They took a lot of caution (unless the director, producers and casting directors are lying). I could buy the argument if the girls were/are/will be harassed because of their roles in Cuties. Another one that's often pointed out is that they were exposed to the kind of overly sexualized stuff at an age they weren't supposed to. That's somewhat true, but it was amidst professional adults and they had a qualified child psychologist for the girls as well, AND it wasn't anything they already hadn't discovered on their own. Just like the characters in the movie, real 11-year-old girls watch material online that's available to everyone even though pre-teens don't fully grasp it.
Netflix facing indictment from Texas grand jury over "Cuties"
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The truth is girls are exposed to worse by the boys on the playground than they were here. None of these girls have boys holding them down and putting their hands in their clothes or putting their bodies on top of them like the boys did to us for real here. The idea that anyone thinks this is even bad just goes to show how out of touch with reality they really are in what girls actually experience daily.
Yea you know the scene in this where the boy holds her down and touches her and tells her where he is going to put it when they were just kids? That is daily life for girls in reality, yet they are more worried about a movie where the girls are doing what they actually WANT to do rather than what Boys are ACTUALLY doing to them for real against their will. School buses, playgrounds, parks oh and playing in your own yard are far more dangerous than a girls dance team.
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I don't know why you're trying to make this about me claiming these girls should change their behaviour, since I already said that this isn't the issue, and that kids should be free to express themselves. Again, it's the adults in charge that need to be monitored to make sure these expressions aren't exploited. And showbiz, which movie, TV, acting, and dance are a part of, is a den of exploitation. One that kids really don't have the ability to properly navigate yet.It isn't just the Movie, though, what the girls doing in the movie is no different than we have on hundreds of Youtube channels..
Girls love these dance competitions and have worked hard for them to be televised and to get their names out there so they can get sponsored, movie, TV, acting and dance roles, this is a hobby that is really important to the girls themselves. The thing is for the girls dancing this isn't about sex at all here. This is a sport like anything else. Even in dance, they work countless hours trying to coordinate to get this just right for the televised performances. They have millions of girl fans around the world here. This is a huge hobby for girls, trying to police it and take it away is a seriously messed up thing to do to them at all here. And for what? Because of what some dirty old men might think? Seriously?! This is blatant body policing, body shaming due to what some creeps are doing and punishing the girls for it. They work hard so they CAN be on TV. The girls are who want this more than anyone else does.
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Who exactly decides what is " leary?" the girls? We are expecting them to change their behavior because someone else might think it " leary?" This entire idea is screwed up in the first place.
How is this any different than telling a girl" Put that away dear, your Daddy has a dirty mind?" Or trying to burka the girls up? This really is no different than the colonizers forcing the Natives to adhere to their dress codes.. It was wrong then and it is wrong now.
Oh look aren't those savages all appropriately dressed now and less leary?
It doesn't matter how they were dressed, they were still raped, beaten, abused and murdered anyways.
Considering I, too, was forced by the US government to go to a school that did exactly that, I find this body shaming and policing to be extremely offensive,. what the girls are wearing and doing is fine. They aren't the problem here.
I've watched a few of those videos on that Youtube channel just now, and so far it hasn't given me the same vibe as Cuties. Probably because they don't feel like they're shot by Michael Bay.
Part of their behavior is having it televised. Girls film themselves doing this.. like they did in the movie as well when they were filming themselves dancing to showcase their talents and uploading it from their phone. Sometimes, you don't even need adults to be in " charge", we came up with our own routines, designed our own outfits and filmed one another growing up as well.. These girls seriously dream about being picked for Blue Ivy or Beyoncé's dance teams. That is their dream here and they aren't going to get their attention by not getting their videos noticed on Television or online.
From that same channel:
You also have to keep in mind, many girls choreograph their own routines and choose their outfits and that was what the movie was portraying here.
The girls are just expressing themselves with dance and there isn't anything obscene or exploitive in doing that. The movie was trying to accurately portray what the girls just choose to do themselves. The movie didn't show some adult pressuring the girls because in reality the vast majority of the time, the girls are not pressured by anyone, they WANT to do this and it is the adults telling them they can't due to their religious " modesty" beliefs. The movie was just portraying what really happens here.
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Then why not just make this story a book, an animation, or a comic, thereby circumventing any potential risk in putting these real-life children in situations they may not be able to handle? And that with the added pressure of an entire production behind it. The fact that they need to have a child psychologist on set already says that maybe these kids shouldn't be made to do this on film in front of dozens of cast and crew, and then to be seen by thousand others.
You're talking very personal, private situations that are replicated on a stage with a real child. Kids watch this type of material - if by 'material' you mean the salacious kind - in the privacy of their room, maybe with some friends. It's not televised for the world to see.
And the director and producers could be telling the truth, but seeing as the movie is already heavily under fire they probably wouldn't admit to it not being true if that was the case. Movies featuring animals also have that lovely assurance that "no animal was injured during the making of this movie", but we all know that that's bullshit. The movie needs to be made, and some safety rules will be bent or broken when push comes to shove.
Honestly, this for the best. The French must be stopped.
You realize that most movies and television series what work with child actors have a child psychologist on set don't you? So if they were to have just chosen the girls from the YouTube videos I posted above that already design their own routines, choose their own outfits and do the same dances the girls on the movie did for the movie, that would be fine? How do you know they didn't choose girls that already do this for the film? Considering they wanted them to be able to dance, they likely did. They very well could have chosen girls from these competitions I posted above.
These are not private situations, the girls are not the ones sexualizing it. To the girls it is about muscle control, coordination, talent and expression.. It is others stigmatizing them for it that is the problem, not that anything they are doing is the problem.
I'll fully admit I'm probably too old to not think 'Are those outfits really necesary for a kid?' And I can't help getting some little miss pageant vibes from some of this. But unless these dance groups were put together by some agency I don't really have problem with it. Heck, if Cuties was an actual documentary and shot in a documentary format I probably wouldn't have as much of an issue with it neither.
Most of the girls are usually the ones who select these outfits for themselves. The first group looks like they modeled their outfits after those synchronized swimming dancers, though noticeably more amateur than the other dancers here, but they may actually do that as well.
From the way I viewed the Movie, they were trying to make it from the point of view of the girls themselves to show what the girls think and do for the most part, if they had done it as a documentary, it would lose some of that aspect. Though the filming and trying to make their dancing look worse than it was appeared to be trying to make it look " sinful" thus to validate the religious condemnation of it, so yea I could have done without that aspect. The idea they made it look like she " abandoned her sinful ways" and ran home to her religious family though I think was more influenced by the adults than girls just wanting to dance in the first place. If anything, they would need the psychologist for would be for the religious abuse they inflicted upon the child by her own family. She was likely fine with the dancing aspect. The religious abuse was the most disturbing part of the film by far.
The MOST problematic parts of the movie were this:
The audience religious reaction to the girls dancing.
The child's religious family shaming her and trying to exercise demons out of her.
The religious family members trying to force their beliefs onto the child.
The filming of the dancing in ways that tried to make it appear " sinful" as an attempt to justify the religious shaming.
The creepy guard ogling the girls.
If anything was going to screw up a kids head it would be all that religious abuse crap, not the dancing.
In my culture, it is seen as extremely " illegal", cruel, wrong, to attempt to impose or indoctrinate children into religious beliefs as they are not capable of making those decisions for themselves. If one thinks they need to " punish" someone to force them to adhere to their religious beliefs, they should not be allowed to physically or emotionally abuse people in such ways. There is never an excuse for such abuse.
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Sometimes you need to go the extra mile. If no harm comes to the actors in the film the "shouldn't be made" is in the heads of other people. The fact that Cuties has triggered so much emotion is proof that as art it has succeeded. I don't think the safety rules were very extreme to begin with: they weren't doing anything dangerous on set. It's just pre-teens playing adults for a dance competition. I dunno, it seems to me people are projecting their off-put feelings on to the girls - which is expected and fine - but then offer rationalizations that just don't hold water. And then there are the ones sounding a pedo-alarm, which we should ignore. Probably includes this grand jury too (maybe legally can't be ignored but whatevs).
Frankly, I hold YouTuber Charlie aka 'moist_critical' aka 'penguinz0' partly responsible because he fired up his channel a couple of times about Cuties and it's massive ignorance and projection on full force. For example the "ritual" scene in which Amy's mother and Aunt take a traditional mysticism approach to her behavior totally flies over Charlie's head. And he went to college for a couple of years.
Yes, and the point still stands. If the psychologist is there so the kids can just talk about anything that's bothering them, good obviously. But if the point to having a psychologist on set is to make sure the kids can handle their jobs, then I have to question why the kid is even there. I really don't think kids should be made to suffer through this industry in the first place
I'm saying the larger a production is the less I trust it to not be an asshole and exploit its workers. And I don't think kids should be exposed to that.
There's also the issue of these girls now living in a world where this movie exists and people knowing they are in it, and the effect it'll have on them. And that's not regarding the heavy negatives reactions, but just the exposure in general. Even movies that are received very positively can have a very negative effect on the child that stars in it. Like Linda Blair in The Exorcist. And should kids be put in a situation where they run that risk?
But I'm also kinda at a point now where I'm like 'fuck artistic expression', with all the awful stuff that's apparently necesary to achieve it. Stanley Kubrick emotionally battering Shelley Duval? Well, The Shining is so good though, right?
The psychologist is ALWAYS there to make sure the kids can handle their jobs. Whether it is " full house" or Cuties. Even on the set of a cereal commercial where all the kid has to do is say "MMM! This is good!".. Kids can be nervous, upset, or just don't feel like doing anything that day whether it is going to school.. That is just how kids are. We have psychologists at schools for a reason too. My sister, for example, used to out of nowhere just stand on a chair and scream," It is time to CRY!" then proceed to fall to the ground in tears, real tears.. That is just kids for ya... She had no idea why she was crying, it was just her way of releasing her emotions.
Though now that I think about it, it isn't just kids who do this. It is more of personality traits. My sister STILL has her times where she has to get out her emotions and she is a grown woman now. LOL
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You'd think the parent(s) would fill that role on-set.
And at school you obviously have a lot of kids interacting with one another, so having a child psychologist is beneficial. But a movie is not a school, it's a job, so a child psychologist in that light doesn't fill me with the same positive feeling.
Unless that is about a religious extremist family psychologically screwing up their kids head by vilifying their desire to dance and express themselves, I am not seeing how this is related.
No, parents really shouldn't be the ones to fill that role. It is better that parents remain the ones who just support whatever the kid does and cheers them on , not actually try to help them work through what they really want to do. You see, the child will likely be even MORE upset if they just walk away and they give the role to someone else, but the parents job is not to pressure the kid and the best way for them to do that is just to support. The parents role is if the child actually does decide they want to go home to take them home, no questions asked and give them the same love and support no matter what the child decides. The kids don't need to also worry about letting their parents down if they choose to walk away, instead the parents should be neutral. The psychologist is better able of helping the child decide what they really want. If the child really does want to walk away, that is fine, but if the child is just having a bad moment or day, and would be devastated that they couldn't manage to pull themselves together at that point and work through it to do what they really had their heart set on, the psychologist is there to help them do that too. Everyone has bad days, bad moments, stage fright, anxiety, nervousness. The parents are good for supporting them, but actually having them decide what they want in an unbiased way is more difficult for parents not to make their kid feel as though they would rather have them do one or the other. In situations like this, it really has to be able to let the kid decide what they want to do here without that sort of pressure on them as well. I see the psychologist on set or at school as having the same role however, the school psychologist actually puts MORE pressure, not less on the child because the law requires the child be there. The child doesn't have the additional pressure of the law requiring them to do a commercial, film or TV series, so the option to walk away exists at all times. That option does not exist for school.
When someone says something reminds them of something, the parallels do not tend to be one to one. Its just some of the meta-commentary about Cuties or indeed some of its subtext brings to mind that subplot. Possibly because this kind of shit was rare in Australia when I was growing up - can't say what is or isn't going on now though - an ergo the examples stick.
This is what people who watch this generally think, it is just the creeps that think like you claim they do:
They think things like " Kaycee may be the best hip hopper I have ever seen", "Prodigy", " born for this", " Mesmerizingly talented", "Phenomenal", "Unmatched" "Shining Star" "One of the most talented Dancers I have ever seen in my entire life"...
All from a girl who says, she was a very shy kid and found it difficult to talk to people and she wouldn't know what she would do if she couldn't freely express herself through dance. I think some may not actually realize what this truly means to girls like this.
"ROBINSON: The doctor went and sat next to Gillian and said, Gillian, I've listened to all these things that your mother's told me. I need to speak to her privately. He said, wait here, we'll be back, we won't be very long.
And they went and left her. But as they went out the room, he turned on the radio that was sitting on his desk. And when they got out the room he said to her mother, just stand and watch her.
LYNNE: And the minute they'd gone, I leaped up. I leaped on his desk, I leaped off his desk. I danced all around the room. I had the most fabulous time.
ROBINSON: And they watched for a few minutes and he turned to her mother.
LYNNE: And he said - he immortalized; I really owe my whole career, in a way, and I suppose my life to this man - he said, there is nothing wrong with your child. She's a born dancer.
ROBINSON: Dancer.
ROBINSON: Take her to a dance school. So she did. I can't tell you, sir, how wonderful was. We walked in this room and it was full of people like me, people who couldn't sit still, people who had to move to think - who had to move to think. She became a soloist. She had a wonderful career at the Royal Ballet. She eventually graduated from the Royal Ballet School, met Andrew Lloyd Webber. She's been responsible for some of the most successful theater productions in history. She's given pleasure to millions and she's a multimillionaire. Somebody else might've put her on medication and told her to calm down.
Now, I think..."
I think the movie is a crock and never should've been made, but that is besides the point.
This case is being brought for 1, or 2, of 2 reasons.
1. To satisfy the evangelicals and super religious who believe that everything is a threat to their children and moral values (except unending wars and the consequences of teen pregnancy and STDs)
2. To attack a media that is generally considered left-leaning and thereby portray instructors and directors, and by extension those related to the film industry, as deviant perverts.
This case is being brought for 1, or 2, of 2 reasons.
1. To satisfy the evangelicals and super religious who believe that everything is a threat to their children and moral values (except unending wars and the consequences of teen pregnancy and STDs)
2. To attack a media that is generally considered left-leaning and thereby portray instructors and directors, and by extension those related to the film industry, as deviant perverts.
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