*

I would assume that someone who is into bestiality would treat their animals better. I mean if your fucking something don't you want it to be treated as best as you can? Then again there is that abuse porn which, blegh. I don't know, I would assume if people were fucking animals they would treat them better, but that is just based on how I view sex where I care more about getting my partner off than myself. Not sure if people that are into it think like that.

The pedo side is weird because it feels like we should restrict girls freedoms so they don't temp the pedos when the pedo''s are the ones with the problem. While kids might be inadvertently generating wank material for pedos as long as they keep it at that and aren't abusing anyone... I don't know. People, meaning men will sexualize anything so I think it really comes down to needing to take this angle less from what the kids are doing and more to train men to be less creepy. I remember reading an article about guys who take screen shots of movies where feet are showing for foot fetish websites, one of the actresses who they did this too when she was a teen or something found it, at first she was like whatever but as time went on she started feeling more violated by it. So this shit is complicated, if you are into something weird then you should really just go for drawn/3d porn of it so that you aren't hurting anyone.

I would use the same argument against bestiality that I do against pedophilia. Consent and power dynamic. Not only can you not be actually sure if your partner is truly consenting, but its almost impossible for an outside force to know if they are consenting out of actually knowing what they are doing or if they have just been trained to do something. For power dynamic I think that relationships with extremely one sided power dynamic should be avoided since with power being that lopsided you can't be sure they are giving consent of their own freewill.

 

[Worgen]

Nah. I have plenty of reasons. I just don’t argue about them on this website full of nerds.

I understand why you would be scared too. You will be called a pedophile by dinks.

 

[Revnak]

I understand why you would be scared too. You will be called a pedophile by dinks.

If I like you cared about the opinions of nerds on this website I would be afraid of that I suppose.

 

[Worgen]

If I like you cared about the opinions of nerds on this website I would be afraid of that I suppose.

So you say, but then you are too afraid to actually engage with the conversation.

 

[Xprimentyl]

Seems a bit insulting to say that bad homes have had no negative or lasting effect on children raised in them.

I don't think she is saying that; I got a "being raised with privilege can yield mental and emotional scars and damage TOO" vibe. I didn't imply that in my post because I was coming from the perspective of a specific character in a single film, not speaking generally about the field of mental/emotional health.

 

[Revnak]

So you say, but then you are too afraid to actually engage with the conversation.

What conversation? Pedophilia? I’m not interested in fucking kids.

 

[lil devils x]

Seems a bit insulting to say that bad homes have had no negative or lasting effect on children raised in them.

No one is saying that. You can have children who come from single parent households have a better support structure than those in a wealthy home depending on the parents themselves. It is what people generally think of as being a " good home" that is part of the problem. Sometimes there are other factors impacting this entirely. It is like you have a a family of 5 kids, raised in the exact same environment and every single one of the kids can be completely different. Not all of them will choose to go to college, some of them may turn out great while at the same time you have ones that may turn out to rob, cheat, steal and couch surf never having ambitions to do anything else. Even good homes wind up with teenage pregnancies and junkies regardless of what opportunities they have offered to them.

The reality also is what people may consider "good homes" can often not really be. When you take children in foster care, for example, the ones that were sent to the " good Christian homes" ( at least according to republicans and evangelicals)come out telling us how they were treated as a slave, human trafficked, abused ect. Those supposed good Christian homes, are the reason for the foster care to human trafficking pipeline existing at all. Some of the best families also wind up with kids who steal the register out of the chicken place and wind up hitting cops with it. The guy who wound up raping kids grew up in a house that looks like a castle and had all the opportunities in the world at his feet. Life just works that way.

 

[lil devils x]

What conversation? Pedophilia? I’m not interested in fucking kids.

What is with your creepy obsession with France? Is this like those raging Homophobes who constantly lash out at gay people but then turn out to really be gay themselves? Are you a closet Francophile here? Is THIS what is really going on?

 

[Worgen]

What conversation? Pedophilia? I’m not interested in fucking kids.

But since you haven't given any reasons why its bad we can't be sure of that.

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

Hmm, did have opinions, but...now i got nothing to add except more extreme eyebrow raising...

Sorry!

 

[lil devils x]

Hmm, did have opinions, but...now i got nothing to add except more extreme eyebrow raising...

Sorry!

This looks really creepy when you have so many eyebrows raised in a row like that..

 

[Worgen]

This looks really creepy when you have so many eyebrows raised in a row like that..

 

[XsjadoBlayde]

This looks really creepy when you have so many eyebrows raised in a row like that..

The original intention was to present an army of eyebrows in one post, but this device im using is having a psychotic meltdown, and the amount of "sexually suggestive" eyebrows there are to sift through just wasn't worth it. Im sorry i didnt do halloween properly! Next time i promise way more creepy eyebrows to make up for this terrible oversight.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

Well any free speech / freedom of expression arguments I'd say just took a hit with Netflix choosing to content ID copyright claim a video critical of the film and blocked the video globally because they can.


Seems Netflix's view is "Speech for me but not for thee"