Been seeing some interesting posts in this thread, and I kind of want to contribute to the points some have made regarding the ages of the girls vs if they were older. It isn't just this factor though, from what I can tell (and I have zero interest in watching this filth, so all info I have seen was from this thread) it is the subject matter in itself and how it is portrayed and implied that really makes me uncomfortable.
I like to analyze based on a compare/contrast method, y'know, grade school shit. Some people mentioned Little Miss Sunshine earlier in this thread - and I feel this movie tackles the subject matter very well without being disgusting and sexualizing children. It keeps it light. It really highlights the value of a young girl's self worth being more than just winning a pageant in the end.
It has a few moments where it clearly is criticizing this industry, but the movie uses a power bevy of humor to get the viewer to make these connections. I really like the movie personally, but I dont think it is fair to compare (what is technically) the last half hour of Little Miss Sunshine to Cuties.
I think a more fair comparison would be a little known movie made back in 2003, called Thirteen. I havent watch it in years, my last watch was when I was a teen, so my memories could be foggy. Feel free to correct me.
Anyways, it is about a very straight laced girl who turns thirteen and falls into a bad crowd for the sake of popularity. The actors portraying these thirteen year olds are 14-16. Several of which contributed in the writing of the script itself, which I think says a lot about how well they managed to remain within the comfort zone of the actors.
The main character befriends a girl at her school who is bad news. But it doesn't strictly show the downfall of the main character in a sexual light. She eases into it via peer pressure, getting her tongue pierced and hiding it from her mom. The girls do drugs and can't feel their faces, so they literally just slap each other. She takes up smoking to impress these new friends.
And her mother struggles to understand these changes, having done everything right up until this year, raising a girl as a single mother, who was previously at the top of her class.
There are some scenes of a sexual nature, but the worst I can remember is the two main girls discussing that dick tasted really bad following a scene where it is implied they give blowjobs to boys their age. I recall the main character shop lifts with her new friends, her mother finding some boy shorts (underwear) with a dog on then, and under it is printed "I wanna bone". To which the mother freaks the fuck out about.
The only thing possibly coming close to Cuties's style of flat out child porn, is one scene where the mother takes the daughter out to go to a movie. They go to see separate movies, and the daughter, now entrenched in this awful group of friends, ditches the movie she is supposed to be at, goes to some party or bar or something, and leans over the counter as she speaks to a guy behind it. There is a quick shot of her back, and (iirc) while her shorts stay up high, one can deliberately see a thong riding very high above them.
The next moment, her older brother walks in, and catcalls her, not knowing it is his sister. To which she turns around and they are both fucking horrified. Like a wake up call sort of deal. He threatens to tell their mother, it drives the plot forward without being gratuitous.
The point I am trying to make is that coming of age movies, or girls breaking out of their cookie cutter lives, can be done without this excess crap. You can make a point about dancing without an entire montage of 11 year olds twerking, zooming into select areas, and vouching for the behavior.
Because when a director does these things, depending on what the camera does, you can interpret a whole lot. A quick glance or something in the background? They want it to be seen, but the goal isn't to bring the sexualization to the forefront. Zooming in and making scenes look like one of those car wash montages where sexy women are splashing eachother with water in white tee shirts, is fucking wrong. It says that the director sees these girls in this way and wants the viewers to do the very same.
At the end of the movie in Thirteen, our main character is shown back in school, nervously hoping her old friends (which she had abandoned earlier in the movie) will accept her once more. She has regrets. And you know what? Her friends do accept her.
In Cuties our result is that the parents must be happy with the sexualization of their child or it will not be a positive ending. This is the exact opposite of tackling subject matter exploring a kid's journey into becoming a teen. It doesn't say "you were perfect the way you were", it demands that everyone conform around you and find the "free expression" of twerking to be acceptable for an 11 year old. There is no other solution. There is no compromise.
I have fears these girls will realize they have been mass marketed in what amounts to soft core CP in just a few years. Maybe it will inspire change in them? Maybe it could be the beginning of some tumultuous journey into the underbelly of society.
So many women these days seem to believe that being a whore is acceptable, if not empowering. Which is sort of the point in Cuties. But when you are mass marketed, it does thingsto your self worth. Whether that be a porn star or these kids. Your price drops, and you yourself become devalued through these actions.
Girls today do not wake up with self esteem issues because they can't fucking twerk in front of an audience, or have a profitable onlyfans. They have low self worth because they are being told that this sort of attention is good, and they willingly devalue themselves. If you value yourself highly, are comfortable with who you are, you aren't sending feet pics to internet strangers for money. You're living your life and working on improving yourself even further.
I feel like this is so parallel to other social justice issues. We have gone so far down the rabbit hole that the things that the original feminists and African Americans who stoked the flames of reform worked so hard to dismantle are now coming back in another form. All in the name of empowerment.
Think about it - women didnt want to be treated like objects. But now it's empowering to objectify yourself, on your own grounds.
African Americans wanted to absolve segregation. Now they want it because it is happening on their terms.
How the fuck did we get here? Who manufactured this mindfuck and how do we stop it?
