Why did Netflix allow this film?

[latheritup]

Please take a second to watch the video on this link, this is the final dance scene of the new movie on Netflix called Cuties.

mobile.twitter.com/MaryMargOlohan/status/1303908536553017349

I cannot understand why Netflix thought this was the right film to add to their selections. These are children.

There are several petitions going round to get this removed off their platform.

@Stripesgalore

Bringing in things like beauty pageants is an attempt to mask that this film is soft porn about 11 year olds.

Yeah! OK then!

That's another way to stifle discussion!

But these girls didn’t copy little mix, and they are not doing it in a safe home environment.

They are performing a routine that adult film makers have choreographed, paid them to perform, filmed focussing on their crotches as they rub them and then sold to Netflix.

On one hand, I see her point on the messages girls have on being women and the difficulties many face and that this sort of stuff is oppressive just as the oppression the West commonly points to in other cultures; on the other, I find her linking of 'femininity' to all this and the general framing of the main character being an immigrant girl rebelling against parents & the impacts of social media when so much of this goes on with active parental involvement and community encouragement feels off, not quite victim blaming but edging towards it.

There does seem to be more than a few films involving sexualizing children recently with very little discussion on how to protect the child actors involved, unlike previous films with concerns (usual horror or violent ones).

isn’t a beauty pageant. As a former pageant kid, this kind of dancing definitely happens there with young girls. At 5, I did a dance that it took me a few years to learn that the outfit, song lyrics, and some of the dance was in reference to a prostituted woman. Literally none of what I've seen of the film is new, however my experience and the ones of those I know are - much like the girls involved - done with parental consent, rather than fighting against it as the narrative seems to suggest.

That clip was grim. When DD was little she attended dance lessons but it was tap, ballet, and modern. I'd be appalled if anything like that was performed!

@nestisflown

Dance moms is sexualized somewhat but this clip goes further - the sex simulation was really shocking.

I get what the French female producer was trying to do but my concern is for these children who I don’t think could have consented to this routine in any meaningful way. The dance is essentially soft porn in dance format. If a child can’t consent to sex acts, they shouldn’t be able to consent to pornography- especially giving the permanent nature of film.

This also makes me feel really uneasy. It not like horror films where the children are kept away from the horror and are protected in many ways. These children are having to actually do it - how do they consent meaningfully? The art is no different from real life.

It’s being discussed here and all over the internet Samphire. There’s no stifling going on.

What have I just seen?

That just made me feel disgusted and wrong.

How must the young actresses have felt filming that scene?

I understand the context and the point of the film from other posters here and also that it seems there is a difference from the original and the Netflix promotion.

But I have to say, did they really need to focus so much on the girls? Couldn’t the camera have been more on the parents’ reactions in the audience?

This clip seems to me to be glorifying the whole thing.

Interesting in context of another recent Netflix production which glorified rape.

That's horrible. Never seen it and don't know what it's about or what point they're trying to make, but they still employed those children and made them act like that.

I'm half way through the film (I'm trying to watch without the subtitles so it's slow going) so am avoiding the clip that was all over Twitter (and now here).

So far I like the portrayal of the clash of cultures and poverty, and the sense the main girl makes of the confusion. I am a bit baffled by the aggressive friendship of the girls - I taught for 10 years in some rough comprehensives and haven't seen anything like that in real life.

The sexualisation of the girls' dress and dance is already making me feel uncomfortable. Yet the girls are shown to have no motive to be sexual other than they are emulating the dance videos they see. Their actual behaviour with each other and with boys is very childish and age-appropriate.

Twitter was a right wing outrage last night, but I think it's interesting that people are complaining about this film but not the culture that is portrayed as creating the girls' behaviour.

Bibabbles, I have never seen a child beauty pageant. Do the contestants really rub their own crotches and slap each other’s bottoms while twerking, like in this video?

Also, I feel very uncomfortable with people taking a clip out of context and posting it all over social media saying, "God Look at this child porn! Look! Look at how bad it is!".

nestisflown thunderskies

This also makes me think about consent.
An adult actor or actress can consent to filming sexually degrading scenes, including rape in the context of a film.

They can process the complicated information about what they are doing and why.

(Although I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that many are traumatised by filming a rape scene)

The burden of showing this should not be on the children here.

They haven’t done any clever camera tricks here, they’ve made those girls perform it.

Sorry, that should have said
nest is flown thunderskies
I agree

‘Twitter was a right wing outrage last night, but I think it's interesting that people are complaining about this film but not the culture that is portrayed as creating the girls' behaviour.’

The American Right endlessly goes on about the culture that creates this. Recently the Cardi B video caused a massive outrage.

I watched it last night, I thought it was very good. You absolutely have to watch the whole thing for context. It's about a clash of cultures, immigration, being on the outside, puberty/coming of age, peer pressure and so much more. It's not about dancing per se.

There's a scene where an actual 11 year old girl puts her mouth on a condom, too. And a scene where the girls learn to do moves from pornography.

These are actual children filming this movie. It's sick, and it's abuse, and the fact that the director is a woman and an immigrant doesn't make it less abusive. The reason this film got the traction it did with a Netflix deal isn't its quiet lessons about immigrants, it's that Netflix knows a lot of men would like to watch it in private.

I was reading something about Jodie Foster, can't remember what it was new film or something, and I thought about her singing My Name is Tallulah in Bugsy Malone, she was 13. I loved the film but that was quite disturbing thinking about it now, I don't think it raised an eyebrow when it was release. Maybe just me but that song is very suggestive, her going round the room interacting with the young male actors is uncomfortable in a different way to the French film, somehow I find it more disturbing.

This is not unusual. This dance style is what they call 'Commercial' on the dance competition circuit. Lots of dance schools teach commercial and there are commercial sections in many of the competitions.

Its origins are largely Dance Hall; it's a style that's been adopted by many current/recent artists - check out all videos in existence by Nicky Minaj/Rita Ora/Cardi B etc etc....

Ancientgran, I thought of Jodie Foster too when I saw this. Both Bugsy Malone and Taxi Driver.

Stripesgalore I've never seen Taxi Driver, there was controversy about that at the time and I never fancied it. I was a young mum and took my kids to see Bugsy Malone and it just seemed a fun kids film, now I look at that scene and wonder where the hell my head was.

There's a scene where an actual 11 year old girl puts her mouth on a condom, too.

Yes, because she's 11 and doesn't know what a condom is and she thinks it's a balloon. How did you not realise that?

And a scene where the girls learn to do moves from pornography.

One girl has watched a dance video and tries to teach the others to twerk and put a finger in their mouth. They are shown to be bad at it and she despairs. Because they are 11. How did you not get that from the scene? It's an uncomfortable scene to watch, but it makes its point.

Right wing outrage, god how tired. I'm on feminist twitter and not one of us is right wing. As for 'complaining about the dance but not about the culture that creates it' people from across the political spectrum have been objecting to the insidious creep of pornification for years. My mum marched against pornography in the 80s.

This isn't a random knee jerk response. It's people who have had enough and can recognise a horrifying new low when they see it.

Paedophiles like that children don’t understand the ways they are being sexualised, MsStillwell. That’s the appeal.

@MorrisZapp I'm taking this argument on board certainly. I haven't finished the film yet so I'm still open to making my mind up.

I haven't seen the trailer or any clips but I'm about 15 minutes in to the actual film. The girl is wearing her younger brothers tiny t-shirt under her own to try and fit in with her peers. It brought back some memories for me of when I was an immigrant and people used to ask me about my clothes. It's an immediate sign of not belonging.

No dancing yet.