Sep 16, 2020
Not-Cute and its Wacked Defenders
The French director of the controversial movie Cuties is fussing over the fuss in the wake of its screening by Netflix.
Where to begin; let’s start by laying out the arguments for and against the film, opening with the latter because it’s not nuanced, okay, snickering to self at this point.
Those against say:
1) The film sexually exploits young girls.
2) Society is pushing the sexual exploitation of children.
3) It gives a nod to pedophiles.
4) The film favors pedophilia and is soft porn.
There is nothing to argue about with any of the above so moving on to the apologists arguments.
1) Critics don’t understand nuance, translation: they not seeing the film’s subtle undertones of light and dark.
2) The film makes a social statement
3) This from the director; critics are panning the very thing the film debunks.
4) The tug-o-war goes political with some supporters of the film blaming the unfavorable response on conservative views.
So…………..first up, the nuance thing is difficult to appreciate, nay its impossible to see in the picture at all.
What you see is what you get, to bypass this you have to ignore one of the five senses, of sight in this case, to overlook the reality playing out before the eyes.
Moreover, the five senses allow the brain to make sense of the world; so the film’s defenders are suggesting people deny reality by telling them close your eyes to switch off your brain.
Would anyone call hard porn nuanced, seriously, why than should soft-core porn be any different? Bear in mind these are children and in using the nuance word defenders are just rationalizing the irrational.
Does the film make a social statement?
That a film of this nature was released is commentary about a sex-obsessed society sexually exploiting children at increasingly younger ages to cater to the whims of sexual deviants, so in this case, yes.
What other social statement is there?
Then the director makes the interesting although absurd statement about critics and defenders being are on the same side, with the film a critique of the sexual exploitation of children.
Not appreciating her analysis because that’s not the impression, at all.
She insists detractors are shooting the messenger by blaming the problem on the film when it just highlights a societal problem.
That’s a naïve outlook at best stupid at worst because film is a visual medium with whatever filmed reflecting foots toots on screen, so explicit material is dicey when of a sexual nature and involves children, women as well come to that.
You don’t air that type material if the subject matter is of a risqué nature make a documentary that allows for a message and a cautionary tale, stupid.
You’d think a director would be aware of this, she obviously protests too much.
The same is true for the sexual exploitation of women still a feature some sixty years after women’s liberation.
Feminists never appreciated their believed right to sexual expression aka sexual gratification in public couldn’t be separated from their own exploitation as well as that of women in general, making their right to choose not just irrelevant but part of the problem.
Trouble is women’s liberation was never about addressing issues like exploitation, theirs or minor children, but flipping the bird at the white male, in essence mindless rebellion for its own sake so it should come as no surprise we’ve now landed at women exploiting children.
Still others think worries about the sexual exploitation of children is a conservative thing, it’s no big deal the political right are just spoilsports and hypocrites before launching into their favorite game of detraction.
Which can be summed up as what about this………and that……and that.
