Cuties is Not What You Think, por Emina Melonic (Splice Today):
Maïmouna Doucouré’s directorial debut, Cuties (French: Mignonnes, 2020) has been consistently under attack since Netflix released it on September 9. Netflix’s promotional poster and trailer primarily includes a group of 11-year-old girls dancing in a sexually suggestive manner, and it’s caused an uproar. The rage has extended beyond mindless, uninformed noise. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) have officially filed a letter to Attorney General William Barr to investigate Netflix for the distribution of child pornography. (...)
Setting aside the absurdity of this controversy, Doucouré’s film is an exploration of the difficulty young girls face growing up in today’s demanding society. The story centers on Amy, a Senegalese 11-year-old girl, who’s caught between two cultures: her fundamentalist Muslim upbringing and the disordered, libertine culture of France. This is already a problem for a young immigrant girl, but the added issue of the Internet culture that forces girls into a hyper-sexualized image creates an even bigger interior conflict for Amy. (...)
Amy does make a choice. She leaves the metaphysical and cultural stage of destructive reality that the overly secular society imposes on her. In her room, the skimpy outfit she wore during the dance competition and the traditional Senegalese dress she’s supposed to wear at her father’s wedding are left in the room. Now, she wears simple jeans and an elegant sweater, as she leaves the apartment complex and jumps rope with different neighborhood girls. It’s Amy’s face that is finally affirmed.
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