Netflix Indicted By Texas Grand Jury Over 'Lewd' Depiction of Children In 'Cuties' (thehill.com) 336
A Texas grand jury indicted Netflix for the "lewd" representation of children in the controversial French film "Cuties." The Hill reports: The Sept. 23 indictment shows the Tyler County Grand Jury charged the popular streaming site for "promotion of lewd visual material depicting child" for its drama about a young girl who is torn between her conservative Muslim family's values and her desire to join a dance troupe. Among the charges in question is Netflix's alleged promotion of material that portrays the "exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of a clothed or partially clothed child, which appeals to the prurient interest in sex and has no serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value" -- a violation of the Texas penal code, according to the press release from Tyler County District Attorney Lucas Babin.
Netflix denied any wrongdoing after a summons was served on Oct. 1 by the Texas State Rangers. "'Cuties' is a social commentary against the sexualization of young children. This charge is without merit and we stand by the film," the company said in a statement to The Hill. After its Sept. 9 release, various GOP lawmakers including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) condemned "Cuties" for its alleged sexualization of minors. In a letter to U.S. Attorney General William Barr dated Sept. 11, Cruz called on the Department of Justice to investigate possible child abuse in relation to "Cuties."
Netflix denied any wrongdoing after a summons was served on Oct. 1 by the Texas State Rangers. "'Cuties' is a social commentary against the sexualization of young children. This charge is without merit and we stand by the film," the company said in a statement to The Hill. After its Sept. 9 release, various GOP lawmakers including Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) condemned "Cuties" for its alleged sexualization of minors. In a letter to U.S. Attorney General William Barr dated Sept. 11, Cruz called on the Department of Justice to investigate possible child abuse in relation to "Cuties."
Well this is certainly a tough call for me. (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Because I don't know much about art, but I do know what I like.
That's interesting because I do know a LOT about art, but I don't know what I like.
Re: Well this is certainly a tough call for me. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: Well this is certainly a tough call for me. (Score:4, Insightful)
"Cuties' is a social commentary against the sexualization of young children" ... by doing what you purport to be against?
Yes, apparently the idiots at Netflix don't understand that you can speak out against the sexualization of child without actually engaging in the sexualization of children.
Re: Well this is certainly a tough call for me. (Score:5, Interesting)
Can you though? In my experience if you speak out against anything without incontrovertible, graphic evidence the immediate response is dismissal. After all this has been going on for decades, it's not new, and people have been speaking out about it.
All this publicity is probably the best thing that has ever happened in terms of stopping it.
Re: Well this is certainly a tough call for me. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
That I can complete agree on. Netflix's marketing department went a bit far with that one.
Re: Well this is certainly a tough call for me. (Score:5, Insightful)
Even if speaking out against anything requires "incontrovertible, graphic evidence", you don't need to make that part of the promotional material.
Agree. The promotional material presented glamorized sexualized little kids.
Saying "but the movie says that's a bad thing" doesn't excuse it.
Re: (Score:3)
That was a mistake, the movie creators objected to that promotional material, and Netflix apologized.
It's not porn, but it is sexualized, just like all those pre-teen and toddler beauty pageants. So do you just have a talking voice saying "things are bad, but we can't show you pictures of thefully clothed girls to show what we're trying to describe, so just believe us that it's bad"?
I think these lawmakers are just drumming up business before an election - get the locals outraged by condemning a movie or b
Re: Well this is certainly a tough call for me. (Score:4, Insightful)
You can. Just like you can have a story about murder without actually murdering somebody.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
There are a lot of actors being murdered on TV though.
Re: (Score:3)
Adult actors, who are playing a part and don't die as a result of the scene.
Had the 'film' makers cast adults who looked young, they would have far more leeway both legally and morally, instead they [variety.com]:
Re: Well this is certainly a tough call for me. (Score:5, Interesting)
While there are adult actors who look young for their age, getting them to look like 11-year-old children would be a challenge.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The same reason as a pro-life Catholic I don't like Right to Life Displays of bloody fetuses found in the garbage of Planned Parenthood, is the reason I don't like Cuties exploiting 11 year old actresses to make Netflix millions of dollars in a "protest" against child sexploitation.
It is exactly the same.
Re: Well this is certainly a tough call for me. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Well this is certainly a tough call for me. (Score:5, Insightful)
They're not even pro-life. As George Carlin said, they're pro-birth. Once a child is born they want nothing to do with it. Single mother? Should have kept your legs closed. Child has birth defect? It's god's will. Woman dies giving birth. It's god's will. Stick the kid in a home until they're 18 then set them free. Medical care for the mother if she can't afford it? That's communism!
Re: Well this is certainly a tough call for me. (Score:3, Insightful)
What nonsense! There's plenty of us prolifers that are also advocates of conception-to--grave universal healthcare coverage.... It's logical and ethical. Talk about simplifying and stereotyping.
Re: Well this is certainly a tough call for me. (Score:4, Insightful)
Pro-life and pro-death-penalty in the same campaign speeches. Now I get a lot of this. I like the Bill Clinton way of phrasing it, abortion should be rare but legal. Meaning don't use abortion as a casual means of birth control, it should be the last resort. But too often the people in the pro-life camp are also anti-birth-control. During many of our lifetimes it was still illegal to purchase birth control in some states if you were not married, and that crowd became the pro-life crowd after the Roe-v-Wade decision.
The "morning after" pill should have been considered a good way to stop many abortions, it should be the option to use after a rape. Yet it is highly condemned with just as much vehemence as a late term abortion. Foreign aid is cut off if there's any chance any of it might be used to promote birth control, and NGOs that promote birth control as a population control measure are condemned.
So politically the fight has devolved into an all-or-nothing fight, the two extremes are battling and the sensible center gets ignored. And this one single issue is the most defining one in US elections, local, state, or federal. There is a huge fraction of voters in the US that decide how they vote on this issue and none other. And this is why the two main political parties that used to divide up the voters based upon economics and labor have become two parties that split based upon social issues instead.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Okay you don't like it, but the question I have is were you aware of it before the movie came along?
Maybe it went too far but I think some good as definitely come of it.
Re: Well this is certainly a tough call for me. (Score:4, Interesting)
Okay you don't like it, but the question I have is were you aware of it before the movie came along?
Maybe it went too far but I think some good as definitely come of it.
But by all means, let's toss the whole thing out because they went full cringe worthy in their treatment of children. (sarc off)
To answer your question, YES, I was aware of this kind of thing. JonBenét Ramsey was murdered in 1996 and she was a childhood "beauty queen" contestant. At that point, even before I had kids, the over sexualization of young kids was obvious and disgusting. The videos of JonBenet participating in various contests, though tame by today's standards, where disturbing.
Children should be protected from such exploitation by their parents/guardians, it's not cute to have kids who don't know what they are doing making overt and salacious actions for the amusement of the adults watching.
Now on to the movie.. I've not seen it, but people who I trust have. From what I'm told, this movie is neither innocent nor is it child porn. Yes, it paints the over sexualization of children in a bad light, and in the spirt of being watchable the young girl realizes what she's doing, decides to stop and return to her estranged family, but it DOES have some very cringe worthy sequences that could have been alluded to and not overtly shown without sacrificing the impact of the intended message. So yes, the movie has a good message, but no the producers of the movie clearly step over the line (from my perspective).
But let's be honest... There is no way this movie would have in anyway successful, or worthy of discussion had they not gone purposely controversial, so the producers have done their job.
The really sad part here is that we've come to this. That this actually exists in today's society is a serious problem, that movies like this could even be made, is wrong. The Hollywood art types have pushed us a long way, by pushing the boundaries, questioning societies norms, using shock value to make money. But we live in a imperfect world filled with imperfect people, what can we expect?
Re: (Score:3)
Is this [youtube.com] the video you're referring to?
Re: (Score:2)
Well, as one of the first Hollywood producers said to the censors board when he was asked why he has so many women in bathtubs: To make a movie against sin, you have to show sin....
(From the floor of my brains cutting room. Exact quote and source welcome)
Re: Well this is certainly a tough call for me. (Score:4, Informative)
That's a retrospective statement in response to the accusations. They never claimed that before, instead they said it was "feminist" and "empowering" or some shit like that.
Re: (Score:2)
That's a retrospective statement in response to the accusations. They never claimed that before, instead they said it was "feminist" and "empowering" or some shit like that.
JFGI, article date september 10
https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/netflix-defends-cuties-against-sexualization-young-girls-1234766347/
“‘Cuties’ is a social commentary against the sexualization of young children,” a Netflix spokesperson said in a statement to Variety. “It’s an award-winning film and a powerful story about the pressure young girls face on social media and from society more generally growing up — and we’d encourage anyone who cares about these important issues to watch the movie.”
Re: Well this is certainly a tough call for me. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Well this is certainly a tough call for me. (Score:4, Insightful)
As heartbreaking as it was nauseating.
It did its job, then.
(Would you be here discussing the subject if they didn't show that?)
Re: (Score:3)
It went way too far and pushed the envelope clear off the table. If this had been a book, graphic novel, or animated film then nobody could say children were exploited but here we are. I've seen people try to defend this by playing the race card due to the director Miamouna Doucoure being an ethnic minority. Nudity of minors is not a new thing in cinema but this was blatant softcore porn. You might as well say the pornhub video Teacher Punishes Naughty Student is an educational movie because Pythagoras' The
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
You haven't watched the movie, have you. Promotional material =/= the movie
Which one the one about the teacher...?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
If it was child porn it would not be in the promotional material and the Netflix ppl and/or French makers would e in jail.
Do you really think anyone on the planet is promoting child porn "on TV"? Seriously?
Re: (Score:3)
> Or do you really think they do not run a trailer with this potential for controversy past their legal department to make sure?
Well they're currently charged with a felony, so apparently they have either didn't listen to their lawyer, or didn't get advice. Because they're charged with a felony.
You can decide for yourself if it's a lewd display which appeals to the prurient interest. Obviously a significant percentage of people do, it looks like most do. Now the Netflix execs hope that someone on the
Re: (Score:3)
So what makes this a tough call for you? That you like watching pre-teens act like strippers, but you want to tell yourself it's just art? I can help you with that. A pre-teen is a child. Exploiting them is not forgiven just because it's done in an artistic manner.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Bullshit.
Re: Well this is certainly a tough call for me. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
I'm someone who has read Dance in the Vampire Bund, Kodomo no Jikan, Otome Sensou, and has seen Prisma Illya, Kanokon, Eromanga Sensei, and multiple other pieces of JP media that goes into unapologetic lolicon territory. My current /. username is a reference to the main (loli) heroine of the VN Kagetsu Tohya.
I was disgusted by this shitheap and it was the last straw that made me cancel Netflix for good.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
The one where the girl inflates the used condom she finds thinking it's a balloon and her friends wash her mouth out with soap afterwards, and I lack timestamps since I canceled Netflix nor do I feel like pirating it to find one. Even if it wasn't minors I'd probably walk out of any movie after that.
Re: (Score:2)
The problem with that is in order to do so we have to become participants in something we find revolting.
If I say "cannibalism is wrong", and you say "but have you even tried human flesh?" I should automatically be dismissed as not trying to have civil discussion on the topic unless I say "well alright hand me some thigh?"
At some point having seen the trailer. I think people can actually say this is unacceptable, and simply cannot be justified by any other content in the movie, because its simply not justi
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Well this is certainly a tough call for me. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Well this is certainly a tough call for me. (Score:5, Insightful)
I am absolutely convinced that director level staff on the movie were perverts.
Doucoure was born and raised in Paris to parents of Senegalese origin..The film is based on a traditional Senegalese Muslim girl who is caught and torn between two contrasting fortunes, traditional values and internet culture while also speaking about hypersexualization of preadolescent girls..She also stated that she worked with a child psychologist during filming. It was revealed that Doucoure spent nearly 18 months researching studies how young and pre-teen children are being exposed to 18+ adult content and sexualised images on social media in order to showcase the accurate reality in the film.
Or, you know, the director was merely telling a story that reflects her own, actual experiences.
There really only started being an issue with the film when Netflix put out a questionable promo poster.
Re: (Score:3)
> Or, you know, the director was merely telling a story that reflects her own, actual experiences.
These two don't compute.
This is funny. (Score:2, Funny)
A Texas grand jury ... [says film] has no serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value ...
Texans passing judgement on literary, artistic and scientific value -- have you read their text books?
Uh huh.
Re:This is funny. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is funny. (Score:5, Funny)
No, no. You see, those are Texas child pageants. Those are completely different than these other child pageants because they're Texas child pageants.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Do "child pageants" in Texas involve twerking, crotch-rubbing, and pre-teens texting pics of their private parts? If not, I can think of a few notable differences between them and this movie.
Re: This is funny. (Score:4, Insightful)
Did this trailor include crotch grabbing ? Honest question, i saw the trailor but I didn't notice such a thing. (There is a lot of dance, but I am too unartistic to conclude what the dance is implying. )
Is it self crotch grabbing, or a different person's ? By an adult of a child ?
Or are you saying the crotch grabbing takes place in the movie ?
Re: (Score:3)
The movie, although perhaps not the trailer, shows pre-teen girls grabbing their own crotches. If the GP claims that child pageants in Texas are morally equivalent to the movie, I await evidence that pageant organizers directed pageant participants in similar activity.
Re: (Score:2)
I've never seen this happen, but I am absolutely outraged about it!
Clown world is real.
Re:This is funny. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This is funny. (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
A Texas grand jury ... [says film] has no serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value ...
Texans passing judgement on literary, artistic and scientific value -- have you read their text books?
Uh huh.
A broken clock is right twice a day.
The difference between this and pageants (Score:2, Insightful)
I expected an endless series of digs at Texas for child pageants by people who are either clueless or evil. Let's see.
You don't even have to read the article to see the key qualifier here: "exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of a clothed or partially clothed child"
From the BBC: https://www.bbc.com/news/enter... [bbc.com]
"The site also pointed out that Doucouré had created "outrageous musical montages involving close-up crotch shots of pouting pre-teens"."
Child pageants do not have close-up crotch shots of
Re:The difference between this and pageants (Score:5, Insightful)
"Child pageants do not have close-up crotch shots of children."
Maybe not, but they still display children dressed up in clothes which on an adult would be sexually provocative. They're nauseating displays of utterly unaware simpleton parents vicariously living their beauty pageant fantasies through their kids.
Re:The difference between this and pageants (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. You have to draw a line in sand. It can be anywhere between 'any depiction of anyone looking anything under 18 ever' to 'violent penetration of infants'. The lawmakers have drawn it at "exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of a clothed or partially clothed child" which makes the pageants rather despicable and treading damn close to the line, but still legal, while 'cuties' being just a notch 'harder' crosses it.
One doesn't justify the other, and having the line where it is doesn't make the lawmakers bad people - it only makes the pageant organizers bad people skirting the border of law.
Re:The difference between this and pageants (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the point though. The film serves as a mirror, showing reflection of the world they live in and rather than address the world they live in, they would rather break the mirror that shows the hideous reflection.
Humans have double standards over sex (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not going to defend this filn or texas as I don't know enough about either, but it is amusing the double standards on sexuality around the world. Its perfectly accaeptable to walk to a museum - even with kids - and see paintings of bollock naked men and women either in paintings or as sculptures, but put the same in a video or pictures and they get an X rating. Its a funny old world.
Re:Humans have double standards over sex (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Humans have double standards over sex (Score:4, Insightful)
Most of the art in museums tends not to be sexualized though. It's rare to see provocative poses that focus on the genitals, and in some cases like with Greek art they deliberately made the men's penises tiny and as unobtrusive as possible because they thought that large ones were a bit unsightly.
Yeah, back in ancient Greece a small dick was preferable, how times have changed.
I'm not attacking this movie, I haven't seen it but have heard that it is a genuine commentary on the issues, but my understanding is that it does feature provocative imagery, so it's a bit different from classical nudes.
Re:Humans have double standards over sex (Score:5, Funny)
What do you mean they deliberately made them tiny? They look normal to me...
Re: (Score:2)
Regarding art, a woman was recently denied entrance to the Musee d'Orsay (in France of all places) because she was showing too much cleavage. An art museum that contains paintings and sculptures of naked women!
The article has a pic of the dress she was wearing and I can’t fathom why it was an issue (but that might just be me)
https://www.cnn.com/travel/art... [cnn.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Were any society draws lines is certain to be a bit arbitrary but; the important element here is context.
"No shit no shoes no service" is a prefect example. Its perfectly acceptable to walk around the beach barefoot in a bathing suit, its not generally acceptable to enter a business in that attire.
Ultimately it comes down to if I wish to avoid scantly dressed people I should take the responsibility to steer clear of places where that is the normal condition. Ie don't want to see women in thongs and topless dudes, don't go to the beach. However you don't expect that a the grocery, and should be able to go buy a box of cereal without having to encounter persons immodestly dressed.
If you consider this dress scantily clad, you have some deep issues.
https://www.dnaindia.com/lifes... [dnaindia.com]
Do you complain about all those middle aged women walking around grocery stores wearing skin tight yoga pants too? You know, the ones so tight you can tell both what kind of underwear they are wearing and sometimes even the color will bleed through?
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but I'm going to point out that that dress would likely draw complaints in almost any office environment. It's not a far stretch for a prestigious institution like the Musee d'Orsay, where the prime focus, (I'm guessing, since it's main focus is art from between 1848 and 1914 [wikipedia.org],) is on Victorian-era art, would say something about it.
Re: (Score:3)
that's a nice pair of parus major.
I am not going to eat at this restaurant! (Score:2)
"No shit no shoes no service" Yes I know he just didn't type in the "r". At least I hope that's the case!
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Well there are a few differences. Unlike flipping channels on the TV or browsing the web, my kids are unlikely to walk a few miles, hop a bus, and stumble in the Art museum downtown while I look away for 2min to pour another cup of coffee. So there is that.
I would argue that art (sculpture paintings photography) depicting minors nude is probably something that should be universally frowned upon for the same reasons CP is, its very likely abusive to the individuals depicted in the same ways and they are to
Re: (Score:2)
I would argue that art (sculpture paintings photography) depicting minors nude is probably something that should be universally frowned upon for the same reasons CP is
Fortunately this film doesn't do that.
Re: (Score:3)
If you're too incompetent to set up a kids profile for Netflix, you're too incompetent to keep your kids from going to the museum in an attempt to grow out of the intellectual wasteland that is your home.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
I wasn't comparing art with CP. Try learning to read.
Death penalty! (Score:2, Funny)
If you in any way want to think sexually about kids you should be given the strongest punishment possible. What if someone diddled your kids? How would you react?
Re:Death penalty! (Score:5, Funny)
So who has seen it? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm guess the vast majority of people on here, particularly those making negative comments, have not actually seen it?
I don't think I have any interest in seeing it. So far only the usual deranged ones are screaming loudly, that is not enough of a scandal to make this thing interesting.
Re:So who has seen it? (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
As with most censorship issues, my thinking is that your bite of the turd is irrelevant. The question is: did the turd bite you?
Re: (Score:2)
Shouldn't all those pageants of underage girls also be illegal? Why don't they qualify as soft-core porn?
Lewd exhibition of the genitals for prurient inter (Score:2)
Because singing != fondling genitalia.
While beauty pageants may be "bad" for other reasons, they do not include "sexual contact, actual or simulated sexual intercourse, ..., masturbation, sado-masochistic abuse, or lewd exhibition of the genitals". It's also child porn if it:
(1)âdepicts the lewd exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of an unclothed, partially clothed, or clothed child who is younger than 18 years of age at the time the visual material was created; [and]
(2)âappeals to the pruri
So stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Haven't seen the movie, not surprised (Score:5, Insightful)
For context, I am a french citizen living in the US for about 10 years. And I am so not surprised by this.
I haven't seen the movie yet. But it has been talked about quite a bit so I'll see it eventually.
France really doesn't have the same approach to bodies and sexuality as the US have. You see on french beaches kids going naked in the ocean probably up to age 6. I am not saying all kids to that until 6, but you see it. There people arguing that 50 shades of grey should not be rated PG, because it did not need to, that G was more appropriate.
Teens and pre-adolescent teens are sharing dick pics between each other. Teens who dance tend to be overly suggestive because they want to do like Shakira and Rihanna. They probably sing Cardi B.'s WAP in school yard. I am not judging whether they should or not, but they are. Some girls in 9th grade used to pretend to pole dance on street lights and water pipes at recess when I was in school late 90s. The reality on the ground is probably what is depicted in the movie. (Once again, I haven't seen it yet.)
The theme of the movie appears to echo lots of current issues of french society. Religious pressure from family on a youth that growingly rejects religion. The over growing expectation that kids overperform in all aspect of their lives that push them to extreme. Social pressure to compete at an ever younger age. The difficulty of divorce and remarriage and their impact on kids.
Without mentioning that eventually the kid appears to realize that she went to far and abandon that way.
Re: (Score:3)
The reality on the ground is probably what is depicted in the movie.
That's exactly what it is. It's called a "coming of age" story. It's all about the confusion of kids at that time in their life.
The complaints about the movie are so dumb. One big complaint you see repeated a lot in this thread is a scene where a girl picks up a "used condom" and thinks it's a ballon or something and plays with it. When the other kids see it at first they make fun of it, and she's on the verge of tears "I didn't know!". Very realistic scene. Then afterwords, the kids try to be helpful and
Re: (Score:3)
The actor of course was using a completely new out of the package prop condom and not a real used condom. To say it was abuse of the actress is just dumb. All of the other complaints about this movie are similarly stupid.
Sounds pretty much like it. Because of the outrage, I had a look at the trailer. I completely failed to identify the parts labeled as "child porn" by some here. I can only conclude that all these complainers see children as sexual objects, because it seems to take a pretty active imagination going into this specific direction to even have that idea for anything shown.
Re:Haven't seen the movie, not surprised (Score:5, Interesting)
This whole thing is pretty fascinating. The rest of the world is constantly flooded with American media but Netflix, with their promotion of world media, is providing an unusually accessible conduit back into what is otherwise a very insular culture.
In the film there's a clash between French culture and conservative religious Muslim culture. The controversy in the US is a clash between French culture and conservative religious Christian culture.
The children in the film are practicing dance moves to imitate their role models in American music videos and other media that are exported to the world. Many of the controversial scenes in the film seem to be shot in styles that imitate those music videos.
The US, a self-proclaimed bastion of freedom of speech, is being accused of dangerous censorship by French film associations.
Many states in the US have no effective minimum marriage age. Texas itself lets 14 year olds get married.
Interesting argument... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"'Cuties' is a social commentary against the sexualization of young children." ...while sexualizing young children.
I watched the trailer. It looked like little girls playing around and talking shit. If anyone finds that sexualiztion or whatever, that is in the eye of the beholder.
Ever see Rhythmic Gymnastics? They sometimes do these non-competitive shows that has them dancing like adult women. Aside from - as my colleague said "unconvinving" (meaning, only a perv would take it seriously and get turned on about it) - it was just cute.
Really, if anyone gets all uptight about it, it is because they are projecting their o
Re:Pageant (Score:5, Insightful)
Anything that shows a bit of skin is unacceptable in the US. If you're not convinced, just remember the stupid "nipplegate [wikipedia.org]" scandal that wouldn't have deserved more than a quiet laugh and a passing mention on page 5 of the next day's newspapers in any sane country.
But anything that depicts war, blood, massacre, gore, guns, torture is fine.
Re: (Score:3)
My favourite part about nipplegate was that people got their panties in a twist without ever actually seeing any nipple. The nipple in question had cloths on. Boobgate would make more sense.
Re:Pageant (Score:5, Interesting)
I actually find child beauty pageants more disturbing.
That movie criticizes serialization of young girls, beauty pageants encourage it.
Also, 11 years old is the start of puberty for girls, so it is normal for them to try to be sexy, some are even fertile at that age.
So sexualizing them, while morally dubious, is still a somewhat natural thing to do.
But pageants start earlier than that. Sexualizing 6 year olds is neither moral nor natural. Furthermore, while I didn't watch "Cuties" and I don't really intend to do so, but I suppose the girls are really acting, not just showing off their body, that's less objectifiying.
All that to say that I find it weird to ban that movie and still allow child beauty pageants. But well, I don't live in the US, so I suppose it is a cultural thing.
Another thing. What I find perverse about that movie is not so much the sexual depiction of children though it is part of it. After all, the point is to criticize sexualization, and it is not like the actors got raped. What I dislike even more is that I am quite sure that the movie was intentionally made to spark controversy and get people to watch it. Just ignore it, let it sit in the 2/5 star bucket where is most likely belongs.
Re: (Score:2)
Can't we be discussed by both?
Beauty does not have to be 'sexy' I think there are probably room for child pageants where we don't over sexual kids. The variety clips for that "Toddlers in Tiaras" thing on the new familiarized many of us with should not exist. I am perfectly willing to condemn that practice, the fact that it exists isnt argument for why this movie should. Was child labor okay at one time because slavery was also legal?
Re: (Score:3)
Beauty does not have to be 'sexy' I think there are probably room for child pageants where we don't over sexual kids.
Sure, you could do that. But all beauty pageants are pathetic, and harmful to children. Competing to see who's the most beautiful is shallow and empty, and there's absolutely no reason to watch one unless you want to actively experience your attraction to the participants. The simple fact is that a significant portion of the viewers will always be watching for reasons of sexual interest, no matter the ages involved.
Was child labor okay at one time because slavery was also legal?
Child labor is still OK if they're your kids.
We don't really believe in protecting children,
Re: (Score:2)
The wording is perfectly sensible if you understand law.
There's a separate law for genital nudity. It's up to the court to define nudity. A child wearing a g-string out of dental floss would probably be seen as nude. But filming the crotch of a 10-year old wearing a skimpy bikini would not be filming nudity.
The wording "clothed or partially clothed" is intended to cover crotch shots with anything above nudity.
Re:Maïmouna Doucouré should be prosecute (Score:4, Informative)
It turns out that this all started because of Netflix's promotional poster.
They've since changed / removed it, with an apology as it doesn't accurately represent the film's content. One of the major complainers was Doucouré herself. However, thanks to that, the pedohunters, like yourself, have jumped on the bandwagon and she has received death threats.
Re: (Score:2)
This is one of those social problems that could be safely investigated and discussed with a documentary, but can't be dramatized without creating more of what it purports to decry.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm not going by some poster, I'm going by the trailer. I was horrified by what I saw them having children do.
Then be horrified by child-based entertainment in general today. It seems like every time I see a child dancing on television (thankfully rare as I watch very little television, and even less with children, but I've seen this shit on the news) they are using some stripper moves. Sexualization of children is now commonplace, and I think it's absolutely right to instigate debate on the subject.
I haven't seen Cuties, and don't intend to, so I'm not going to comment on the film itself. All I'm going to say is t
Re: (Score:3)
It says something about our times that a 10 minute video "takedown" of a film is about 1 minute of footage from the film and 9 minutes of some fat fuck in a Taco Bell sweatshirt ranting in front of a microphone.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)