After hearing so many criticisms against the movie Mignonnes (Cuties) on Netflix, I decided to watch it. To my surprise the movie hooked me in the first 5 minutes. Spoiler The main character is an 11 yr old French-Senegalese girl growing up in a traditional Muslim house where every day she’s reminded that women are treated as second class citizen. With obvious anger and frustration she rebels and is immediately attracted to a group of girls in school who dress and dance too provocatively for their age. The more she feels things around her are spiting down – dad is about to marry his 2nd wife, mom is submissive, auntie can’t wait to teach the girl the woman’s role in their culture, etc. – she hangs on tighter to the group and being more provocative.
I’m aware that what I saw was clearly not what some people who want to boycott the movie and Netflix saw. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and believe that if they’re having a discussion on why the movie is trash then they did watch it. People do see what they want to see. You can very well say you that you didn’t find the movie to be what I described above, and that’s fine. What I will call out on people is hypocrisy. Sometimes I don’t know better, and yesterday I posted my views on the movie on social media and was immediately told that what this movie shows has never seen before and some more colorful comments. I had to read that posts several times, especially the ones about this never been seen before. Maybe I’ve been living on another dimension but this is not new to me. Hollywood and all the film industries worldwide have made billions on dollars on the exploitation of women and children. This is not a secret and the nit picking of what is considered exploitation and what is considered tasteful art is sick and damaging.
If this movie had not been on Netflix; possibly been an indie film; or if politicians wouldn’t have been able to fit this in their agenda would they be demanding the Dept. of Justice to investigate Netflix? The same GOP that looks the other way at allegations that ICE staff is sexually abusing children at the detention centers. Why are these allegations any different? Is it because the kids detained were not on film or because they’re brown or both? If we’re going to call out child sexual abuse then let’s call out ALL child sexual abuse.
In a 1993 documentary from Nikita Mikhalkov, Anna from Six to Eighteen, Milhalkov secretly records her underage daughter for years, and in some of those scenes her daughter is completely naked. She’s gotten several awards for the films. This film should offend any decent person as much as Cuties.
It’s different if they do the same moves, but have clothes on
No, it’s not! That deserved many more exclamation marks. It’s still a child dancing provocatively. Don’t you think pedophiles have an imagination and use it to fulfill their sick fantasies. Maybe clothes make things better in your head, but at the root of the problem we have a child being sexualized. I was also told that at least the girls on Dance Mom have good choreography. Really? Abby once dressed up the girls as hookers and told them that their performance was all about boobs and ass. Just let that sink in. I’m not even going to dissect the other episodes. Let’s not forget 12 yr old Jodi Foster playing a prostitute in Taxi Driver or 11 yr old Brooke Shield in Pretty Baby – the bathtub scene. I didn’t see anything tasteful in that scene. Yes those films came out over 40 years ago, but they came out.
Yes, the director of Cuties, Maimouna Gueye, made some bold choices that I personally wouldn’t make. She still didn’t do anything worse than what white male directors have done? In 1999’s American Beauty 16 year old Thora Birch goes topless (with her parents approval of course) and I’m sure the director didn’t mind at all. In 1997’s Lolita a man is in obsessed with a 12 year old girl (the actress, Dominique Swain was 15 at the time). In Interview with the Vampire, 11 year old Kirsten Dunst kissed 27 years old Brad Pitt. How many people complained about this child kissing a man 16 years her senior? Even Kirsten has said that the scene really confused her since Pitt and Cruise were like her older brothers to her on set. Guess what? The director wanted his scene and he got it.
If you cannot see how much parents are to blame for their daughters dressing provocatively then you’re lying to yourself. These girls in Cuties didn’t just start dressing this way because they saw it in a video and thought ‘hey why not?’. That’s an oversimplification of the problem. Adults failed these girls, and probably their grandparents failed those parents as well and so on. Still, this is not just a movie of how easily girls can find sexual content on the web/TV/YouTube etc., but why the girls are attracted to that content. Growing up I saw as many girls in booty shorts as anyone else my age, but I didn’t have a desire to wear that type of clothes. I don’t mean to say that my childhood was just rainbows and ponies, but I found other (unhealthy a well) ways to release that anxiety and frustration. In order to really work on fixing a problem you have to look at all reasons for the problem. Nothing is a one sided argument.
Yes, pedophiles are lurking on the web. The sad truth is that they’re not going away. We all have a social responsibility to children, and we are all failing. We make children a target for pedophiles when we ignore their cries. One example from the movie is Angelica, when she tells Amy that her parents are usually away working and the few times they are home they call her a disappointment. It’s not hard to figure out why she would dress and act older in order to get attention.
Until people are able to cancel Woody Allen, Roman Polanski and all the other sickos out there running free, then their argument doesn’t hold much water with me.
BRI'S BLOG: SOME TRUTH - SOME SATIRE - SOME RANTING 