How One Netflix Movie Broke the Entire Internet | The Immeasurable Failure of Cuties

where to even begin so august 18th 2020 a little trailer comes out for a new netflix movie although a netflix original it actually got its official release back in january premiering at the 2020 sundance film festival and even taking home the prestigious award for best directing which is a big deal when you consider this was the directorial debut of french director maimuna de kore so you'd think this achievement would be indicative of the film's overall quality a testament to its ability to carry out a message in attacked full and otherwise in offensive manner but unfortunately it isn't in fact it's kind of the exact opposite of that cuties this promo photo was released a few weeks ago to be honest with you it was pretty much you know a pedophile baby the fact that cuties is on netflix is nothing shy of a crime in my opinion they're trying to get the department of justice involved it's kind of a lot now right as this trailer was uploaded to the official netflix youtube channel the internet broke out into a full-on riot being the top trend on twitter for the following 48 hours with youtubers professional reactionaries and even politicians weighing in on the streaming giant's decision to promote this atrocity of a trailer and when i say atrocity i mean it [Music] this movie was shaping up to be one of the worst receives projects netflix had ever signed off on and for good reason too is just about every piece of promotional material seems to depict the same damn thing young 11 year old actors in compromising positions naturally a pr nightmare for anyone involved with the project but as the backlash ensued and news of cuties continued to ripple across the internet netflix was forced to publish a statement for the sake of damage control where they essentially took responsibility for the otherwise piss-poor marketing job chalking up the bulk of the negative reception to their own inability to do the film's true message any justice which was said to condemn the very sexualization of children we saw across the entire campaign and although i was still a bit skeptical i wanted to remain somewhat optimistic and with only a limited amount of footage available to the public coupled with some shockingly positive reviews from critics i wanted to believe this film was merely the victim of american executive's insensitive disgusting judgment i wanted to believe this film was merely a misunderstood critique on the hypersexualization of children in today's online culture that's what i wanted to believe but as i've learned we can't always get what we want because i watched cuties and i sure as [ __ ] didn't like what i saw but before we get too ahead of ourselves and because there's no way in hell i'm getting this video monetized we do have a sponsor video editing is very important when building a youtube channel and because adobe premiere can often seem pretty intimidating to anyone just starting out filmora9 is here to assist it's extremely clean and simple interface makes filmora9 one of the most user-friendly editing softwares available and can serve as the perfect introduction to video editing with the abundance of titles and effects to be found in their effect library film stock not only can you edit in 4k but this software comes equipped with color correction audio ducking really all of the basic elements needed in order to get your channel off the ground and if you get stuck there are countless editing tips and tutorials to be found just on their youtube channel click the link in the description below to get started making your own videos today massive thanks to filmora9 for helping me out where youtube's adsense couldn't my great pleasure to say hello to a friend and a very talented writer director who's here in competition with her first feature film cuties one of the main and only defenses i've seen of this movie thus far has to do with the contextual elements of the plot that its critics are purposely choosing to overlook according to a spokesperson from netflix an unnamed one conveniently the film cuties is a social commentary against the sexualization of young children it's a story about the pressure young girls face on social media and from society more generally growing up which on the surface sounds like a pretty valuable and innocuous message one that's probably more relevant now with the rampant popularity of apps like tick-tock and instagram i think it's important to acknowledge the long-term corrosive effects these newfound societal norms can have on the young children who perpetuate them it speaks to multiple facets in today's online climate things like the way we handle popularity and the actions we feel pressured into in order to achieve the otherwise fickle standards set for us by a culture so obsessed with vanity and short-term approval from strangers it's an important conversation to have as the director herself went out of her way to reportedly meet with hundreds of pre-teens who described how they felt about femininity in today's society so what i'm wondering is how a concept so seemingly nuanced in its intent morphed into something so utterly diabolical in its execution because this is not condemning the sexualization of kids if anything this movie borderlines on glorifying it and that is where this piece of [ __ ] film falls flat on its face so although this movie would probably be boring and stupid and useless to anyone not named jeffrey epstein i think it's important to shed as much light onto the plot itself if we're going to be tearing it to shreds throughout the course of this review sounds fair yeah i think so the film centers around an 11 year old girl named amy growing up in a traditionalized muslim conservative household where she's taught to obey the customary ways of her religion and uphold a very specific set of principles that she isn't too sure of because on the other hand of wanting to please her family she's still a preteen at the end of the day she has urges to act out and go against the wishes of her mother who clearly holds more conventional beliefs which okay whatever you know a girl torn between two contrasting lifestyles a completely original idea that hasn't been explored any other time before now i think but i wouldn't want to ride it off just because the plot isn't the most groundbreaking i mean this movie could still carry a lot of merit through a variety of themes imagery oh yeah and for four minutes in there's a there's an ass shot of uh of another 11 year old girl great so already not even 5 minutes into this 96 minute torture sesh the movie has already proven to me that it cares less about its initial messaging than its ability to generate some kind of volatile reaction from the audience through the means of its borderline criminal imagery i mean this is one of the tamer shots too compared to the leg stretching crotch zoom we get later or the child flashing her bare nipple at the screen it's just it's evil dude i i can barely read this stuff out loud without my stomach churning obviously if you have a darker tonal message to convey you'd probably want to emphasize that through the means of graphic images in order to generate a desired reaction from your audience but when the subject matter is something like children being sexually exploited the context starts to lose all meaning because despite whatever intent may have originally been there you're still forcing a child actor to go through all of these stunts it's sort of entirely hypocritical when you consider what the movie is trying to say having random ass shots just interlaced throughout a supposed coming of age story is an entirely backwards and just weird choice for them to make they make it very clear that amy is interested in becoming friends with the cuties probably as a result of the traditional values being forced upon her by her mother who we also learn is having to deal with the added stress of her husband taking on a second wife who feels the need to hide her emotions from her daughter who still finds out about it it doesn't really go over too well i guess as a way to air her own feelings towards everything going on at home amy dedicates herself to fitting in with the cool twerking dancer girls at school you just start off as being unnecessarily mean to her for no reason okay what the [ __ ] is your problem amy steals her cousin's phone and uses it to look at porn kidding okay the writers would never do something like that oh except they except they would but not without entirely disturbing dialogue mind you oh yeah and then the cuties dare amy to take a candid picture of another boy's penis at the urinal why was this necessary i don't amy wants to become a dancer more than anything and she'll stop at nothing until she's twerking her 11 year old behind on stage next to her 11 year old friends even if it means filming the rehearsal in the woods where one of the girls picks up a condom and blows into it like a balloon what they all make fun of amy for her appearance and point out how quote-unquote flat she is which leads to her feeling more self-conscious about her own body again a very real and legitimate issue young girls have to deal with when being bullied by popular kids their age but that kind of loses all meaning 10 minutes later when amy is teaching the girls how to twerk right there's an entire sequence here where amy is showing the cuties step by step how to move in provocative ways in order to win a dance competition i can't show you too much of it but i can assure you it goes on for way too long involves extremely questionable camera angles and even depicts amy spanking one of the girls to say that the critics are the ones making this [ __ ] sexual is truly beyond me the perverse direction of this movie could not be more blatant and i'm shocked that this passed through as many people as it did in order to get approved just the fact that these are real children in a movie like their parents gave it the okay like if i was a parent and i took one look at that script i would just call the police one of the cuties angelico was introduced to dancing on account of her own difficult home life turning to a new life of hypersexuality for reasons similar to amy so the movie is basically saying that broken families can often lead the emotionally vulnerable down a path of desperation forcing those individuals to make rather corrupt choices in the process which is a little concept i like to call i mean this goes without saying your decisions in life are always going to reflect your given circumstances it's like the furthest thing away from being profound and goes to show how much of a shallow show this thing really is because frankly at this point anyone who tries to defend the artistic merit behind this kind of movie would probably be better off locked in a cage it's a solid film it's a good movie definitely better than most movies there are probably thousands of people masturbating to this film yeah as far as like sexy music videos go um [Music] it's not bad what the what the [ __ ] is this a joke so let's put the morality of that aside and just just take her art you know at face value um it's pretty interesting to be forced to do something it's kind of like the last of us too it's a great game uh to be forced to do something that you're uncomfortable with um and to have to grapple with what role you're playing in the creation of the culture that these girls are participating in how about shut the [ __ ] up because the thing is it's really really not that deep the film indirectly personifies a battle between execution and intent showing how an initial message can sometimes become lost and watered down upon implementation because truthfully there are so many other ways you could go about conveying the idea that sexualizing kids is bad maybe through a book maybe by casting adult actors or even just doing some kind of documentary just some way that doesn't involve exploiting the lives and bodies of actual child actors and to bend over backwards justifying the non-existent integrity of such a depiction really goes to say a lot about you as a person doesn't it i don't know if you've ever heard of the app tick talk there's some pretty interesting stuff on there that uh you know i've checked out and uh i recommend you check it out really what could you possibly mean by that i wonder girls uh of all ages are dancing like the end guys are dancing like this dances have become more explicitly sexual i should check out an app with all ages of dancers is that what you're saying but then you know i listen to everybody saying these things and i think we just sound the same as like old fogies did in the 50s and 60s yeah except it's literally literally not that to compare boomers clutching pearls over rock music and scantily clad teenagers in the 60s and 70s to children being actually sexually exploited by a large corporation such as netflix is dishonest and just [ __ ] insulting dude come on are you trying to be stupid spoilers i'm going to spoil the whole movie by the way so if you're if you want to watch movies watch the movie um you should watch it it's good it's not there is no reason to watch this movie don't watch it as these girls are doing increasingly provocative and increasingly sexual dance moves almost to the point where it starts to feel surreal when they're like wiping their hands on their crotches um i think from the back if memory serves i'll have to watch it again and again and again i actually cannot tell if this person is joking if this entire channel is just one whole elaborate irony stunt your orgasm is not my responsibility that's my idea for the video that's the theme you shaking their booties on this stairway as they make this uh this viral video and um they're pretty hot and you know you can say whatever you want about me it's not my fault i didn't make them do that they did that yeah actually it's the girl's fault for being so sexy that's the point that's the whole point of the movie is that you're supposed to be sitting there thinking look at the blonde one you're supposed to be sitting there holding these two thoughts in your head and one that these are kids and the other that they're hot nope nope i'm pretty sure that's that's just you bud hate to break it to you but it's actually the furthest thing from normal to have those thoughts cross into your mind ever it's hilarious that anyone would out themselves like this and for what for what i mean so you can get got by the fbi and be locked behind bars it's more like you're just supposed to be informed that you are capable of that and that you feel that way and um i already knew that but uh yeah i take it back maybe maybe that's where you belong actually he even admits it's exploitative and is still okay with it existing um now is it exploitative yes definitely these uh these kids are 11 so they don't really understand what they're doing like if you have a daughter who's 11 and likes doing sexy tick-tock dances where she's shaking her ass all the time and then some well-meaning and i assume not creepy filmmaker comes along and no like i'd like to pay your daughter to shake her ass uh i guess i would say yes but i would say it with the knowledge that um she's gonna be really pissed off about it later it it really just makes me wonder if this guy is doing some kind of elaborate joke he's playing some kind of fictional character that we're all just falling for because there is no way someone could be the oh hey look he's actually been arrested for making threatening comments and sympathizing with the virginia tech shooter fantastic maybe it's best if we just don't take this guy seriously in any capacity whatsoever i was really good in bed uh when i was 16. i was really good in bed first person i had sex with she said uh afterward i didn't know anything could feel that good i had my hand like cranked under there and i was rubbing her [ __ ] and she was on top and she had a great time and then uh another significant moment of this garbage [ __ ] stupid lame-ass plot that i and many others have picked up on is the scene in which the cuties are trapped in a laser tag arena for some reason i don't think and are stopped by security guards on their way out so to get out of this little pickle this little quagmire they decide it's only necessary that they twerk for the guards in order to let them go and you know what it works it it [ __ ] works the guards are so entranced by these children dancing provocatively that they just figured why not [ __ ] it you know we'll let them go i mean just look at their faces these guys should almost be locked up just for agreeing to participate in this scene alone and what a terrific message too yeah if you're caught in a bind ladies don't hesitate to just use your body to get out of it doesn't matter if you're 31 21 or evidently 11 just act sexual then you can do whatever you want it's a privilege just another example of this backwards writing conflicting with the director's supposed message there are hardly any other indications throughout the film that may insinuate this could possibly be a bad thing the film eventually crescendos into a scene where the cuties are performing on stage twerking in front of an audience it goes on for a very very long time and eventually just ends with amy having a sudden breakdown and running home to her family she decides this life isn't for her even though there's really no prior event that made her change her mind on this she just kind of gives up and decides to live her life how she wants it doesn't make any sense and absolutely does not justify the hour of horror displayed beforehand she doesn't even face any consequences for oh you know stabbing a kid pushing another child in a river fighting another girl where you know you see her panties by the way that was another that's another big one and then it just ends it's over there's no lesson to be learned besides the fact that you know maybe you should never watch a movie by this director again but besides a few adults at the end cringing at the provocative dancing they're being forced to witness on stage every other plot element in this movie is directly in support of whatever these girls are doing to break the conformity of their traditionalized lifestyles at home honestly it feels like more of a critique on islam than a sexualized internet culture it's more or less painting traditional beliefs in a negative light as a means to justify the heinously sexual path the cuties take as a form of rebellion i just can't understand how any of this needed to be necessary one uniting thing that in all the madness of the current state of the world that we can agree on that this sort of stuff is inappropriate and is wrong and is a slippery slope then i think all hope is lost in our society now one of the biggest reasons this movie has reached the eyes of so many people who otherwise probably never would have heard of cuties is because of the politicized aspect of it so what about the movie is political you ask well nothing really i mean there are a few harmless feminist themes that i guess you could maybe kind of trace by analyzing some of the film's metaphors but that's not really relevant to the rest of the discussion when there are real children being exploited but it would seem this movie has still been used as some sort of pawn by pundits on the right and the left in an attempt to further some kind of twisted political agenda for example there have been a very vocal group of conservatives who see this film as being the embodiment of leftist ideals or something it's thanks to people like eating my old dong i mean ian miles chong who amplify these kinds of idiotic and politically charged talking points it doesn't really legitimize what he's saying but it at least pushes it to more people and angers the masses in a way that probably is justified but for all the wrong reasons like i'm sorry [ __ ] but cutie's existing is not ground to re-elect donald trump but hey i mean this is the same guy who got a dog flash banged and tried to kill his ex-best friend via police shooting so yeah i'd be really surprised he forced my hand so i called the police i actually i actually called the police on him he's [ __ ] i even talked to them on the phone so who knows maybe they'll pay him a visit very soon regardless it's this kind of rhetoric that actually gives the movie more validation in a way because now you've got idiotic liberal think pieces insisting cuties is the target of an alt-right smear campaign lumping any and all criticism of the film in with the vocal reactionaries taking a stand against it now personally i'm about as far left as they come but i mean in this context it's a waste of time to argue about which political party supports what because all that does is give you a reason to hate the other side even more than you already do anybody and everybody who isn't a self-identified map should be opposed to the existence of this wretched movie and should fight to kick it off of netflix there have already been a wave of petitions following the film's release that netflix still hasn't even responded to but at least there's clearly some pushback there i mean hell if netflix isn't gonna respond to actual politicians demanding the movie be taken down i doubt anything is gonna get done at this point all we can do is educate and warn others of the grotesque themes woven throughout this disgusting mess of a film and politicizing its message isn't gonna get us anywhere good in the meantime it has no no actual message that speaks out against the sexualizing of kids i i didn't see it i i didn't see it at all it almost feels like it's a movie that's apologetic to it and condones it because it's a whole movie dedicated to it i've seen people go to extreme lengths in order to justify cuties but at the end of the day no one can counter the fact that this movie directly enables predators this movie didn't need to exist all it does is give borderline child pornography a mainstream platform which is something you should be outraged about no matter where you stand on the political compass regardless of intent this movie is shoving sexualized 12 year old actors in your face and to me that's where arch loses any and all of its so-called value you're exploiting the sexuality of real human beings kids who aren't even capable of understanding what they're doing yet it's almost like some topics just shouldn't even be approached in this way with the subject of pedophilia being as traumatizing and as sensitive as it is i really really hate to see it being polished and pushed to such a wide audience under the guise of artistic genius and boundary pushing it's not art it's [ __ ] disgusting and if you try and tell me that i'm missing the point or that i just don't get it then i'm just not going to listen to you and if that's intolerant of me then so be it but i don't even think that's a controversial take the original intent of cuties may have included a difference of perspective and nuance in its attempt to condemn the hyper-sexualized culture of which the movie was brought about but to me that messaging flies directly in the face of the absolutely sickening execution because no amount of context in the world would be able to justify some of the unnecessarily promiscuous and downright repulsive shots they force you to examine throughout this dreadful piece of media it's not art it's not empowering it's just [ __ ] weird [Music] keep on keeping

Channel: j aubrey

Views: 739,811

Rating: 4.9231806 out of 5

Keywords: cuties, netflix, how, one, movie, broke, the, entire, internet, how one netflix movie broke the entire internet, immeasurable, failure, of, film, director, interview, shoe0nhead, critikal, review, dangelowallace, clips, clip, satire, j aubrey

Id: 9z0bxWQOz1M

Length: 26min 37sec (1597 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 01 2020