UnHerd ✒ We are too squeamish about the power and vulnerability that’s unique to female puberty.

16-September-2020


Conservatives are currently losing their marbles over the Netflix film Cuties, because it depicts 11-year-old girls dancing in explicitly sexual ways. Having watched it, I can confirm that yes, it’s uncomfortable to watch. The camera lingers. And there are points where it crossed a line.

But, despite lasciviously-shot footage of tween girls dancing in wildly inappropriate sexual ways, to my eye it’s not kiddie porn, as has been alleged. It’s a tragedy.

I can still remember being aged 11, like Amy, the main protagonist in Cuties, and reaching puberty. How disorienting that was, even in an age before smartphones and internet porn. Up to that point male strangers had been irrelevant to my world, but now all of a sudden such men reacted to me, in a way that made no sense. I don’t remember the first time a White Van Man wolf-whistled or beeped at me on the street but I can’t have been older than 11 – still a child, like Amy.

Continue reading @ UnHerd.

Cuties Isn’t Kiddie Porn ➖ It’s Tragedy

UnHerd ✒ We are too squeamish about the power and vulnerability that’s unique to female puberty.

16-September-2020


Conservatives are currently losing their marbles over the Netflix film Cuties, because it depicts 11-year-old girls dancing in explicitly sexual ways. Having watched it, I can confirm that yes, it’s uncomfortable to watch. The camera lingers. And there are points where it crossed a line.

But, despite lasciviously-shot footage of tween girls dancing in wildly inappropriate sexual ways, to my eye it’s not kiddie porn, as has been alleged. It’s a tragedy.

I can still remember being aged 11, like Amy, the main protagonist in Cuties, and reaching puberty. How disorienting that was, even in an age before smartphones and internet porn. Up to that point male strangers had been irrelevant to my world, but now all of a sudden such men reacted to me, in a way that made no sense. I don’t remember the first time a White Van Man wolf-whistled or beeped at me on the street but I can’t have been older than 11 – still a child, like Amy.

Continue reading @ UnHerd.

8 comments:

  1. "Kiddie p**n? That's the very term pedophiles use to minimize what they watch.

    IT'S CHILD ABUSE MATERIAL. Stop trivializing an absolute horror! You insult the victims again by using this term!

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  2. It's the raping of children, not paedophilia. It's easy to demonise the Christian right, but on this issue they are hundred per cent. I don't think it's anything to do with female puberty. It's the very thought that a major production company put on a show that sick bastards will watch, masturbate at. Is that not a form of normalising? It's one thing to tell a story, showing kids mimicking erotic dance is quite another.

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    Replies
    1. Have you watched the film David? It would be an interesting review from you if you have. I recall the controversy when the film came out but never watched the thing.

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  3. This is a very tricky subject to discuss, for obvious reasons. For the record, I haven’t seen the film.

    On one hand, whenever I read about reactions to films like this and Kids (1995), I always think of JG Ballard's quote about why he wrote Crash: “I wanted to rub the human race in its own vomit, and force it to look in the mirror.” Art and film act as such mirrors, and it seems more should direct less of their energy at the mirror and more on the society the mirror is reflecting. We’ve all seen the attire marketed to young girls by places like Primark, and the pornification of pop culture (combined with a lack of strong parenting) has had an impact on young girls’ lives. It is a real thing and, in my view, needs to be addressed.

    On the other hand, there is no doubt that Netflix's advertising for this was repulsive. And it plays into a fear that is held by many: that there is an attempt by some to legitimise paedophilia. Indeed, there was a meme I saw not so long ago that spelt out that fear in rather blunt terms: “2000’s – Gay Rights Now, 2010’s – Trans Rights Now, 2020’s – MAP Rights Now” (MAP meaning minor attracted person in Internet terminology). I am firmly of the belief that both trans and gay people would be horrified at the supposed link between their lifestyles and paedophilia, so that’s a non-starter. Regardless, with the Paedophile Information Exchange using such tactics in the 70’s and 80’s, can people be blamed for making such a link?

    This is why conversations about films like this are needed.

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  4. Anthony,
    I didn't get far, it's a hard watch. There's a scene in it where a girl who looks about ten is gyrating in tight leather like trousers. I'm not a prude, but that sort of sexualisation of kids turns my stomach

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    Replies
    1. I am with Christopher on what I think the film is. I haven't seen it and doubt I ever will but artistic license allows for certain things that the world external to art would not. But even here there are limits to license. And it is hard for me not to share your unease.

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  5. I have not seen the film either.

    What the article shows is the need for comprehensive sex and relationship education in schools where children are taught honestly about their bodies and emerging sexuality and to spot the signs of grooming and to have the confidence to say no to any intrusion on their bodies and personal space..

    I guess that "Cuties" shines a light on our pornified but not genuinely sexually liberated society.

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  6. "I don’t remember the first time White Van Man wolf-whistled or beeped at me a on the street but I can’t have been older than 11"

    While not an 11 year old girl or a while van man (it's a cuckoo clock doing the wolf whistle) , if anyone opens the link they'll find a banned cartoon from 1920's Hollywood that sexualizes women. In the 1930's Hollywood upped the ante and made the 'Baby Burlesks movies'. Take a quick look at War Babies (staring Shirley Temple) the main difference between 'Cuties' and 'War Babies' is simply one is in black and white and the other is 4K HD...



    Francis Ford Coppola mentioned how kids were exploited in Hollywood in The Godfather. Who can forget the scene when Tom Hagan goes to Hollywood and makes Woltz and offer he couldn't he could refuse...? Remember the classic line by Woltz..." She was young, she was beautiful, she was the greatast piece of ass I've ever had. And I've had them all....Then the deleted scene, when Hagan see's the young girl crying at the top of the stairs....

    Then we have to throw Tom Hanks into the mix who goes on The Jimmy Kimble show and tries to sanitize why he thinks it is ok to ask his daughter to 'talk dirty'....(fast forward the link until 4mins 30seconds)....

    Another difference between Hollywood and Netflix...One charges you 10 dollars a month for a subscription, the other 10 dollars to watch it in a cinema....Both hide the same things in plain sight...Disney, they take the cake and eat it.

    ReplyDelete