Cuties Controversy

There has been a lot of controversy about the movie Cuties on Netflix. The problem with this is that so many people have been talking about this movie without actually watching it. The saying “don’t judge a book by it’s cover” should be the same for movies. Netflix made a bad choice for the poster for this movie, which has caused many people to think this movie is promoting child pronography and pedophilia. BUT it’s NOT. Cuties is actually fighting for what everyone is arguing against it about. I know this because I watched the whole movie. I am asking that you please read everything I have to say before getting mad or making any comments on this topic.

I’ve been wanting to talk about the importance of sex education and this movie happens to go along with my points. Before going to college, I didn’t think sex education was a big deal. I thought if parents didn't want their kids to learn about certain things, that is their decision and it’s fine. But the truth is it’s not fine. Children can not protect themselves from something if they don’t know what they are protecting themselves from.

While I was in college I met many female students who said that they were molested or raped because they didn’t know what was happening at the time. They didn't know enough to know when to say no or stop. This happened to all of them before they went to college, meaning they were under 18 years old.

I went to college in Utah, where I learned that the sex education there is not great. It’s okay to teach children about abstinence, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t educate them about what sex is or anything related to the topic. You can teach them both and it’s important for their safety that they are fully educated on this topic.

The movie, Cuties, is about a young girl who isn't educated on these topics which leads her to learn from the internet.

In the beginning of the movie, there is a group of girls who love to dance and are trying to enter a dance competition. The main character tries to join the group by teaching them very provocative and inappropriate dance moves that she learned from the internet. The girls don’t know that dancing this way, especially at their age, is wrong because they haven’t been educated enough.

In one scene, one of the girls finds a condom and tries to blow it up like a balloon because she didn’t know what it was.

In another scene, the girls are inappropriately talking about boys and try to film a boy going to the bathroom. They do this because they are at the age where they become curious about these things and they haven’t been educated enough about it.

In another scene, the main character gets her period for the first time and has no idea what it is. Her grandmother helps her learn how to deal with it, but does not explain to her what it is or what it really means.

All of these scenes show that these girls, especially the main character, have not have proper sex education. The things they learn on the topic is from looking it up on the internet, which is not good. This is a coming-of-age story that is trying to get parents to talk to their children about these topics, so their children don’t turn to the internet for answers.

Every time in the movie when the girls do something inappropriate they are shown how it was wrong.

In one scene, the main character is caught stealing a phone from an older guy. To get the guy to let her go she tries to undress herself in front of him. Immediately, he is disgusted and tries to stop her.

In another scene, the girl gets in a fight with some older girls that causes her pants to get pulled down. Her pants weren’t intentionally pulled down but it happens and everyone makes fun of her girly underwear. This causes her to later take a picture of her virginia and post it online because she was trying to show she wasn’t a little girl. She doesn’t know that this was wrong, but she learns how wrong it was when everyone treats her badly for it. The other girls even kick her off the dance team.

In another scene, the girls break into a place to play laser tag and are caught. To get away with it, they accuse the first guard of trying to touch them inappropriately when he didn’t. Then they find out they made it into the dance competition and start dancing inappropriately for the guards, hoping that will let them go. The guards are disgusted by their actions and let them go only so they would stop.

The last scene that further teaches what they are doing is wrong is the dance competition. At the competition the girls do a very inappropriate dance and the audience boos them. No one in the audience is happy about what they are doing and they make it known to them by booing at them and showing the disgust on their faces. The movie even shows a mother covering her even younger daughter's eyes. The main character leaves the competition crying showing that she is learning from her mistakes. The movie ends with the main character jumping rope which is a normal thing for a girl her age to do. It symbolizes that she has learned from her mistakes and just wants to be a little girl again.

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I agree that this movie could have gone better by not showing the young actors dancing inappropriately, they could have thought through those scenes better. But the movie is not supporting this behavior, it is trying to get people to talk about this important topic.

Another thing people should keep in mind about this movie is that it was originally done in French and not English. Languages do not translate meanings perfectly. This means some of the wording in the English translation might be confusing and might not show the intended meaning that the French version had in mind.

You don’t have to watch this movie, but don’t make comments about it if you haven’t seen it for yourself. If you do watch the movie, you don’t have to like it. The whole point of this is that you talk to your children. Educate them on these topics so they don’t try to learn about it from the internet or their peers. Educate them so they know what's appropriate behavior for their age. Educate them so they don't hurt someone else. Educate them so they know how to protect themselves.