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Writing Project response so the movie Cuties...

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Professor Cabot WRTG 101-046 April 8th, 2021 The Sexualization and Exploitation of Children Through Media and the Phenomenon of Tiktok: Let the Children be Children Introduction: What a Cutie? On September 9th of 2020, the streaming company, Netflix released the French film Cuties, which follows the story of a 11-yeard-old Muslim girl. The film is described in Netflix as “-Amy starts to rebel against her conservative family’s traditions when she becomes fascinated with a free spirited dance crew”-, however, it's a depiction of a dance troupe whose members, all 11-years-old girls, learn and perform hypersexualized dances. Its launch into the world brought in a long-silenced conversation of the sexualization of children through the new age of film and social media. Some critics and viewers have categorized it as a “coming of age” film, but on the other side they are calling it “soft-core child porn”(Schrader, 2020). The movie trailer uploaded to Youtube in August 2020 has gained 16 million views and accumulated to 2 million dislikes by March 2021. When the film was first released on France on August 19th, it did not make much controversy, although when it did in the United States the hashtag #cancelnetflix trended on Twitter. People from all sides of the spectrum from parents, to politicians, to teens were asking Netflix to remove the film. Several politicians, as Ted Cruz, Tulsi Gabbard and Matt Schaefer asked to investigate the movie for “possible violations of child exploitation and child pornography laws” (Vulture Editors, 2020). Turkey has also ordered Netflix to remove the film from its platform in the country, claiming that it contains images of child exploitation (Haynes,

2 2020). Further, in the first week of the release, there were already several petitions made to remove the movie from the streaming service, by October there were 600,000 signatures, another petition with a similar purpose gained 400,000 signatures in a time stamp of 2 weeks. Till this day, the petitions remain on the Change.org website and are still being signed by hundreds of people. Nonetheless, the movie has also been highly acclaimed by some critics, and went beyond to winning a directing award from the Sundance Institute. The critics in favor of such film argues how the main character, Amy, personal struggles are between choosing two distinct models of femininity, the first one being the traditional values of her Muslim culture and the other by the feminist age of Western society (Morales, 2020). The film director and creator, Maimouna Doucoure, mentioned that with the movie they hope to battle the fight against the hypersexualization of children, “for me, this film is sounding an alarm” she said in an interview with TIME in September, 2020. She went on to explain the purpose of the movie, “it tries to show that our children should have the time to be children, and we adults should protect their innocence and keep them innocent as long as possible”. (Haynes, 2020) Yet this became questionable to other critics who say they are fighting the battle, but only by hypersexualizating young girls (Ruffolo, 2020). Senior reporter and writer for TIME, Suyin Haynes, argues that the film depicts a realistic portrayal of pre-teen gilrs and challenges the audience showing how hypersexualization of children has become normalized in our society, she goes on to say how the movie “explores how girls become women, sometimes sooner than they should, forced into adulthood by the society they live in and the media they consume”. Haynes does make a valid point and a correct one in this case, the media and society constantly push narratives, ads,

3 products, goods and services that are now faster than ever forcing little children to become adults. Although there have been many critics and experts who have weighed in for both of these debates, there is a significant gap within the conversation regarding the impact of this new wave of exploitation and hypersexualization in new generations. This significance of the issue has risen up during the last couple of years, as new apps, specially TikTok, have become a space for sexualisating young girls and exploiting children. The following essay will first describe the concept of hypersexualisation. Secondly, it will use the debate and controversy behind the film Cuties as base to identify the underlying and silenced conversation of the current acceptance of sexualization of young children in our society. The essay argues that even though the film Cuties attempted to depict the perils of young girls in the process of coming of age, and attempted to portray the sexualization of young girls, the film did become complicit in. Further, it looks at how the new trends and culture of our society throught its relationship with the new age of social media, Tiktok, which has become an artificially amplifying a natural phenomenon and a hunting ground for child sex predators exploiting teens. The issues and debates examined in the essay will use Gigi Durham, Ph.D “The Lolita Effect” and Professor Mary Jane Kehily four ways of looking into the debate on sexualisation as a way to explore and bring more conversation. Understanding Hypersexualization Camille Cottais and Manon Louvet in the study of “The dangers of the hypersexualisation of young girls” define hypersexualisation of young girls as “ tantamount to attributing sexual characteristics and behaviour to teenage girls, or even young girls” (Cottais, Louvet, 2021) . They acknowledge the difficulty in defining this term and the debate around it as it is often confused with sexuality, and the fact of having an active sexual life.

4 Hypersexualization, also known as sexualization can occur on multiple levels, such as interpersonal interaction and dominant popular culture that is shown through the media (Montez, Wallander, Cameron, 2017). According to a report of the American Psychological Association, media with sexualizing content is “perhaps the most pervasive source of sexualization in the United States” which includes TV shows, music videos and lyrics, magazines, the internet, among others (Montez, Wallander, Cameron, 2017). According to Cottais and Louvet, hypersexualisation can be manifested through provocative clothes, accessories such as make up and heels, body alteration, exaggerated body postures and sexual behaviours. They point out at how hypersexualisation can be a guise for mental violence towards children who are being victims of these conditions. The concept sexually objectified is often used in discussions regarding women’s bodies, it's easy to confuse sexualization with objectifications. Writer, Julie Peters, creatively lays out the difference “ in the context of a book, movie, or image, the subject is the being that acts, the main character. It's essentially you: the one you can relate to and align with. An object is the thing acted upon”(Peters, 2013). Further, writer Kella Hanna-Wayne shares similar views and differentiate as “objectification takes a person’s humanity and autonomy away, which can be done without sex being involved, whereas sexualization can be done with humanity and autonomy in mind” (Hanna-Wayne, 2017) Meaning, sexualization highlights the sexual depiction, while sexual objectification is a more explicit way of sexualization that targets a person as a body and body parts for sexual desires but not for their own person. Cuties Failed Attempt to Depict Hypersexualization and their Complicity: As the concept of hypersexualization of children has been established, the essay moves forward to identify the issues within Cuties and the message it attempts to send. The film brings light to the thought of the type of behaviour young children are subjected to and for who they are

5 performing in for. Its significant to understand the motivation behind the movie before diving into it, the director, Doucore, said the inspiration came from walking on a neighbourhood street and seeing a group of young girls in very provocative outfits dancing as she recalled “very sensually, sexually and I was very disturbed about what I was seeing” (Rosman, 2020). She went on to research to fully understand what she was seeing, and compared her childhood to the meaning of being a teenage girl in the age of TikTok and other social media, where validation is sought from likes, as they become the currency of self-esteem. There are several issues and discrepancies within Cuties to unpack. First of all, the purpose of this movie was more than making viewers uncomfortable, it meant to provoke outrage, as now it's the only way to form a conversation. It has become more common to see celebrities, companies, and movies trying to spark outrage, and scandals to promote their message or brand. Nowadays, it feels the only way to start a conversation on serious issues affecting the world. Yet, we acknowledge that art is often used to mirror life’s horrors or depict life itself, we seen many artist take on several taboo subjects, from prostitution, to violence, abuse (Emamzadeh, 2020). This raises the question if we should judge art for showing us what we don't want to see? However, we should be able to judge it, when they are displaying not what we don't want to see, but rather what we shouldn’t see. For example, in minute 27 of the movie two of the main characters watch other girls doing over sexualized dances, as twerking, in very provocative clothes. At the end of the video, one of the girls flashed her chest to the camera, but the age of the actress on this was described from 10 to 19 years. The girls are admiring this type of behaviour, and later on go beyond to imitate it. Not long after, one of the girls pushes Amy to take off her sweater and show more skin. It's the way the movie is directed and scripted that should be judged or is the message it portrays that should? Yet, the message get lost in some scenes, in one specific scene where there seems to hold no

6 value to the message or storyline, Amy is pushed by her new group of friends to take a picture of the private parts of a young boy while he was in the restroom, this not only felt incredibly disturbing to watch, but rather unnecessary to the storyline. Yet as Amy didn’t capture it, her friends seemed very disappointed. It's essential to understand that the sexualization of young children is any shape or form glorified in the movie, in fact is shown to be the root of the issue the girls face through the storyline. Having stated that, the issue does not rise from there, it's the way its being depicted, the visuals that are being described as disturbing and inappropriate for the intended audience. It's the close up of 11 year old girls twerking and sensually touching each other, resembling porn and stripper video they have seen, necessary to spark the conversation of hypersexualization? The message of the director once agains gets lost, this time at the end of the movie, we are shown a fight between the girls, one of them is getting beaten, while the other is pulling down her pants, down until we see the girls underwear and even her intimate parts. Weirdly, that's not the most disturbing, as the video of the fight ends up online, Amy decides to fix the situation by taking and publishing a photo of her private intimate body parts. The audience can see how she starts to pose for the picture. Furthermore, one of the main issues with the film came from Netflix's marketing strategy for the promotion of the french film. The streaming company decided to change the artwork from the original French theatrical poster. Netflix’s cover displayed the four 11 year old female lead actors in provocative, sexualized clothes squatting and kneeling poses, with the now-deleted caption “Amy becomes fascinated with a twerking dance crew” and in bid to join them she “starts to explore her femininity, defying her family’s traditions”. The French version of the poster, though less provocative, still portrays the four young girls wearing lace push up bras and thongs on top of their clothes while running on the street. The French poster does still use the

7 same sexualization, however it's more of a hinted undertone version (Nelson, 2020). Maimouna Doucoure, mentioned in her interview with TIME magazine that she could understand the reaction from those who saw Netflix’s advertisement which she said “didn’t represent the film properly”. This raises the question of why Netflix knowingly would have made such marketing decisions without thinking of the implications it would have? Commenters on social media mentioned how it was a chance to use the sexualization of these young girls to gain audience attention before releasing it. Even though Doucoure stated that the movie was a social commentary on peer pressure and the hypersexualization of girls, Netflix advertisement, the costumes, dances, and visual close ups seems to be yet another American hypersexualization for cash. Finally, the most questionable issue within this is why the movie is rated as TV-MA (mature audience 18+) only? As the director expressed that she wanted to “shed light on pressures faced by young girls as they became teenagers”, by all means spread that message, however shouldn’t the film be targeted to young girls instead? It would allow pre-teens and teens to have something to relate to, a way not to feel strange or alone with their feelings, and a way for them to be safe. Yet, by promoting this movie to mature audiences the movie becomes complicit in dangering these girls. One commenter in the Youtube Trailer of the film mentioned “I am all for discussing those important issues, but we don't have to sexualize young girls to discuss the sexualization of young girls” another commenter pointed out “ this is like abusing an animal to say animal abuse is wrong” . A Fox News article revealed that “filthy old men” who the movie is supposed to target apparently, reviewed the film and found some of the young cast members as attractive (McCarthy, 2020) Every form of art should be heard and respected, nonetheless, every artist has an artistic responsibility. When creating this film Doucoure should have been aware of the implications it

8 had, and how it could affect the million of viewers, mostly children, and that's an even bigger responsibility. The movie does transmit a social commentary, and demonstrates the struggle of a young girl growing up in a new culture than what she knows, which is a beautiful message, at the same time the delivery failed to conceptualize these issues.Even if the movie doesn’t intend to glorify sexualization, they are still sexually objectifying actual preteens, particularly in some scenes where the director captures close lingering camera shots on the intimate body parts of eleven-year-old girls in short shorts. This can be seen in minute 30, in which the the dance group of girls are practicing their dances in which the camera starts to close up on the bodies of these young girls, which is not only unnecessary, the angels of this should not be allowed either, especially since the scene lasts for more than one minute. . This scene follows the girls making fun of Amy, “check out her ass”, once again the camera closes up to show this body part. It does not add value to the film’s message of the struggles of young girls in our hypersexualized society. The incredibly significant message that the movie tries to convey does not include any scenes with educational value pertaining to the girls or adults in the story line. The essay does not try to restrict artistic expression, but rather those camera shots did go to sexualize young girls. At the point when people utilize their entitlement to express themselves with the degree of priggishness about their own specific “contemporary” moral perspective, they are doing their part to add to the disintegration of our entire social fabric: the unintended consequences. Dangers of TikTok and it Exploitation - A For You Page Over the last decade with the expansion of media, and now social media, the danger and risk for young children to be hypersexualized and exposed has risen up. New phenomena, as TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook have been adding gasoline to the flames of sexisms, body shaming, sexualizationg of minors, encouraging and allowing this type of behaviour. The line

9 between sex positivity and sexualization is getting more blurry as we advance. In regards to TikTok, users must be at least 13 years of age to sign up, however there is no verification, which leads to any kid with access to a phone to sign up and be highly exposed to language, videos, and trends that are explicit (Michanie, 2020) . An organization committed to internet and social media safety, The White Hatter, disclosed on underground “TikTok porn groups” that use video of minors to make obscene duets. The software and technology behind TikTok, looping on repeat, short videos, the background music, makes it even more addictive to younger kids. The unrestricted internet and its access makes it so easy for this kind of exposure, which leads to children imitating such adults' behaviours. Camille Cottais and Monoun Louves, discuss how through these networks, young girls, even up to little girls try to imitate the behaviour and publish provocative content to attempt to look identical or like adults, their role models. Moreover, one of the aspect that makes TikTok so dangerous for young children is their software and what's known as “For You Page”, Ray Walsh, a digital privacy expert told in an interview with The Sun “TikTok uses Al to serve users content depending on their previous likes and this can lead the algorithm to serve suggestive, abusive, violent, or sexually explicit content” (Maloney, 2020) This past years, it has been more common to see “dance trends”, where creators choreograph dances to viral songs. One who raised eyes and sparked conversation was Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s “WAP” song, not long after its debut, TikTok already had created a dance to it. The singers defended against the backlash, with the now common response of “female sex-positive empowerment anthem” and sayin “its for adults”. However, you log into TikTok and you will find several videos of girls as young as 10 gyrating to the WAP song, mouthing its explicit lyrics, which most likely don't even understand. There are several dangers of this, but it's shocking to learn how predators seek out these childrens, with the like, comment

10 or share buttons. Another trend features children arching their backs and gesturing varios sex acts to a snippet of “Goodbye” by Feder. These videos are influenced by children, by what's now called “influencers”, most TikTok influencers are under 18, their audience is even younger, but still choose to demonstrate and encourage these trends (Dillon, 2021). It's refreshing to see adult women feeling confident and empowered by their sexuality and bodies, however, there should be a clear line of young children, should not perform these dances as they simply don't understand the consequences behind them. The magazine Rolling Stones, did a report on the hypersexualisation of Tiktok, which revealed how many of these dances, some performed by girls of the age of 10, end up on porn websites, mostly on Pornhub. It also revealed how with a quick search you could find thousands of compilations, individual videos of clothed female Titktokers, whether they are of age or not, they still end up (Dickson, 2020) The Lolita Effect and Instant Gratification Gigi M. Durham wrote the book The Lolita Effect as a way to find an understanding of sexuality as a normal, healthy and important part of women’s development. While at the same time exploring the exploitive and disturbing ways where girls sexualization is represented by the media. Now, we are not only seeing in the media, but social media as well, exploiting the sexuality of young girls (Durham, 2008). In Cuties, the impacts of these obstacles in the childhood of these girls. Moreover, Durham also argues for how the way sex is being taught to young girls from the media and social media has becoming more hurtful as we normalize and empowered these trends. In the second chapter of her book, Durham goes into detail about how young children's int...