If you’ve been following social media in the past couple of months, especially Facebook, you’ve probably seen the #saveourchildren hashtag and the controversy over a new Netflix film, “Cuties.”
“Cuties,” which stars four girls aged 12 to 14, follows the protagonist Amy as she struggles to find herself between her extremely religious family and a new group of middle school friends with whom she starts a dance troupe.
As far as the quality of the film goes, “Cuties” is pretty mediocre. While the director was clearly chasing a unique indie film feel, it’s more reminiscent of a TV-MA version of the low budget movies Disney channel used to run at 2 a.m. that no one really remembers. There was little organization within the scenes and storytelling, and it leans heavily on a tired “moral of the story” trope.
What makes the movie notable, however, is the way in which the message was portrayed.
The film, created by female director Maimouna Doucoure who stands by it as a work of feminism as well as art, unleashes an uncomfortable and blatant criticism of the sexualization of children and young women in the society we currently live in. The film takes an especially critical stance against social media, clearly arguing that young girls are pressured into maturing faster now than at any other time in history.
However, the film also uses that very same sexualization of the young female actresses to confront the audience and make them face this uncomfortable reality head-on. Close-ups of the young girls in revealing clothing dancing in extremely suggestive ways are everywhere in the film.
In fact, on Oct. 6, a grand jury in Texas indicted Netflix on a charge of “promotion of lewd visual material depicting a child.”
Going into the film, it’s reasonable to assume that the explicitly sexual clips circulating on Facebook and Fox News were cherry-picked and taken completely out of context. After watching it, however, it’s clear that the movie really is rife with sexually suggestive scenes with the young actresses. The debate, then, turns to whether or not the ends justify the means when it comes to the director’s message.
While Doucoure was clearly using the excessive sexualization of the young actresses in the movie to make a point, the movie was just that — excessive.
In journalism, the saying “Seek truth and minimize harm” is a staple to the point of being cliche. Sometimes, telling a story that reveals the truth requires some harm. However, the value of truth must be balanced with the damage that it causes.
While the movie did succeed in making its point and making the audience uncomfortable, it also used actresses who are real people, who are really underage, to do so. The age of consent exists for a reason, and these girls clearly are not old enough to give consent to the use of their bodies for such graphic sexual imagery, even if the intention and purpose is well-meaning.
The director could have made the same point, likely with the same effectiveness, without causing potentially lasting harm to the young actresses. While it’s important that art imitates reality, it’s also important to not lose sight of the impact of our actions when creating that art.
The movie has good intentions, and clearly doesn’t actually cross the line into child pornography, but you can’t shake the feeling that there is an air of hypocrisy. While “Cuties” criticizes the sexualization of young girls, it’s hard to ignore that it sexualizes the same real, underage girls that it seeks to protect.
