And this is why I’m an Asian-wannabe, and watch kdramas, doramas, and Cdramas, instead of Hollywood-produced and Hollywood-approved shows.
Who the heck at Netflix headquarters gave this project the green-light?
.
From Hollywood Reporter:
Eleven-year-old Amy lives with her mom, Mariam, and younger brother, awaiting her father to rejoin the family from Senegal. Amy is fascinated by disobedient neighbor Angelica’s free-spirited dance clique, a group that stands in sharp contrast to stoic Mariam’s deeply held traditional values. Undeterred by the girls’ initial brutal dismissal and eager to escape her family’s simmering dysfunction, Amy, through an ignited awareness of her burgeoning femininity, propels the group to enthusiastically embrace an increasingly sensual dance routine, sparking the girls’ hope to twerk their way to stardom at a local dance contest.
source: hollywoodnews.com
I have questions.
How on earth is an 11-year-old girl “twerking” like that odious Miley Cyrus viewed as “raising awareness of one’s burgeoning femininity”?
When have we women lowered the bar to self-awareness?
What does twerking have to do with my femininity? I hate twerking; does that make me masculine? Asexual? Misogynist?
How does a “sensual dance routine” gap the divide between men and women in STEM fields?
What happened to reading books, learning to code, competing in Math Olympiads and National Geography, tinkering with cars, taking up photography, building robots, opening up a lemonade stand, playing basketball, and playing a musical instrument? “Let children be children,” is that such a weird concept?
What crass and sordid values are being promoted to our girls when they’re at that very impressionable age? That “It’s my body!” and I can do anything I want to do with it? That twerking is an entirely acceptable and logical way to rebel against conservative parents?
Note to young girls (and boys) lurking here: Getting an “A” in chemistry, Algebra or Physics, or being elected to the Student Council is a far better way of rebelling and showing your “conservative” parents that you can be trusted as a mature person. Believe me. I made sure my parents had nothing to grouse about my academics so I was allowed a lot of liberties, not granted to my brothers, during my “teenage rebellion” years.
Are there no other role models to be found in the fields of science, math, engineering, medicine, law, religion, education, and philanthropy? Is lewd dancing really the only way to inspire these girls to pursue a career and better themselves? I also read that the conservative parents here are Muslim so what’s the implicit message here to the audience, given that the faith preaches modesty in attire and behavior, and respect for their parents?
Did the producers really think it was okay to sexualize children? Did they think it’s normal for a pre-adolescent to shake her butt in the air in simulation of a sexual act? Didn’t they think that this program sells soft porn?
I call bull.
What fresh turd is this, Netflix?
It’s no wonder that thinking viewers like me are running as far away as possible from Hollywood and turning to kdramas for CONTENT. While Korean entertainment companies can come up with shows like “When the Camellia Blooms,” “W,” and “Reply 1988,” — heck even “Crash Landing on You,” and “The King: Eternal Monarch” — it’s nauseating that the best that Netflix can come up with is a show crap like “Cuties.”
Even the title of the show makes me want to gag.
Preach, Packmule3!
I completely agree with you on this.
To your point, I was curious and made the mistake of browsing Netflix’s top ten, clicked on Teenage Bounty Hunters (#1) and was absolutely horrified by the first five minutes… I felt like I’d been slimed. The implied and overt behaviors and values modeled to our young through media is abhorrent.
I managed to avoid american television for 60+ years before falling down the kdrama rabbit hole and weirdly now watch an amazing amount of screen.
It turns out the problem wasn’t me, it was the media.
Really, Netflix??? Really?
Preach it indeed, pm3!
This is exactly why I also started watching Asian shows instead. My own culture accepts, and even celebrates in many instances, lewd dancing from a young age. It’s a rushed “growing up.” Even if as an adult you’d choose to “twerk” your butt off, it’d be a personal decision, but now kids see it as normal, and well received.
When I was eleven, my best friend was Lil, from Malencontre (by Guy de Chantepleure), and I played with Matryoshkas like it was the best thing in the world. I fear the times our kids live in. It takes twice as much effort to help them truly “grow up” w/o being influenced by this “norm.”
It’s deplorable that immoral behaviour and dress are raised as standards or norms, and more deplorable yet that the message is aimed at the very young, to distort their moral compass, when they should instead be guiding them on the path of wholesome self respect and goodness.
Speaking of ‘preach’- “If anyone causes one of these little ones — those who believe in me — to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.” – Matthew 18:6 popped into my head immediately. A tough warning, and much to answer for, for leading our future generations wrong.
This is just wrong on several levels. Shame on Netflix for supporting this film that is blatently exploiting and sexualizing children. That I do not agree with.
Is this real? It seems like some April Fool’s joke. I hope it’s not shown where I live.
It looks like Netflix made a decision to market this film in this way, when the director had quite the opposite in mind when she made the film! Women victimized multiple times by Netflix in this scenario – it stinks. https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-53846419
Sigh…what’s new? Precisely one of the reasons why I stopped watching what Hollywood had to offer and shifted to KDramas. The movies I watched on Netflix that I would say sat well with me (without me wanting to just switch off) was Gifted, Wonder and Flipped. I especially liked Flipped. It was sweet and the girl lead had spunk (in the right way and for the right reasons 👏). For some reason Netflix took Flipped off their list of movies to stream ☹️. I was going to do a rewatch and couldn’t find it. Wonder was just beautiful. My daughter’s English teacher had the class read the original book and dissect it. So when it came out on film, I watched it. Anything her English teacher pushes as a text I would watch. The other one is Finding Forrester. She had to write an essay on that film so I watched it with her.
Looks like this is trending now on the BlueBird app. Netflix won’t take it down though despite apologizing (thousands signing petition to have it removed)? 🙄. I guess they are banking on the controversy actually fueling the interest/curiosity of viewers? Even bad rap is “good”? 🙄
@packmule3, Cuties is actually a French production but Hollywood does alot to sexualize children too. It’s no wonder that there are so many pedophiles out there.,The other thing about these shows is that they determine what standards of beauty to promote and probably help tp promote products. It’s kind of like the sneaker industry that tells young men that if they buy a certain expensive pair, they’ll play …insert sport here, like…insert sportstar here…whether they have the ability or not. Add the social media influencers and the mudic industry to this and children don’t have much of a chance without parrntal guidance. I’m glad that we havebour Asian content. The stories are interesting. There are lots of strong women and girls. The only quibble I have is that beauty is big business in Asia. Korea us known for relatively cheap pladtic surgery- I don’t undrrstand the nedd for sharp chinlines and double eyelids when people look fine as is. And Asian entertainmenypt’s corpoate cultue plays into this as well as hawking beauty products through product placement. Ither than that, I love the fact that women and girls are represented in all manner if professions including such things as tuna fishing and it’snokay to be strong and athletuc. There is nomplace for sexualuzing children-not good.
So sad. 😔 I have a 5, 6, 8, 10 and 15 year old nieces, I can’t even. 😟
Thanks for that BBC article, @Jane M. Netflix should have made it clear in their publicity that this film is actually critizing the sexualization of children through the story. Instead it comes across as a film that sanction “twerking their way to stardom.” They need to have a talk with their PR staff. I think if they had included such wording in their summary, the reaction would not have been so negative. I know I feel better knowing that this French film is a critique/expose of the issue.
I will not be watching Cuties.
I started watching Kdramas and Asian dramas because the Netflix Hollywood products wasn’t fulfilling. I was amazed at the writing depth, acting, and cinematography that Kdramas had to offer. I specifically look for the wow-factor in the storytelling and I have found that Kdramas have a lot more of it than Western series. I won’t be going back to American film/tv anytime soon.
@OldAmericanLady – From the male perspective, I love that the stories are about strong women and girls. One drama I really enjoyed was Rookie Historian Goo Hae-ryung–free spirit Goo Hae-ryung embarks on a new life as a scholar in the Joseon royal court after hearing about a government post for female historians.
Thanks for the excellent comment. The sexualisation of children must be offensive to any decent human being. The “entertainment” industry has been allowed to bring this type of material to the common viewing arena far too frequently so, to some minds, it has become acceptable. It is not acceptable.
The producers’ argument that the content is in fact intended to criticise a trend seems to me to be specious.
It was so good to read your uncompromising statement. I hope it is read widely.
My daughter showed me some comments about this. All negative and my daughter is anything but traditional in most of her ways. She said that there was another book that Netflix “ruined”, ’13 Reasons Why’. She said that many people really liked the book but were horrified at how Netflix treated the subject. My husband thinks that Netflix likes to court controversy. I think that @nrllee’s point about bad rap is correct. Even bad publicity is better than none.
I’ll stick with K/C/J dramas.
One other thing struck me. These kids are all under age. Depending on the country making this content I I wonder what the age of consent is. Certainly not eleven or twelve. So if parental permission is necessary and contracts signed for these child actors, would the studios and parents be guilty of at minimum child neglect or abuse. When I think of the metoo movement, I have to hope they’re looking at this part of the underbelly of the entertainment industry. How does this type of content influence in and perhaps traumatise the participants. (When you get them young as is seen in kpop, which separates the talent from normal life when they’re trainees and “wholesomely” sexualizes the boys and girls-with dance moves, make up and for the nen subtle and not so subtle homeoerotic movement and makeup, it’s not uncommon to see talent suicides. I just think that Cuties marketing points this out without taking ownership of the consequences to participants and young viewers in this age of influencers. Twerking is like a gateway drug to some and can lead to exploitation, especially for the young and naive. Scary
The majority of western content is subject to the left-liberal agenda. The main objective is not to produce good content, but to produce content that promotes this ideology. This also greatly handicaps the quality of scriptwriting, as it forces these topics to be ticked. Not to mention that audiences don’t like it, people want to see good quality entertainment content, not indoctrination. It’s even less surprising with netflix, because with them, it’s not hidden, it’s an assumed policy.
I prefer a half-baked drama like The King Eternal Monarch to any bogus netflix-like series. Originally, I started watching exclusively Asian dramas for other reasons, but now it gives me an extra reason.