Delta you’ve said this a couple times so I’m gonna say this - consent is not the issue: what if their parents consented?

> They’re dancing in a sexually explicit fashion. You basically conceded this point when you agreed the dancing was meant to man the audience feel uncomfortable. Again: they are children, they legally cannot consent to sexually explicit activity. And while suggestive dancing with suggestive camera angles is certainly enough to meet that bar, I don’t know how you can possibly argue against the fact that one of the girls exposed her chest.
@Delta I don't think @m.miller ever coneded that it was meant to make the audience feel uncomfortable. I argued that, but I'm agreeing with you that they are dancing in a sexually suggestive way. As for exploitation, what do you think about the tens of thousands of videos uploaded by girls who are 11 (or younger) doing the exact same thing as the girls on Cuties? Those videos on TicToc, YouTube, etc. are generally seen as normal and socially acceptable, somehow people aren't calling for boycotting that. My point is the movie actually does a really nice job of clearly showing what is happening on these platforms and why it's bad, and it's stupid that everyone is getting upset about the movie instead of getting upset about the toxic culture that it's pointing to.

The defects in so much as legally defining "pornography" from Jacobellis v Ohio in 1964, have never been cured and likely cannot be.

Dominant religious or cultural lens bias is a major issue for audiences to wrestle with as their own issues, separate or triggered by the docu-drama. US-ians tend to be pathetic and grossly immature if not hostile bigots over that range of issues.

Sexually suggestive cultural rituals are normal for 10-12 year olds in some world regions. When AIDS was at its worst in some regions of Africa, girls pushed child bearing downward towards age 12 as a coping strategy, so they'd be alive with their kids when many were dying around age 17.

We've got our own problems, with a paradox when most humans are not yet functional adults in complex economics-industrial society by age 25 or even far later (regardless of legal bright lines for majority), but civil rights standards require consideration to puberty as an entry to sexual adulthood, and median first consensual sex norms are age 17 in our culture. As a global village of immigrants dragging in many cultures and religions, all of those become part of our mismatched human and legal standards in ways that often diverge.

What kinds of idiots expect reconciling that mess to be "comfortable"?

I’m sorry but this isn’t one of those artsy fartsy films where some snooty connoisseurs are viewing it and are like:

“It’s quite interesting how the director chose to make her ‘pop that pussy’, I believe he’s trying to convey the spirit of childhood”

“Ah yes quite, the emotional pain I felt as she was ‘backing that thang up’ was quite powerful”

“Indeed 🧐 the way she was grabbing her vagina while pelvic thrusting just alludes to the plight of the Pygmy people.”

“Quite”

“Hmm, yes”

Yeah sorry, this film is not THAT abstract. “Oh it’s art, if you find it disgusting THAAAT means YOU are the pervert.” Oh palease gtfoh with that nonsense.

@Buddha I feel like the only who likes the movie and is against the sexualization of young girls, but for what it’s worth, that’s the whole point of the movie. There’s literally an interview where the woman who made it says that she was concerned about really young girls mimicking what they see online and wanted to draw attention to that happening. I’m starting to wonder if anyone here actually watched the movie lol

Problem is a movie containing minors doing adult acts doesn't draw much of a crowd

Mostly because people don't want to watch that

Regardless of the message attached

> @Buddha I feel like the only who likes the movie and is against the sexualization of young girls, but for what it’s worth, that’s the whole point of the movie. There’s literally an interview where the woman who made it says that she was concerned about really young girls mimicking what they see online and wanted to draw attention to that happening. I’m starting to wonder if anyone here actually watched the movie lol
@Katelyn

I have not watched yet, but it is in my cue to be notified when it's more readily available on streaming services I use.

Anyone pretending there's a "bright line" between "adult" and other "acts", fails to recognize development is a transition process, not some politician or lawyer defined arbitrary convenience, nor what some hate cult preacher or financial predator group may spout as propaganda.

So this is a movie about the sexualization of children amd because of that, their is the sexualization of children, freshly made.

So if we make a movie expressing the concerns of rape would the same thing be done to the same 'affect'

I think a noteworthy difference is the tens of thousands of videos of 11 year olds (and younger) uploading videos of themselves dancing just like this - somehow our society has decided that’s okay, based on the high levels of social approval these young women get for doing stuff like that. So, apparently on YouTube /TicToc, we’ve decided that this is fine. The same could not be said for rape. I personally think that’s incredibly fucked up that we have a culture that’s okay with 11 year olds uploading videos of themselves like this for social approval, and I appreciate Cuties for drawing attention to that and clearly showing the way that it’s harmful to them. I wish people would put half as much effort into being mad at this pervasive socially normal culture as they would put into virtue signaling about Cuties. I’m skeptical to think that people seriously care when they aren’t exactly about to start boycotting YouTube and TicTok or consider ways that they might be contributing to that culture.

A doctor friend with grad degrees in Psych and Soc, while working in supervisory central administration of a state child and elderly protective agency, noticed her younger sister's 12 year old skinny blond kid on Facebook, hitting on 18-20+ year olds for sex. The younger sister/mother had a long problematic history, and there had been a period of years when my friend had the niece living with her.

Friend walks down the hall a few times over subsequent days, to discuss what child abuse intervention options may exist in law or practice, talking mostly to senior/supervisory social workers of some field experience. Conclusion, nearly anything that agency could do to "protect" the kid, would likely be more harmful than not intervening. (Another now deceased and far brighter Psychologist friend took over another state's CPS for 3 years under contract and developed a model carrots and sticks plus parental support services model program, but it's too expensive to fund absent grants and grad student slave labor, within budgets and case loads of most states.)

Anyway, bad mother kid sister gets more involved after a few not so pleasant family conversations, and friend tries to resume more frequent contacts with the niece, until as an older teen, the kid moves out sporadically for a series of not so healthy young adult relationships.

And that case didn't involve the triple cocktail of gross illiteracy, addiction, and poverty, that's part of nearly all termination of parental rights severe abuse cases. But CPS systems where in discussions between those in theory developing functional policy, were found incapable of doing so. And they're still overloaded pretending to put out serious fires. But, public case data is sanitized to protect political bosses, though as someone who's done IT work on CPS cases, confidentiality protects politician scammers from being called out using factual evidence.

Is some movie that reflects kids involved in arts and culture activities that are controversial by other cultural expectations, somehow a bigger deal than that reality?

BTW, contrary to law and political treatment, the 12 year old in that case was the one acting as a sexual predator....

> Is some movie that reflects kids involved in arts and culture activities that are controversial by other cultural expectations, somehow a bigger deal than that reality?
> @LokiV
Can you clarify your position here? I'm objecting to the broader culture that we have of teaching young girls to sexually objectify themselves at an age where they don't even really understand what they're doing. I'm also objecting to the way that adolescents who start to explore themselves and their sexuality without parental guidance will tend to end up adopting very confused and harmful ideas based on what they see online. I like Cuties because it's deliberately drawing attention to that culture and making a statement about how bad it is. I see the example you brought up as an examples of that culture - certainly it's more severe than most cases, but that girl is doing those things because of what she is seeing online in the absence of any oversight. Do you agree with that?

Also, I'm curious (and extremely skeptical) about a 12 year old girl acting as a sexual predator towards 18-20 year old men. Can you clarify how that works?

Well, obviously Federal law and Facebook policy prevent a 12 year old from even making a profile, never mind one that claims a higher age that's fake, with deceptive pictures that appear to maybe be of an older teen, so that can't happen? Or, are both alleged child protective laws and Facebook policy dysfunctional bullshit when most bright kids learn to circumvent them?

I've already used the term "paradox" to describe how I see the chaotic mix of developmental human reality with legal bright line artificial standards for alleged clarity law is mandated to offer, and civil rights criteria where I see cause to protect rights to be sexually active by age 12 for those who are ready (but that's often hard to determine absent hindsight from age 40-50 or so), along with protection from imposing kids on society unless capable of parenting responsibly (which is never for far too many humans). You may find I've also called the mix of divergent and precisely fuzzy issues there "messy".

I'd probably support national civil rights standards that mandate an age of sexual consent for US state laws around 14 as Canada developed in its major overhaul some years back, but restrictions on hatching kids by anyone below majority or possibly absent licensing proving parental resources and skills (that'd get hissy fits as racial and other bias, but really, hatching a kid is the most burdensome thing humans can impose on the ecosystem and society). Just as with immigration law, I'd be surprised to see such changes as possible absent revolutionary changes. My exposure to CPS data and abuse cases reinforces that there are millions of cases, where it would not violate civil rights to ban people from hatching kids.

Also, I see the movie Cuties as potentially useful to society if it prompts serious discussion of important cross-cultural issues. I'd be curious to see more responses from around the world, as it appears the producer intent and movie content may be a bit different than Netflix promotions in the USA. Netflix seems to show more predatory financial interest via button pushing, than social benefit concern that seems closer to the intent of the movie as produced.

One other reflection.... I don't think it's possible to subject a kid to the stressors overloaded society the USA now has, without it being abusive in many ways. Despite any issues of legal criteria, mature parenting is a mix of skills and process, where much of that can be taught but not in ways that translate well to online discussions or formal regulations. There is also a need for support systems, but many of those people seek from government are contrary to our legal limits on government, while others develop by private groups that are also often subject to conflicting claims of values or practices that may be helpful to some kids and harmful to others, or to society overall.

There are Psychologists and Social Workers I've known who clearly should have licenses revoked if not be in prison, and others whose wisdom and skills ideally could be replicated more widely. Just as with parents, it's really hard to use words alone to define what that reflects.

I’m not arguing against the point of the film. I quite liked it. Parents don’t know what their kids are doing online. Overly traditional/religious families can be stifling and alienating. But the kid shouldn’t go full twerk culture either. I like the message

I appreciate cuties drawing attention to the issue

@Delta I'm glad I'm not the only one haha

But I just looked up the actual letter of law

Depicting a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct is illegal. Period.

It is abundantly clear that the dancing is supposed to be sexually suggestive. I’m sure the director would agree. The point of the movies is that depicting the fallout of the sexualizing of children

And honestly if you watched that movie and did not feel like it was shot and delivered in a sexually explicit way I don’t know if we watched the same movie. An 11 year old literally bared her chest to a crowd. The group is a twerking group. Not hip hop or anything, actually focused around twerking

The dancing is sexually suggestive but that's different than "sexually explicit." I would classify sexually explicit as engaging in sexual acts, which they didn't do.

Okay Im pretty sure you can't read the picture which is my fault. i can quote

"Notably, the legal definition of sexually explicit conduct does not require that an image depict a child engaging in sexual activity. A picture of a naked child may constitute illegal child pornography if it is sufficiently sexually suggestive. Additionally, the age of consent for sexual activity in a given state is irrelevant; any depiction of a minor under 18 years of age engaging in sexually explicit conduct is illegal."

Again, she exposed herself to a crowd, it was meant to be sexually enticing in context of the movie, because that was the underlying motivation for most of the dance crews actions, because that how society conditioned them, because that was the point.

But here's some clarification on that definition:


"For purposes of subsection 8(B) [1] of this section, “sexually explicit conduct” means—
(i)graphic sexual intercourse, including genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal, whether between persons of the same or opposite sex, or lascivious simulated sexual intercourse where the genitals, breast, or pubic area of any person is exhibited;
(ii)graphic or lascivious simulated;
(I)bestiality;
(II)masturbation; or
(III)sadistic or masochistic abuse; or
(iii)graphic or simulated lascivious exhibition of the anus, genitals, or pubic area of any person;"

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2256

I haven't seen it but I would assume if this movie could be considered sexually explicit and therefore illegal due to their age, the Netflix legal team would have stopped it. But that's only my assumption.

If they haven’t been sued, then I’d think so

Have they been sued?

I am not aware, I figured no because I haven’t seen a thousand headlines about it

Ahhh ok.

Some senatores havev sent a letter to the DOJ looking for investigation. So we'll see what happens

@everyone The first MAN HEALTH with Trav & Jer episode is about to drop! I will share it here. Please share this on your social media feeds and everywhere you possibly can to help it gain traction.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v5RiMdSqwk