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False outrage performed by people with false “morality.”
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The right picking this fight is a trap. They intend to setup a strawman argument and make it appear that the left defends pedophilia. Thus confirming a popular myth out of QAnon reaching all the way back to so-called Pizzagate.
I would recommend not getting involved and letting this film die. We’re not ready to discuss it in a real way, it can only be used as a pawn in an unrelated political battle.
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. I didn’t love the dance scenes—they feel doomed to be pulled out of context—but it’s a drag, since the film critiques just what its haters think it supports.
Haven’t we just had several examples of this? Where doing something bad either ironically or to critique/call out something is still doing that bad thing? There is a crass saying involving goats, but would rather not use that in the context of 11 year olds.
First of - there absolutely is an issue with sexulaizing kids in dance culture. When we looked around for the kiddo to do dance classes, we went to various places and checked out the pictures they had of the various ensembles they had on walls and videos of past dance performances. Some of them were… inappropriate… we felt for that age level.
If the actual plot of the movie is:
Eleven-year-old Amy starts to rebel against her conservative family’s traditions when she becomes fascinated with a free-spirited dance crew.
That is cool. But certainly they could have been free-spirited with their dancing and costumes that doesn’t include some of the clips I’ve seen. Albeit out of context… but as I said above, does that matter? I think it is more than fair criticism.
That said - the drama llama’s like Ted Cruz that it is “child porn” are fucking ridiculous. It isn’t. I feel like there is some fair criticism, but this is hyperbole. This movie is more or less a reflection of what is happening in SOME dance studios across the US. Similar to things like child pageants, etc.
YMMV
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The difference between promoting white supremacy online vs. making a film about white supremacy is huge. American History X was very much as a depiction and critique of a white supremacist and is not promoting white supremacy. Same here. The people who are freaking out about this are not going after the reality TV shows that are ACTUAL ACTIVELY promoting the sexualization of children. They are not critiquing pageant culture more broadly that very much DOES the thing they claim to be against. They are also basing their claims on faked overviews of the film. 
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I did sound and light for a dance recital a while back. One of the numbers featured a stage full of girls, perhaps around eleven, doing a modern dance interpretation of Time Of The Season. For those unaware, that’s the classic rock song with the refrain “What’s your name? Who’s your daddy? Is he rich like me?”. There was nothing I could do except sit up there in the booth utterly horrified, trying to hit my lighting cues while holding my head in my hands muttering “No, no, no, no…”.
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I don’t think anyone disagrees that this is a problem? But the film has been mischaracterized as doing the same, and it’s clear from actual reviews from people who actually saw the film that this is not the case.
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I’ll be watching it tonight, and will comment more then.
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Cool! Please let us know.
And course, the intent of the director does matter, but they also could not have done a good job in getting that across in the film. From what I’ve seen in reviews, that’s not been the case, the intent to critique is pretty obvious. The main problem seems to have been Netflix’s ham-fisted marketing.
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That’s what I’m seeing thus far; the poster they initially used for the American market is indeed inappropriate, though not on the level of kiddie porn.
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That is a very good point. There are several parts of American History X (which I rewatched earlier this year) that make me very uncomfortable.(As they should.) But it’s message is pretty clear.
Is it fair to say that not all media who tries to tackle controversial subjects like white supremacy do it well? Even though American History X is overall a good film challenging white supremacy, I still have some issue with it, as at the very end of the film because I feel that a white supremacist could have their view validated by the ending.
I am not sure how well this film tackles this actual issue or not. Honestly I have been very turned off at it from the imagery shown on Netflix alone. I don’t have a desire to watch it. And the very brief clips I have seen I found repelling. So I have to challenge if their points they were trying to make could have been done in a different way. Odds are most of this movie is fine, as I am sure the dance portions are only a small part of the movie over all.
Like I said, the complaints outlined in the post are hyperbole. But just because they are hypocrites and several of them terrible people, I am not sure we should excuse this issue when it is called out. I am repelled by the other TV shows out there as well.
That is a great song… but yeah… not in that context.
I was at a daddy daughter dance at my kids school and KC & The Sunshine Band’s - Get Down Tonight came one. Great song! Not in that context… 
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The contrast in mood between the kids being kids, which is charming and funny and de-stressing, and the record-scratch disquiet when they’re trying to mimic adult sexuality is extremely effective. The out-of-context clips don’t develop that contrast.
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A “joke” comparing young girls to livestock is in seriously poor taste, especially given the nature of this thread.
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let’s see, some of the “prime” examples i’ve seen tossed around regarding cancel culture include:
an editor of a major newspaper getting fired for running an editorial with fascist overtones calling for sending out the military to stop protests which he admitted he didn’t even read before he ran it. hmm . . .
a professor at a college getting into trouble for repeatedly using the “n” word in a reading of king’s “letter from a birmingham jail” even after multiple students of color begged him not to. uh-huh . . .
an employee of tucker carlson’s show who was fired for posting multiple incredibly racist posts on a message board. i see . . .
jordan peterson has turned his complaints about “cancel culture” into a side hustle earning him $30-80000/month on patreon and other venues. oh yeah . . .
speaking side hustles, bari weiss, while complaining about violations of her supreme right not to be criticized (no really, it’s the zeroth amendment isn’t it) tried to get a woman fired because she politely turned down a request from weiss to sit down over coffee and be roasted by weiss . . .
i could go on but i think that far from prime these are at best cutter or canner quality. seriously if you go through the cases of actual firings, silencings, and arrests (yes, arrests) you will notice that the ones against conservatives by progressives are mostly either completely false or grotesquely exaggerated while the ones against progressives by conservatives are mostly true and underreported.
i call bullshit!
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There’s no way to watch Cuties and come away thinking their sexualized dancing is a good thing. I don’t want to post spoilers, but the dance performance at the end is not a triumphant Bring It On-style underdog victory.
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I was trying to reassure people who might want to watch it that the movie isn’t as dark as my analogy might suggest, but I’ll delete that line.
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Of course. This film might be a case of that, but that’s not what Cruz and his ilk are arguing. They are saying that the film is doing something that is not the stated intent of the director, nor is it based on either their own viewing of the film OR even on ACCURATE reports of the film.
No one is doing that, though. No one is saying that the kind of culture that this film depicts is good. Not a single person here.
I get what @jere7my is trying to say, but yeah. THAT’S part of the problem she’s trying to get at in this film, how dehumanizing such culture is for young tween girls.
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I was just responding to @Mister44’s tale of eww. I don’t really have anything to say about the movie in question, as I haven’t seen it. (What a concept, eh?)
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Sure. I’m just saying that no one here is downplaying the larger problem or defending the sexualizatiton of teen girls here. Especially NOT the women here or those of us with daughters.
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I agree… though from a the perspective of someone who only glances at the marketing materials still images/name? What conclusion are these people supposed to draw? Honestly what I saw made me go ewww no thanks looks like toddler’s and tiaras or some such nonsense?
