Let’s Talk About the Movie “Cuties”

Looks like everyone is panickedly yelling about the movie “Cuties.” So let’s get a panicked hippy yelling in there.

If you don’t like reading things, I yelled at a camera too!

What’s Going On Here?

After watching Cuties, it is an over dramatised account of what happens within the world of dance competitions and popularity contests that are directed at young children.

Basically if you’ve seen “Toddlers and Tiaras,” “Dance Moms” or any of the like, you’ll understand what’s going on here. Only difference is that it isn’t the parents pushing for the child to dance, it’s peers and pop culture.

Sooooo What About All The Pedophilia?

This is probably why you’ve heard of Cuties.

What you need to keep in mind here is, what is the point of shock value?

Let’s look at another genre real quick to understand what this movie is doing, documentaries.

In movies like, “An Inconvenient Truth,” “The True Cost,” “13th,” “Food, Inc.” etc. the whole point is to reveal a horribly disgusting reality that is pervasive throughout our society but yet everyone is ignoring or has no knowledge of.

Cuties is doing that in a fictionalized context in a overly shocking way in order to show the extreme influences pop culture and unhealthy family dynamics can have on young children.

So yeah, you’re going to feel extremely uncomfortable, like I did, watching this movie because it’s showing you what is happening when you let children have toxic influences and no family or community to turn to for a healthy discussion on whether or not going along with those influences is a good thing.

Wait, Our Society is Toxic?

YES. This is the whole point of the movie. Especially in the context of being from an immigrant family and being a person of color.

The family of the main character, Amy, is from is a devoutly religious family (Muslim in this case) that has very rigid expectations of what a woman is supposed to be in the family. For Amy this isn’t the most fun thing in the world since she feels like she can’t freely express herself.  Add on top of that, conflict between the mother and father and all this girl wants to do is disassociate from their family.

Just our luck! Amy runs into another girl who is freely dancing and looks like she’s having the most fun ever! Count Amy in!

However, Amy has no context around the dancing that this girl is doing. The family Amy’s from has absolutely no interest in entertaining the idea of culture beyond their own. So Amy decides to take it into her own hands by stealing a smart phone and gaining access to all of the wonders of the internet, including social media.

This is where things take a turn.

In order to gain acceptance from the girl she saw having all that fun dancing, Amy must dive head first into the toxic over sexualization of people that our culture indulges in. Since Amy has a smart phone she becomes useful to this other girl’s dance crew, mainly for filming purposes.

However, Amy doesn’t want to be a camera woman, she wants to dance. How do you learn to dance when no one is willing to teach you? Pop culture saves the day!

Brace yourselves, because now we are getting into the super sexual dancing and tight and revealing clothing being expressed by an 11 year old girl.

Why? Because there’s no one to tell her this is a little much for an 11 year old. The only input she receives is from her new dance crew friends who also have no context on super sexualized dancing, or just sex in general. So now Amy becomes the influence upon the dance crew by showing them the super sexual dance moves.

So What Have We Learned Here?

A child that only wants to have fun, like the other kids their age, has to resort to learning from pop culture because there is no family or community to turn to.

Now you might be quick to say, banish all technology from the children! Which, isn’t the worst idea, but it’s still a pretty bad one. Because, like this movie shows, kids will get access to technology through other means. Plus kids can figure out technology waaaaay easier than adults.

“Wait, are you saying I need to talk to kids about mature content and what that means?” GOD YES!

It’s a super uncomfortable conversation to have but it’s one that needs to happen. Because guess what, our society’s pop culture is literally the worst role model ever.

Now don’t be super quick to just run away to the middle of nowhere with no internet connection or converting to a super fundamentally religious household. This movie covers both of those as well.

Ignoring outside society exists is just going to lead any child to culture shock and potential over indulgence because they don’t understand the society they were just thrust into.

With rigid religious beliefs and pigeonholing a child into what it is they should be, instead of letting them explore who they want to be, will lead that child to rebelling against those beliefs especially if they don’t like the actions of their parents.

Also another thing to add to your awkward conversation with your child is the other toxic humans in society.

Wait, Are You Saying Pedophiles?

YES. CHILDREN NEED TO KNOW ABOUT PEDOPHILES. Yet again, this movie also touches on that.

There are a couple of scenes, one at a lazer tag arena and the final dance number in front of a crowd, where this briefly pops up.

In the lazer tag arena, in order to get out of trouble with “security” the dance group decides to show they are dancers that shouldn’t get in trouble because of the competition coming up (very sound kid logic). So Amy busts out those super sexual dances moves she’s been perfecting this whole time. One of the security guys gets put into a trance by staring at her dance moves (btw this is supposed to be the “superior” security member of the two) so the other security guy has to jump in and be like, “Gtfo kids!” and then turn to his “superior” and be like, “Wtf is wrong with you?”

Then there’s the final dance number in the competition, in front of a crowd. Throughout their routine crowd shots are thrown in showing that the crowd is indeed hating the level of sexual dancing these girls are doing. Except for one dude. He’s just swaying to the music with an interesting grin on his face. Red flags anyone?

So yeah, the realities of a toxic world should be discussed with children if they’re going to run off on their own in that toxic world.

Any Ideas On Fixing Toxic Culture?

A few. First, let’s look at Indigenous cultures. I’m talking about the ones that have had no influence from Western culture.

Many of these cultures around the world walk around half naked or completely naked all the time. Adults and children. Yet these cultures have little to no rape culture or sexualization of children. Everyone just walks around not giving a shit that everyone else is naked.

Now if we look at “Modern Culture” we see that the slightest hint of showing skin means it’s time for sex. As though we never got over our Victorian era mindset of never revealing skin unless it is for sexual reasons. So now if a child wears a revealing bathing suit, or something similar, other extremely toxic men could see that as meaning it’s an offer of sex. This is a huge issue that we have just been brushing under the rug and ignoring.

Thank the maker that Cuties has brought that concept to the forefront (even if it wasn’t the way it intended) because holy shit guys, can we stop thinking that showing some skin or tight clothing means we have to have sex with that person?

Let’s look at the beliefs and what mindsets are promoted within indigenous cultures. Maybe we can learn from indigenous and modern cultures to a point that there is a respect for sovereign humans and their free expression along with keeping us interconnected on a global scale.

In order to do any of this though, it has to start at home, with the family, community and yourself. Rebuild family connections that are actually open and receptive to other points of view instead of shunning and disowning family members.

Find support within your family or community to figure out personal and relationship issues that you have instead of letting those issues fester into toxic acts of violence or sexual abuse.

We all have to learn to be comfortable with ourselves and those around us.

Break free of this toxic indoctrination of society so that we can actually have a healthy way forward for the next generation.  Talk with your family and local community to find acceptance and freedom to express yourself however you want to. Find an inner understanding of who you are and don’t let toxic outward beliefs define you.

The solution to this problem starts with you.