Popular streaming site Netflix has recently come out with Cuties, a movie that has taken the media by storm. The intent of the film was to spread awareness of the hypersexualization of young girls in today’s society.
While I do believe that this is a very real thing in our society today, I do not believe that this movie did its job at all. I personally viewed this film, and upon viewing it there were moments where I felt uncomfortable due to the fact that the actresses were children.
The content itself was already not too appropriate, but casting children for these specific roles was taking it too far. Firstly, there were far too many scenes where the main character, Amy, was seen in only underwear. In addition to being practically naked, there were many scenes where she and her friends were dancing very inappropriately for their ages.
This film also showed scenes of the girls watching pornographic videos, and even taking nude photos themselves. I understand the fact that the point of the film was to expose how normalized this behavior is for girls in today’s generation, but the way that the film was portrayed just made it look like there was nothing wrong with what they were doing.
I feel that the dancing scenes were very unnecessary, there are other ways that they could have portrayed the message without including those scenes.
In terms of the broad message, there were points where I could see how it was exposing hyper sexualization, but it was pretty subtle. I do believe that some scenes in this film did express the pressures on young girls, but other scenes were very questionable.
There were many scenes where these girls would watch or see things that portrayed women in a sexual way, thus making them want to be like that too. This is a common thing in society today, as children are more able to access these things.
Young girls will always look up to older women and want to be like them; they see them as role models. If the film industry keeps creating films like this one, then they will certainly be normalizing this exact situation even more.
There is much speculation online over the fact that there are pedophiles who can easily watch this film, and this gives them exactly what they want. I believe that children are put in more danger when they are being portrayed as more mature in these roles, not to mention the harmful things that can be said about them online.
These young girls don’t know that what they are doing can potentially put them in danger. Our society needs to protect them from this, not encourage them to exploit themselves.
In addition to that, I feel that the movie portrayed Amy’s religion in a negative way. There are far too many people who believe that hijabi women are being “trapped” by their religion, when that isn’t the case at all.
There are plenty of hijabi women who are very proud of their religion, and I feel that movies that show the main character as a rebellious person who goes against their beliefs start a harmful stereotype. This film could’ve been something educational, but there were far too many unnecessary and inappropriate scenes for it to spread its message.
