Cuties

I didn’t immediately jump on the #cancelnetflix bandwagon after hearing that the movie Cuties promotes pedophilia. I decided to do a little investigating of my own first, for several reasons:

#1 – Cobra Kai

#2 – I know firsthand what it’s like to have someone say things that (while they may be true) are only partial truths. I know what it’s like when someone tells just enough of the truth to make themselves look like pious victims. Netflix supports pedophilia? Really? Supports it? Somehow I doubt that and I’ve just gotten to the point in my life where I’m tired of people spewing half-truths for no other reason than to advance their own cause.

#3 – God has been laying it on my heart lately that I am too quick to judge. While He may appreciate my dogmatic concern for His laws and His precepts, He also wants me to have compassion for others as Jesus did. Do I listen to others? Do I understand their point of view? Have I tried to walk in their shoes?

#4 – Cobra Kai

So, instead of canceling Netflix, I decided to watch Cuties myself so that I could make up my own mind – the one that God gave me. If you don’t want spoilers, quit reading. If you are certain you will never watch it, please continue.

First of all, Netflix stirred up this controversy itself (probably on purpose since there’s no such thing as bad publicity). And if the movie actually played out like the trailer and was simply a preteen dance version of Bring It On, then yeah . . . pedophiles would really enjoy it. As it stands, however, anyone who is hoping for healthy doses of little girls twerking or doing other unwholesome acts will be sorely disappointed.

Yes, those scenes are in there, but they are far from abundant. And while the trailer makes one believe that it will be a fun movie full of music and dancing (I even saw it billed as a “Comedy-Drama”), there was surprisingly little music, little dancing, and nothing humorous at all.

Instead, it is a somber and thought-provoking movie.

Eleven-year-old Amy—entering those preteen years that are already so uncertain and frightening—must also deal with the fact that she has just moved to a new town where she doesn’t know anyone and just wants to fit in. She also discovers that her father has taken a second wife and knows that a similar fate awaits her. Muslim women obey their husbands in her culture and she does not look forward to getting married at an early age to a man who will likely hurt her the way her father is hurting her mother. She is already burdened with taking care of her two younger brothers and doing many chores and is feeling oppressed by both her religion and by her family. These events build up and Amy begins to rebel.

There are many films about children who rebel. Sometimes they dance and it’s fun (Footloose, anyone?) but more often it’s not. When children seek out support and approval because they cannot find it at home, they often go down the wrong path: drugs, prostitution, gangs, and—in this case—emulating inappropriate dance moves found on the Internet. Like all rebelling children who head down wrong paths, Amy has no real idea of what she is getting herself into nor the dangers associated with it. Girls of this age are just beginning to discover sex, sexuality, and what it all means, and—believe it or not—they sometimes make mistakes and often learn hard lessons.

Could the story be told without the “explicit” scenes? Not really. We watch Amy view adult women dancing on a phone that she stole, and then we see her gaining the approval of her new friends by teaching them the moves that she has learned. We see them filming these moves to post on the Internet to “get likes”. I don’t know how a filmmaker could convey what the girls are doing without showing it. It’s necessary, not titillating. Would a pervert find them titillating? Probably. But there is so much other stuff going on in the movie, that I think most perverts are going to get bored pretty quickly and move on to something else.

The mistakes Amy makes lead her down a disturbing path, but the ending is—in my opinion—beautiful. I don’t know what happens to the other girls, but Amy finally receives the support she needs from her mother. With that support, we see her attend her father’s wedding dressed neither in the traditional Muslim clothing he bought for her, nor in the provocative costume she wore when she snuck out to a dance competition. Given permission to do what she wants and knowing that her mother will love her and support her (and that just because her mother has chosen to be submissive to a religion and situation that doesn’t make her happy does not mean that Amy is required to do the same), Amy does not chose either extreme. Instead, we see her dressed like a normal, healthy, happy teen and we see her smiling and laughing as she begins down a new path with her new freedom.

It’s fine if you don’t want to watch Cuties and it’s fine if you want to cancel your Netflix subscription because—like Amy—God gave each of us freedom to make our own choices and I’m not going to judge you no matter what you decide. I’m not trying to convince you one way or the other about either.

What I would like to do is to remind you that if you hear something and it seems hard to believe, maybe there’s a reason for that.

Not even Chuck Norris can pour a pancake so thin that it doesn’t have two sides.