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So I've got a few things I want to say about Cuties. Been sitting on it for a few days, but I'm doing this for me. I don't expect anyone to care what my thoughts are. Thread.
I am an advocate of creative freedom, particularly the freedom to tell controversial stories. In line with that, I have no problem with Cuties existing based on its plot. The plot isn't a problem imo.
Every decade, it seems we get a film like this. A controversial coming of age story about young children doing things that young children ought not do. They're usually tied to a message the creators want to get across about how *bad thing* is bad and *good thing* is good.
In the mid 90's people got mad about Kids. In the early 2000's, Thirteen was controversial. Both before Twitter and Facebook could help the controversy get very far. Today it's Cuties. There's one big difference in this one though.
Kids depicted 12 and 13, (at the oldest I think Telly was 17), year olds in and around sexual situations. But the actual actors were not 12 and 13. "Darcy" was 19, "Julie" was 21, even "Unnamed Girl 1" from the beginning, who looked 11, was 17 irl.
In Thirteen the girls were, well, 13. IRL "Tracy" was 16, and "Evie" was 15 - but the actress, Nikki Reed, cowrote the script which was based on her real life. So she had a few extra years' worth of emotional maturity.
In Cuties, the characters are 11. In real life... they were 11 years old. 11 year old real people. Not CGI, not young looking 17 year olds. Actual 11 year old human children.
There are important lessons in Cuties. The importance of parental involvement and explaining - and regulating - the media our kids consume. Setting positive examples. Not making them or allowing them to navigate this fucked up world alone.
Actually raising our kids instead of letting or even expecting tv, movies, video games, celebrities, or other kids do it for us. Not letting them grow up too fast. The existence of romanticized exploitation and the alternatives.
So I come back to the age. Could this film have told those very important lessons without the use of close up butt and crotch shots of actual 11 year old children? Would the lessons really have been dampened that much with an older cast and no close up butt and crotch shots?
The movie is supposed to make you feel gross and uncomfortable and disturbed. I get that. I love gross uncomfortable disturbing shit. BUT this could have been just as gross and uncomfortable and disturbing with older actors.
I think of that one dance scene that's going around, and I think of more than just that scene. I think of the filming of that scene.
I think of adults teaching those kids those moves. Having them redo it. Praising them when it's "right" and correcting them when it's "wrong." It feels like exploitation for the sake of condemning exploitation. Was there really no other way?
I'm sure all the adults involved did their best to make the kids comfortable and teach them along the way. But actions and words and results and something about a road of intentions.
The message? Good. But I have to wonder about the difference between the intended target audience and the actual audience. Who a film like this is likely to appeal to. And why.
If nothing else, Cuties has served its purpose. Everyone - for or against the movie - is talking about the exploitation of children, whether in the context of the movie itself or in the context of the real life actors. And that's an important conversation.
I guess that's it.
Oh and before you ask like it's some sort of gotcha, I think parents who force their kids into beauty pagent circuits should be sterilized.
Like I said, I don't expect anyone to care. As a mother of an 11 year old girl, I kinda just wanted to get this out of my system and my head. Thank you for your patience with me while I did this.
