I've decided that the Cuties film topic is nuke-bait for my channel so I'm going to avoid it (I'm upset tbh lmao). But long story short, the film is..ironically...reactionary.

The message is that social media (like porn) is responsible for kids wilding out ->

The director is a Senegalese woman who was trying to navigate the discussion about child hypersexuality in a time of social media and attention currency demanding they feed into expectations and inhibiting their natural development.

The premise is /good/ but instead of going down the pathway that more radical studies/research are trying to inform about the topic (bc the latter means believing that children are limited to adults' perceptions of them), she leans on finding a culprit.

..I actually enjoyed the first half of the film. I thought the narrative of a girl torn between cultures finding refuge in girls that were exploring their sexualities in an uninhibited 'fuck you, society' kind of way was nice.

There's a tough conversation to be had about -

- what that looks like in a way that isn't influenced by child predators or sociopolitical agendas that want to keep children 'dumb and innocent' that'll set the groundwork to help them groom them bc they can't say no.

I thought the film would go there but it swerves.

The main character, Amy, is going through this internal turmoil that turns into rage she uses as a resource to motivate her to try to mold herself to fit these expectations/fit in w/ the other girls.

I thought it was gonna show 'this is bad, but she can learn.' But -

- instead of there being an arc that finds a way for her to reclaim her sexuality in a way that's /hers/ that isn't beholden to social media, fitting in w/ anyone, etc, that's challenging, by the end of the film it turns into this regressive message of -

'If it weren't for social media, kids would be innocent and not think of sex or wanna do anything, etc.'

And if you research this properly, you'll find data and journals showing that..uhh, they think about it plenty; they just aren't educated and do stupid shit.

I have vivid memories of seven year old boys drawing penises on everything they could find and the 90s child /fascination/ over South Park and crude sex jokes and what 'sex' was back in grade school and who 'did' it and who didn't. But this goes back decades -

This isn't new. You can argue that Capitalism and how we set up society gives kids the wrong information and resources, but we have to eventually figure out how to teach them about it in a healthy way or else they'll have 'adult' consequences that'll damage them.

There's a scene in the movie that was quite powerful to me of one of the girls from the in-crowd finding a dirty condom on the ground and blowing a bubble in it and it freaking out the other girls and her saying..'but i didn't know it could give me a disease..how would i know?'

And a tear rolls down her eye and there's a lot of moments that are jarring like that where you see what it looks like if you give car keys to someone who doesn't know how to drive, so to speak, but are encouraged to do so.

..Because that's what happens in the real world. You avoid teaching kids about sex and they (magically) wind up pregnant, diseases are passed around, and kids aren't given tools (or power) to say no or handle certain situations better bc they'd be educated.

But the director doesn't take that approach. Instead, the movie is a lot like that Breitbart image that went around that screencapped the dance performance and blurred out parts of the girls' bodies in a porn-like way.

Cuties is the film version of that.

There's also an entire discussion to be had over..like..if it's been proven that child predators aren't pedophiles/MAPS and just abuse children for power's sake, then that debunks the idea that the general person views children sexually, then why do we sexualize kids like adults?

..As in, what's in our social programming to make us view them in that sort of polarized way where they're either these witless and ignorant little things or something that's defiled and dirty? That kid's body has 0 to do with you.

As in..if they aren't 'innocent', then they're sinful and corrupted and are no longer children. We can't protect them anymore bc they're sexual beings and aren't so much innocent tots as like..tiny younger versions of ourselves that know less and need guidance, but that's it.

They have autonomy and deserve our respect and consideration. They can draw their own boundaries and form their own opinions.

But structurally speaking, they're possessions and their vehicles for our projections and fantasies.

That's the problem.

And we should interrogate that in ourselves because it reveals how much these systems have fucked us up and why children are always hurt in the same sort of cycle.

You don't stop children from being abused by denying them autonomy over their bodies. First and foremost.

There are a lot of difficult and nuanced conversations to be had about at what age this can be determined, laws, and social things, but as for anything else, I'd argue that the film isn't so much 'pedo bait' as it is structure enabling.

And if you research the trend of outrage about this topic, it's never ending. Whenever there's a film or show that depicts young people of various ages having sex or even showing interest in it, it's seen as 'nurturing' a system of predators in a liberal and reactionary way.

That isn't how the vast majority of child abuse and molestation happen. That isn't the trigger. The system itself being founded on exploitation combined w/ valorizing youth and innocence are the triggers.

Cuties is the symptom of our denial of those issues.

/End