Writes Rod Dreher in The American Conservative. Dreher actually watched the movie. There's a clip of one of the dance scenes embedded at the link. I attempted to watch it, and you can see from my screen shot where I gave up forcing myself:
September 12, 2020
"Whether the director (who is a woman) intends to or not, she has made a film that serves to accustom us to the sexualization of children."
"Cuties is dramatically quite bland; if it weren’t for the controversy, there would be nothing to recommend it. There’s no subtlety in it. If you wanted to make a movie or TV show that appealed to illicit prurience among the audience, you would have to make it with the pretense of condemning the thing you’re exploring in it. If you are the sort of person who finds long scenes of twerking pre-teens to be revolting, then Cuties is going to be hard to get through. If you find it exciting, well, perv, this is the movie for you. I’m not saying that this is what the filmmaker set out to do here, but I am saying that this will be the effect. It will be the effect because the director’s aesthetic failure is a moral failure. And it’s a failure by the Netflix brass too, which tipped its hand with the botched initial marketing. It is plainly only interested in Cuties because it wanted a succès de scandale of a movie about twerking Lolitas. It has no interest at all in condemning a Kardashianized society that produces twerking Lolitas.... I find the traditional Islamic society depicted in Cuties to be unjust towards women, and not one in which I would want to live, or would want by daughter to grow up in. But I would prefer that to the Cuties society of sluttified children, and it’s not even close."
Writes Rod Dreher in The American Conservative. Dreher actually watched the movie. There's a clip of one of the dance scenes embedded at the link. I attempted to watch it, and you can see from my screen shot where I gave up forcing myself:
Writes Rod Dreher in The American Conservative. Dreher actually watched the movie. There's a clip of one of the dance scenes embedded at the link. I attempted to watch it, and you can see from my screen shot where I gave up forcing myself:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
68 comments:
My sister was 7 years my junior(and I was the youngest of 3 at the time. you do math) So I went to her basketball games with mom when I was in the area. One night at half time they brought out the Jr High dance team. We watched for a few minutes and mom turned to me, and said"they should teach them to read before they teach them to jiggle."
I am aware that most people think my position is extreme about this but I do not watch any movies or TV because I believe that the entire entertainment industry is a giant pedophile and grooming gang, All the children are victims and all the adults are complicit, so if I watch I am complicit also. Cuties does not challenge my beliefs at all. it only confirms them
Dreher's a moron.
Typical of him, he uses anything at hand to confect some dumbass conflation through which to denounce America in the service of inventing opportunity to demonstrate how open minded he is about multiculti while simultaneously, perniciously pimping traditionalism.
His hero Chersterton would kick him in the balls.
What twaddle! Our culture was there forever before second wave feminism. Who remembers David Hamilton and his “Laura” photos from the 70s?
And Islam? How old was Aisha??? Say her name!
Sexual immorality unrestrained has been seen as good so long that restraints by childhood is now the last target for the virtue signaling progs. Ergo: violence is becoming just as un-restrained.
I'm surprised there are no boys, just to touch all the bases.
Have you seen the Cuties Netflix trailer on Youtube, Professor? I keep going back for the metrics whenever I feel blue. 42K likes... and 1.7 million dislikes. In the comments hardcore Muslims, devout Jews, Christians, and Judeo-Christians, Hindus with daughters, and Japanese who believe that children should not be lewded join hands as we all vow to destroy the evil people who keep deceiving the world about this movie's true purpose.
Meanwhile, more evidence accumulates that Rod Dreher is a deeply stupid sheep with the historical perspective of a goldfish. If he was smarter, he'd realize that the ending of Cuties is thematically dissonant because it is designed as a "false" ending, similar to movies forced to adopt the Hays Code after a famous Hollywood comedian raped and murdered a poor young woman. It's supposed to appeal to the idiotic rubes while winking at the degenerates who would watch this sick movie- in this case, satanic pedophiles and their eunuch enablers. Like Richard Brody and Tim Robey, who are very wonderful Christians and just as moral as you, and I. Mr. Zagronitz, the producer of the film, is doubtless gratified by their support.
For every horrified review, blog post, and tweet, Netflix and the producers of Cuties give high fives. Pretty soon it will be the most watched show and everyone will need to see what all the fuss is about.
In the clips that I have seen, what has struck me most is how much...
(a) the young girls being exploited in Cuties...
remind me of...
(b) "The Squad"
I agree that Netflix is cynically using the controversy to publicize a blah film. I am reminded of the stripper pole movie that torpedoed the career of that actress from Saved By the Bell.
I'm amazed that there are people out there who defend the film.
A girl is bullied into sending a vulva pic to show she's not a baby and another drinks from a found condom. Twerking is the least of the film's depravity. See That Star Wars Girl's watching review on YouTube.
Tulsi Gabbard condemned the movie. She's the closest thing to a sane Democrat.
If you only made it 27 seconds into the clip, then you didn't get to the really bad parts.
Basically, the girls are emulating music video dancers who were emulating modern day strippers, including the ass slapping, crotch grabbing and floor humping. It reminds me of the end of ’Little Miss Sunshine’ without the naive little girl being unaware of what she was doing.
I've set it on this blog, and elsewhere, if I've said it a million times.
The next big push is the normalization of pedophilia
Screencap it. Add it to the rest.
where I gave up forcing myself
Horrible music.
For me, scantily clad children, at a swimming pool or wherever, usually bring to mind scrawny monkeys with hydrocephalus and alopecia.
"the director’s aesthetic failure is a moral failure"
A nice sentiment. And it's good to know Althouse's bourgeois sensibilities are intact.
But "where the culture's at" is at the complete prog transvaluation of values.
Anything goes. There is no prog basis for opposing polygamy or pedophilia or bestiality. Who are you to object, and on what grounds? Grounds -- what are those?
While at the same time wokeness imposes its own puritan code. Not a contradiction: social justice can be used to justify anything as long as it is done by the right people. Nonetheless, woke puritanism is selective. Anything goes, as long as it helps to destroy bourgeois culture, not when it threatens prog power.
Defenders of the movie are claiming that clips like the one Dreher linked have been taken "out of context." Actual scenes from the movie--but "out of context."
My super-feminist girlfriend in the 90s argued the age of consent should be lowered to puberty (she defined as first appearance of pubic hair). Her point was every other species begins to copulate upon sexual maturity, so why can't we?
Star Search had little girls strutting their stuff thirty years ago--plus Ed McMahon. If twerking had been a thing then, it would have had it.
I'm always astounded at the utter lack of moral steadfastness in our elite. I was going to say, in our 'creative' elite, but there is nothing creative about having kids twerk for the camera. It's a huge, billion dollar industry. It's just not legal.
But that doesn't stop the producers of this show from putting it together to 'make a statement'. Those on the Left often think that by goosing society, you're pushing the envelope. No. It's not pushing the envelope. It's simply annoying and shows an utter lack of growth and understanding as an adult in a civil society.
Standards matter. We can argue about where the bar should be put, how high and how low is acceptable for societal standards? But I suspect that a vast, vast majority will look at this and get it- this is below the lowest standard. In other words- unacceptable. Netflix sucks. They have nothing to watch. This is what their brains came up with?
The leftist-funded FakeCon pro-marxist/pro-democrat policies site, The Bulwark, has already had their "Culture Editor" (stop laughing, I think they are serious!) come out with "The "Conservative" Case For Why Sexualizing Children By Liberals/Leftists Is Really No Big Deal At All So Why Doesn't Everyone Just Leave The Left Alone So They Can Continue Sexualizing Children".
Hey, now that I think about it, didn't we have some sort of self-proclaimed LLR (really a leftist) and lawyer legal beagle from Michigan assert without qualification that he supported everything The Bulwark is doing?
Well, I'd say I'm beginning to understand this LLR's incredible.....impassioned fervor....in supporting positions like this.
I haven't watched this show, but I did see the Umbrella Academy. The Umbrella Academy features a fourteen year old boy who gets caught in some kind of time trap. He looks fourteen but he's actually many years older. He's not wise beyond his years. He's wise behind his years. He's older than his father who he encounters during the show.....Anyway, there's one scene where to fulfill the mission or whatever, he's forced to take an ax and ax murder a roomful of people. The scene is fairly graphic, and he's blood spattered at the end....The actor who portrays the ancient mariner caught in a schoolboy's body is, in fact, only about fourteen years old. Watching the scene, I couldn't help but wonder what effects this scene would have on his maturation and development.....It's fair enough to criticize the sexualization of children, but it does seem that there are lots of other ways show biz can screw up a kid's life.
Who had "Coming out in favor of child pornography" on their Things That The FakeCons At The Bulwark Would Do To Prove They Have Always Been On The Far Left Bingo card?
Why don't people see that the inevitable path of modern progressivism is to completely reverse all taboos and standards -to make the offensive good, and make the good offensive. It has to follow that path to remain progressive. Standing still morally is the opposite of progresivism. It's conservative. Now we have racism and sexism becoming the goals of progressives, hate and exclusion called tolerance. Perversion as art is a very old example, although mainstreaming it is new.
It was interesting that someone yesterday mentioned the trend of young women shaving their public hair as the beginning of this sexualization of children. I tend to agree.
Tulsi Gabbard needs to learn some real economics, and I don't mean what's taught in universities today, then she could become what she really made to be, a Trump Republican.
Conservatives are often mocked about their concerns towards pushing the idea of "a slippery slope' and yet the left liberal movie industry keeps pushing societal norms down the slope. Things that were once easily recognized as pornagraphy are just part of well promoted movies or streaming series. I can't imagine what it's like to grow up where there are no behavior limits.
How many Jews were gassed making Schindler's List?
There is a difference between *portraying* something and *enacting* it. Spielberg portrayed gas chambers but did not enact them. Cuties enacts soft kiddie porn.
"Pretty soon it will be the most watched show and everyone will need to see what all the fuss is about."
Not everyone.
Hmmm...Dreher posts an update from a commenter that torches contemporary mores insofar as they substitute careerism for parental guidance. But can you teach what you don't know? Of particular note is the suggestion that you get your daughters to bind with older family members from prior generations, "bind them to the past." Now, that is a conservative idea.
Above all, no smartphones.
Twerking is just one more in a long list of impressive cultural contributions of the people whose dark color is so vibrant it needs to be capitalized.
Blogger Michael said...
My super-feminist girlfriend in the 90s argued the age of consent should be lowered to puberty (she defined as first appearance of pubic hair). Her point was every other species begins to copulate upon sexual maturity, so why can't we?
That was pretty much the standard pre-feminism.
Historical correction:
"similar to movies forced to adopt the Hays Code after a famous Hollywood comedian raped and murdered a poor young woman"
Except he didn't. Roscoe Arbuckle was completely acquitted but his career was destroyed nonetheless. That happened in 1921. The Hays Code was formulated in 1930, but wasn't really enforced until 1934, largely in response to the sexually suggestive comedies made by Mae West starting in 1933, horror films from Universal Pictures, and gangster films from Warner Bros., due to pressure on the studios from the Catholic Legion of Decency.
My wife fast forwarded through the movie to see what the fuss was about. In that dance scene the main character stops dancing and runs home to her mom and reconciles with her. In the last scene she's wearing age appropriate clothes. The movie maybe is meant to condemn the sexualization of kids, but the director should have found a way to tell the story without being so explicit. And Netflix should not have marketed it in a way to make it sound like the twerking dance group was a good thing.
Just a point of usage; Dreher addresses adults, presumably male, who enjoy watching pre-teens twerking as "perv", short for "pervert". This is correct usage. But it has become common to use "pervert" to describe anyone whose sexual behavior is unwanted. This is incorrect usage. To pervert something, in this case sex, is to turn it to some use other than it's intended purpose. The term "sexual perversion" was invented by people who thought it obvious that the purpose of sex was procreation. It would seem that a society in which contraceptives and abortions are legally available and in fact commonplace does not agree with that view. The purpose of sex is now pleasure, and procreation is an unwanted and indeed, perverse side-effect.
Note that this was made in France, enhancing imported American depravity (as noted above). There is an international feedback loop.
"I am aware that most people think my position is extreme about this but I do not watch any movies or TV because I believe that the entire entertainment industry is a giant pedophile and grooming gang ..."
That doesn't exactly make sense. There are loads of showas that are way too busy glorifying violence to waste any time celebrating perverted sex. You could watch those.
"My super-feminist girlfriend in the 90s argued the age of consent should be lowered to puberty (she defined as first appearance of pubic hair). Her point was every other species begins to copulate upon sexual maturity, so why can't we?"
Her point is well taken. The complication arises from our social understanding that reproduction is best undertaken in the context of a marriage, and the difficulties attendant upon arranging a satisfactory one. Again, our society, or at least parts of it, seem to be well on the way to eliminating this constraint.
Dreher: even the most backward religion is superior to this.
Dreher is asshoe.
Narr
But he's a pious asshoe, so that's OK
"If you only made it 27 seconds into the clip..."
Look closely. I made it to 29.
Whatever happened between 27 and 29 is why I couldn't take it anymore.
My super-feminist girlfriend in the 90s argued the age of consent should be lowered to puberty (she defined as first appearance of pubic hair). Her point was every other species begins to copulate upon sexual maturity, so why can't we?
Please tell me she later married and had a daughter. Or several.
I haven't seen this film and won't, but the comments made me wonder if there are guys sitting in jail for porn who were looking at stuff no worse than this.
Feminists have led the struggle to sexualize, objectify, and commoditize... lose your Pro-Choice quasi-religion.
"Greatest. Show. Ever."--Sen. Joe Biden
Althouse keeps titillating her deplorables with a daily dose of kiddie pron... for the children
Stop giving attention to the kiddie porn. Just stop.
KEN: "How many Jews were gassed making Schindler's List?
There is a difference between *portraying* something and *enacting* it. Spielberg portrayed gas chambers but did not enact them. Cuties enacts soft kiddie porn..."
I'm sorry, I'm missing your point somehow. How many cuties were actually portraying kiddie porn? Do you mean that actors only enact but do not portray? Because a glance at that video sure looks like young girls doing a slightly clothed striptease.
Howard The Neut chimes in with more projection.
You wanna have some fun?
Dare Howard to resume his "antifa are modern day Normandy invaders heroes" schtick after Howard was ordered by his betters to shut his trap about them and then watch him squirm!
I havent seen a lefty poster flip the narrative switch that fast based on new directives from above since the last time Inga and LLR-lefty C**** posted!
Howard said...
Althouse keeps titillating her deplorables with a daily dose of kiddie pron... for the children
What I got out of your post Howard is that this is something that is attractive to you. Where as the rest of us are looking at something that is wrong and should be canceled. Maybe the only real good use of cancel culture these days.
but the comments made me wonder if there are guys sitting in jail for porn who were looking at stuff no worse than this.
On Scott Adams podcast he talked about how he is usually the first one to say, "Hold on folks. Don't make a tempest in a teacup and blowing things out of proportion".
When the controversial poster first made its appearance, he's telling people to cool it.
He repeated his admonitions of the past and then said he finally clicked on some of the videos.
He than stated: "These people need to be in jail".
And he was not kidding.
The Obamas and Susan Rice get money from Netflix. Rice is on the Board.
Whatever happened between 27 and 29 is why I couldn't take it anymore.
I stopped at 20 seconds because what happened at 19-20 was something that never should have been filmed. I watched 27-29 (and then 25-30) to see what you might be referring to that was worse than 19-20, but I saw nothing significant. So maybe the time reference is off? Anyway, I don;t care what the point was to the movie or how the girl reconciled with her mother at the end. These girls should never have been asked to do those dances (Think about how much rehearsal they had to do and how many possible retakes. The filmmakers, parents/guardians and the US distributors should do jail time.
Drago likes to play with himself... unexpectedly
Sort of like watching women's' gymnastics on ABC?
I just sampled it. It's as bad as everyone says....I'm not sure if we should use child actors for any role. I know some of them go on to lead successful lives, but the crash and burn rate is fantastically high. There's something about being a child star or even just a child actor that can utterly distort one's values and responses.....In Shakespeare's plays in Shakespeare's time, the audience readily accepted the convention of young boys playing women's roles. In our own time, we have come to accept Black actors playing medieval European nobles.....I understand how sometimes it is necessary to dramatize the problems of children but do we actually need children to play these roles. Tom Cruise is a fine actor. I'm sure that had he played the role of Haley Joe Osment in Sixth Sense, we would all have accepted him in it. Perhaps with his years of experience, he might have been able to bring subtleties to the role that Osment was not capable of..... Perhaps all these kiddie roles should be played by short actors with good complexions. There might be a period of adjustment, but it can be done. Something to consider anyway.
William, just a nitpick: Aiden Galahger, who plays the apparent 14-year old in Umbrella Academy is 17 years old.
I've had Netflix for years. Watched as their targeted audience appeared to get more selective over time.
I don't consider myself a prude, but there are certain lines that should never be crossed. Netflix crossed them. Count me among the tens of thousands who've cancelled their memberships in the last week. May they crash and burn and take the rest of pedo enabling Hollywood with them.
It's why I'll never support Disney+ and their kowtowing to their CCP masters.
It's why I'll never sign up for CBSAllAccess (or whatever the hell it is) because of their woke ideology that permeates their programming (I was a lifelong Star Trek fan, but what CBS did to the franchise was just mean and petty).
I hope their cutting edge programming lops their heads off in the process.
And my Cryolophosaurus icon is missing from Blogger! Get off my lawn! I've got clouds to go yell at!
-CP
Howard: "Drago likes to play with himself... unexpectedly"
Why no, you don't come across as an addled, stunted mental growth 15 year old at all.
Whats next? Are you gonna suggest wr ditch class too?
You certainly have the demeanor of a hardened combat vet.
I don't blame Howard for wanting to change the subject away from the lefties/LLR-lefties supporting child porn.
Its been a tough month for Howard with the narratives.
The ability to transgress Christian morality hides from the left how constricted they are by Woke pieties. They are not free at all; they have constructed their own little totalitarian world, and they can not transgress it without loss of employment, station, and friendship.
Ann, your reaction was much like mine. I couldn't get through that clip either. BUT IT IS NOT THE WORST BY ANY MEANS. There is one scene in which the cute little girls are miming having sex with two guys at once.
As for the alleged message of all this, some people have posted reviews from BEFORE the controversy that the first poster started. Oddly, not a single one of said reviews commented on the supposed message against the sexualization of children in the film. It's almost as if the defenders made that up as an excuse.</sarcasm>
This film is so evil I can only term it satanic. And that is a word I have never felt called upon to use before. I can only conclude it is consciously part of the ongoing campaign to normalize sex with children.
"doctrev said...
"Have you seen the Cuties Netflix trailer on Youtube, Professor? I keep going back for the metrics whenever I feel blue. 42K likes... and 1.7 million dislikes"
--------------
I only looked at the trailer after seeing portions of the clips that are circulating. It is far milder, a hundred times less offensive. From the trailer, I'd expect the movie to be an R rating, or maybe PG-13. It is in fact NC-17.
when the sequel "Cooties" is aired
...you'll know why
This whole thing is just the next installment of "slippery slope" that's been going on since the 70s. Are any of us surprised? This isn't your father's Solid Gold Dancers.
We all remember Jodie Foster as the pre-teen prostitute in "Taxi Driver" or Brooke Shields in "Little Foxes". Hell, her Calvin Klein advert from 1980 set a lot of teeth on edge. Do I think it's reprehensible? Yes. And even more so as it comes on the heels of the recently passed state law here in CA lowering penalties on sex with minors. SMOD can't come soon enough.
MAtthew 16:26 reads: "For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"
A version of this Biblical passage was tacked onto the beginning of the 1970s Penthouse production of the movie "Caligula," an X-rated porn movie made with a thin sprinkling of real actors. The purpose of the Bible quote at the beginning of what is essentially a violence porn and orgy porn movie was to show that the film contained a redeeming moral message. This was required in order to pass legal scrutiny, as the law was back then, as a movie suitable for adult viewing, and not just pornography that could be banned from theaters.
At the behest of my friend, the editor of the student newspaper at our small Baptist affiliated college, I went to the Bowlderized R-rated version of this movie as shown in South Carolina, to review it for our student body. My conclusion was that the movie was so bad only a lot of explicit sex could possibly make it worth watching. The editor thought that a good analysis, for a callow student, as did several professors who laughingly admitted to seeing it, too.
My point is that the kiddie porn doesn't have a redeeming moral message. Neither did Caligula, despite the Biblical quote. Both Cuties and Caligula pretend to have a redeeming moral message, to which I respond, "Bullshit. On stilts." They are both just porn movies meant for sale to perverts who masturbate to such things.
Stop publicizing the kiddie porn. Just stop.
Stephen St. Onge said...
I only looked at the trailer after seeing portions of the clips that are circulating. It is far milder, a hundred times less offensive. From the trailer, I'd expect the movie to be an R rating, or maybe PG-13. It is in fact NC-17.
9/12/20, 8:42 PM
Showgirls was NC-17. I like to think that Hugh Hefner had far too much decency to imitate Netflix in this regard, and that if he did his mansion would have burned clean to the ground, with him still inside it.
Just proves #metoo was bullshit from the start.
Drago said...
Howard: "Drago likes to play with himself... unexpectedly"
Why no, you don't come across as an addled, stunted mental growth 15 year old at all.
Whats next? Are you gonna suggest wr ditch class too?
You certainly have the demeanor of a hardened combat vet.
9/12/20, 7:38 PM
People often express this via dichotomy, as with a jape directed at President Trump, i.e. being a poor man's idea of what a rich man is like.
I think Howard's character as played on Althouse is a wimp's idea of what a real man is like.
Post a Comment