I suspect Cuties needs no introduction (or Mignonnes if you want the "real" title). It's probably the most talked-about film release to not get derailed by the COVID crisis, either through delays in production or unnecessary ones in distribution (unnecessary because, I assure you, streaming will do just fine while crowded multiplexes are unsafe). The movie, which appeared to sexualize underage girls, was gravely mismarketed by Netflix and it was too little too late when we learned that the movie proper is being "ironic".
Yes, this strange French film is actually about how wrong it is to rob the kiddos of what little innocence modern pop culture and social media let them keep; to dress them up in stripperesque outfits and have them shake what their mamas indeed gave them along with the Doja Cat merch. Syke! Bet you thought this film about twerking 11-year-olds was really about twerking 11-year-olds.
I'll talk about the satirical effectiveness of the material later in this post. First, let's be fairer on the plot and what it actually is: in Paris, a young refugee girl (Fathia Youssuff, who acts just fine) is invited to her more free-spirited neighbor's twerk group (reminding me just slightly, but still too much, of the Swedish film Kidz in da Hood). This product of a hypersexualized culture seems antithetical to the values the girl was taught by her devout Muslim mother, particularly those about the subservient female role, but the defiance adds to her fascination.
I can honestly see potential in this premise, mostly due to the short-circuiting that may occur in political spheres. And newbie director Maïmouna Doucouré does indeed confront the popular false dichotomy between promiscuity and religious cowls. The movie sometimes works as a shocking, Larry Clark-style coming-of-age saga but I posit that delivering this message by doing the very thing you're condemning is unlikely to result in much, outside of the online drama that indeed transpired and didn't end well for Netflix.
Some have argued, nonetheless, that Cuties ain't no biggie because it isn't the end of the world that young kids become aware of sexuality, or even erotic dance routines.
If Cuties does intend to satirize the very sexualization it itself is guilty of (which I might've found more admirably f?cked-up if it was clearer or more outwardly dismal, à la perhaps the Paris Hilton episode of South Park), the confessed intent may not be enough. If Neo-Nazis can't tell facetious Hitler salutes in a YouTube video from the real deal, why did Cuties come to pass? And how?
You aren't going to stick it to the pervs or Spaceys by giving them what they like and then going "this is actually bad", nor is every critic who defends this movie aware that it's being negative - rather than a defiant display of "child sexuality", as one critic named it. The problem is too real to be efficiently addressed with mere irony (that isn't always legible in an occasionally upbeat text), but I will say this: it might be part of Doucoré's point to show how one film so easily can add gasoline to the flames.
Yes, pedos may roll with it without feeling attacked, but so might modern-day parents who film their kids dancing to "Anaconda" (to then become TikTok sensations at age 16). If Cuties had had the girls hang around RuPaul and/or gyrate their hips as a Cardi B-style empowerment move, it might've had even more fans.
Yes, this strange French film is actually about how wrong it is to rob the kiddos of what little innocence modern pop culture and social media let them keep; to dress them up in stripperesque outfits and have them shake what their mamas indeed gave them along with the Doja Cat merch. Syke! Bet you thought this film about twerking 11-year-olds was really about twerking 11-year-olds.
I'll talk about the satirical effectiveness of the material later in this post. First, let's be fairer on the plot and what it actually is: in Paris, a young refugee girl (Fathia Youssuff, who acts just fine) is invited to her more free-spirited neighbor's twerk group (reminding me just slightly, but still too much, of the Swedish film Kidz in da Hood). This product of a hypersexualized culture seems antithetical to the values the girl was taught by her devout Muslim mother, particularly those about the subservient female role, but the defiance adds to her fascination.
I can honestly see potential in this premise, mostly due to the short-circuiting that may occur in political spheres. And newbie director Maïmouna Doucouré does indeed confront the popular false dichotomy between promiscuity and religious cowls. The movie sometimes works as a shocking, Larry Clark-style coming-of-age saga but I posit that delivering this message by doing the very thing you're condemning is unlikely to result in much, outside of the online drama that indeed transpired and didn't end well for Netflix.
Some have argued, nonetheless, that Cuties ain't no biggie because it isn't the end of the world that young kids become aware of sexuality, or even erotic dance routines.
If Cuties does intend to satirize the very sexualization it itself is guilty of (which I might've found more admirably f?cked-up if it was clearer or more outwardly dismal, à la perhaps the Paris Hilton episode of South Park), the confessed intent may not be enough. If Neo-Nazis can't tell facetious Hitler salutes in a YouTube video from the real deal, why did Cuties come to pass? And how?
You aren't going to stick it to the pervs or Spaceys by giving them what they like and then going "this is actually bad", nor is every critic who defends this movie aware that it's being negative - rather than a defiant display of "child sexuality", as one critic named it. The problem is too real to be efficiently addressed with mere irony (that isn't always legible in an occasionally upbeat text), but I will say this: it might be part of Doucoré's point to show how one film so easily can add gasoline to the flames.
Yes, pedos may roll with it without feeling attacked, but so might modern-day parents who film their kids dancing to "Anaconda" (to then become TikTok sensations at age 16). If Cuties had had the girls hang around RuPaul and/or gyrate their hips as a Cardi B-style empowerment move, it might've had even more fans.