Yep, as far as I can tell from all the back-and-forth over the few days I’ve had to hear about it, it’s a movie about girls facing certain unsavory parts of current culture, not a movie celebrating said unsavory things, but good Jesus on a rollerskate, are the interwebstubes ever screaming with irate people getting the vapors over what they assume must be in it.
Whatever the content of the movie, Netflix decided to promote it with something that made it look like borderline kiddie porn. “Why the fuck are you peddling borderline kiddie porn?” is a reasonable reaction to that, even if the actual film is something different.
That sure does make one ask “WTF were you thinking” of whoever was the creative genius behind the promotional materials. What sort of bubble did they live in?
They were mentored by Roman Polanski.
This wasn’t some clever PhotoShopper making images in his basement and spreading them around the Net. This was an entire marketing department making a specific choice. Creatives pitch 10 illustrations. 3 get the go-ahead and get worked up. 1 is chosen by people who are supposedly paid to A)Recognize Child Porn and B) Not use it to promote Netflix products.
Don’t blame the artists solely. Blame the entire corporate ladder on this one.
Morons.
Meanwhile, it ain’t my cuppa tea and I won’t be watching it anyway.
OTOH, you know there are people around who are at the ready to see “Child Pr0n” anywhere they look… as it seems we are in a particular season where the whole trope of some sort of pedo conspiracy afoot has spread to great annoyance, it was a perfect display of being out of touch with what’s happening on the street.
But yes, at least you’d think someone out there would have at some point raised their hand and said, “um, wait, what?”
Haven’t seen the movie but know someone who has. The message of the movie is definitively against the sexualization of young girls. But there apparently are a couple of cringe-y, uncomfortable, ‘this might be a smidge too far’ scenes in service of the point.
There are 11-year-olds twerking. That’s it,
Nothing justifies it even if by twerking they find the cure for cancer.
It’s “toddlers and tiaras” for tweens.
You already said that in the OP but thanks for emphasizing it.
FWIW that “Toddlers and Tiaras” did not lead to a succesful movement to outlaw child beauty pageants suggests to me that the general public is not quite as indignant about exploitative parents as they’d like to pretend.
Nobody is being exploited. And people will find a way to jerk off to anything.
I mean…should Pretty Baby not have been made? And to a different …less shocking extent…Bad News Bears and Paper Moon?
You’ve seen it, then?
Seen the Poster and the Trailer. Nothing else.
Agreed.
Ah, but there are those, like the OP, who are convinced this is an entirely unjustifiable thing to even portray no matter why. Heck, there’s a poster in this thread who in the past objected (without having seen the actual scene) to actors portraying an adult/underage couple in a historic-drama context when the actual movie showed nothing happening.
And at the same time there are people out there in the public who are wringing their hands and clutching their pearls at the exploitation and the sexualization… but, my point was, when it was displayed as the “Point And Laugh At The White Trash” show, a-la Toddlers and Tiaras the masses did not seem too ready to rise in outraged protest.
The inept publicity campaign for Cuties happens to have coincided with a manufactured moral panic about some Great Pedo Threat, many thanks to the social media giants and their algorithms that reinforce whatever scares suburban moms.
I don’t get it. I just watched the trailer and there is not one single image of “twerking” or anything that even looks remotely similar.
It looks like a fairly tame PG rated film that could play on the Disney Channel.
Will totally blown out of proportion moral panics never cease?
As usual there’s no room for nuance in the social media sphere. On one hand we have magazines posting articles saying that people who dislike the film are ‘a right-wing movement’…good lord.
On the other side, the argument is:
!. Its disgusting
2. It exploits little girls.
3. Its fodder for pedos
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I haven’t seen it. So besides being subjective…i can’t say whether the entirety of the film makes enough of an artistic statement. As i said earlier,…is ‘Pretty Baby’ not art??
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In the earlier thread, I commented that the actresses are being paid, and I’m confident that all kinds of support and discretion was available (note the film is French so i may be wrong!!)…BUT, my argument before was based on a level of provactiveness i perceived, and from what i gather now its much greater then what I thought,…so, I dunno. The actresses are supposedly 11 so maybe it does cross a line? I dunno.
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Thptth. People will find whatever they want to fap to.
What do you all think?
Edit: Basically, I saying I don’t think this is a slam-dunk “Disgusting pedo film that if you even discuss it, you’re a pedo and should be shunned”…I think its worthy of talking about.
I came in here to talk about tangerines, so…
I guess I dodged a bullet here. I’ve never heard of it. Thought this was about those horrid little oranges.
About the movie and the controversy:
This. Have fun, y’all.