Her personal experience has nothing to do with the fact whether she or anyone should ever be allowed to film kids for the kind of scenes that are present in the movie. As for the second part, in either case she does make money out of it, does she not? And the presence of these scenes, as pretty damn clear by the evidence of what has actually happened, has massively increased the popularity and viewership of the film, has it not?
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp....5/controversial-netflix-film-cuties-pulled-us
I’d say it’s less the scenes and more the controversy surrounding how Netflix decided to market the film (which is worthy of scorn) and the people who have condensed the most problematic scenes into YouTube clips which they react to (and of course monetise those videos) without the overall context. You say that the publicity surrounding the film stems from the scenes in question, yet there’s plenty of films outside of the Hollywood bubble that depict similar scenes in nature that have had nowhere near the same kind of exposure. So if including those kinds of scenes are a dead cert to make more money, why have many films with similar thematic elements and scenes flown under the radar?
I think you'll find that you are the only one who thinks these things are totally unrelated. Or if you do, then you should separate the film's marketing and the film. The marketing uses a certain shot of those kids to sell; the movie doesn't.
The kids aren't props; what they end up doing is actually what the film is about. @Cascarino also posted earlier that the kids were not just pushed into these roles without any regard for their safety:
So my impression is that you're just beating this one drum: you can't show kids like this! Without any regard for how the film was made, what it's trying to say, and what's actually happening in society. It sounds like you would be fine if the film had never been made; but then the subject of the sexualization young girls wouldn't be discussed the same way. And the stuff depicted does happen all the time, as again @Cascarino pointed out:
So do you think the world is better off if this film isn't made and we don't get pushed into discussing this stuff? Or do you think there is a better way to bring this subject to some proper attention?
Damn, it's a hard world, RedCafe. Still a lot I have to learn obviously...
This is only fecking drum that counts... how people can't see that is beyond me.
Fair enough. I have two small girls myself, and I'm already worried about their teenage lives. (This and other things.) I actually think I got carried away by my arguments (and some of the logical nonsense that came up) and have been writing a bit too much in favour of the film so far; I'm not actually sure where to stand exactly on this. But I do want there to be more public debate, especially in terms of what there is available for everyone to see. On the other hand, you will never get artists to either stop making sexy videos or 'the entertainment industry' to really enforce ways to stop young kids from seeing this stuff. (And where would you set the age barrier?) So not sure where any of it could really go even if there were a big public debate. Also, in the end, the best prevention is still education and openness. (E.g., teenage pregnancies are lower in countries that are less conservative in their approach to sex.)
Agree with you wholeheartedly and particularly the bold part.
A movie like Babel where there was a bit of child nudity if remember correctly which wasn’t a focus of the film but conveyed a message of young boys getting up to no good. It was uncomfortable but understandable and it was one scene where as this is apparently lots of very inappropriate shots of girls twerking and blowing up used condoms which served no real purpose to the story. This movie might have set out to give a right message but it was poorly executed as we’re mostly talking about the actual movie rather than the issue of sexualisation of kids the world over.
I agree wholeheartedly that the discussion needs to be more public as its something people are conditioned to be uncomfortable with and that needs to change for sure. Pop culture is a huge issue for young girls and having role models that behave in certain ways sadly will influence them to do the same at far too young an age. Of course where does one draw the line, we can't up and ban the latest pop sensation so education is paramount and as you said we need these discussions in order to move forward with that. I just think the manner we bring these up shouldn't be to shock people to pay attention especially not with kids because this is exactly what those pop videos do.
I think we'll have to agree to agree then!
Should absolutely be banned as well. Still has no bearing on Cuties. Both are filth.
You really seem to not get it, which is a bit worrying.
Not get what, that both shows exploit children? Maybe you should explain...
You seem to care more about the fact that it was filmed than the fact that in one case it's the actual life of these children, not a scene in a movie that is criticising the context.
Wrong.. Dance Mums is exploiting kids for its own gain. It is pure filth and exploiting real kids whose lives are dancing. Kids are being forced to do horrid shit for dancing.. Its also scripted as shit.
You see that's the thing, you seem to care a lot about money but not so much about the kids themselves and the hypersexualised society they live in. I don't actually mind the fact that you want the movie to be banned but I do mind the fact that you don't care about the message beyond your own comfort because lets be honest, if you cared about it you have said something more than talking about money, you may have raelized that they do all of these things in real life without money being involved. The issue is that your plain reality is actually partial, that's my issue not whether the movie is good for you or not because I don't really care about that.
No I don't. The feck are you on about? I've said in this very thread that as a parent to a teenage girl, this is something that's often spoken about and was long before Netflix kiddie porn movie. There have been conversations about sexualizing kids like this going on for years. Everything from Hannah Montana to MTV to dolls and cartoons and how women are portrayed in video games.
I responded to your response to my post, nothing else. You reduced your answer to money and monetary exploitation which is an issue in itself that we will both agree on but it's a strange focus when the video that I posted was about boundaries, sexualization and the overall mistreatment of kids in certain environments which is why other sports were mentioned alongside dance classes where money isn't part of the equation. You are so focused on being outraged that you seemingly didn't care about the video you responded to or the point of it which was about the context kids are living in, contexts that we somehow accept to some extent.
have you seen the movie? have you read any comment by the director at all? to think cuties is exploting and sexualizing kids in order to make money is just so incredibly far from the intent of the director it's beyond belief.
I can see the exploitation angle when you consider the fact that it's a commercial movie regardless of the intent. Now, the exploitation of kids part based on monetary arguments is in my opinion flawed because it applies to all kids involved in the entertainment business, whether we like what they are doing, they are still doing it for adults and are "made" to do it by their parents, on that subject I always wonder about the motivation of parents who lend their babies for movies, it's a bit weird to think about a baby spending the day on a movie set.
I wish I was such a cinephile that a Sundance-winning, BIFF nominated, critically acclaimed foreign language coming of age drama that critiques the hyper-sexualization of pre-teen girls from a feminist perspective didn't seem in any way "artsy" to me.
I responded about the show that the video took shots at, even adding a video to show it's scripted just like Cuties.
The intent doesn't really matter.
I posted the video because it talks about the subject Cuties is about, the culture around dance classes and kids activities in general with the show Dancing Moms used as a prop. You decided to focus on money and the show which to me is worrying because at no point you thought about commenting on the main issue or what was said.
i just don't see how you can make a film that criticizes the hyper sexuality of children without using children in the movie and showing some degree of the hyper sexuality she's talking about. this is a commercial movie, insofar as every movie is commercial, but it's hardly some hollywood engine movie designed to make tons of money with little artistic credit.
you're basically saying that artists can no longer work with children, nor tackle controversial topics.
I get that and have wondered about how they could have done it differently, I don't have the answer and while I generally don't like that type of movies, I'm not against their existence as long as the idea behind the movie has been properly explained to the kids and that they are given the chance to understand where the problems are.
To be fair, as explained in previous posts, @padr81's point was that this exploitation and sexualization is talked about a lot already. We don't need another film that portrays the issue, and thus alongside its good intentions also contributes to the issue. I guess the idea is that a focus on possible solutions might be more useful at this point.
I don't think that we talk a lot about it and I don't know if a movie is a need either, I feel that documentaries are a better format but that's probably because I generally don't like movies. And it's not what the video I shared was about, it wasn't a defense of the movie, it was about the culture around dancing and how unacceptable it should be which he never addressed.
No I'm not, not even close. I'm saying you can imply something without showing it. Its done in tons of movies. That's as extreme an overreaction to my some idiot saying saying... "You don't need to rape someone to make a movie about rape" as a counter point. Its ridiculous because Cuties is really sexualizing those child actors, its not fake like a fake beheading or a fake fight scene. Its real kids, dancing in real compromising positions and there is no way around it, its not like an exorcist styled special fx shot etc.. that is fake, its not implying kids dancing sexually, its recording them doing it and showing it to the world. If a mother did something like that to highlight such behavior and posted it to social media she would lose her kids. If you think making kids do the very thing your are trying to bring down/protest is the way to go then I give up.
