After the Cuties fiasco yesterday and making some comments on the trailer that was cirulating, I was searching for a balanced review of the movie. Indeed, I thought Netflix wasn't doing what some were claiming they were. It wouldn't be the first time something on the internet was taken out of context. We (my wife and I) were sure it was overblown. We also read this review: https://decider.com/2020/08/20/cuties-netflix-controversy-summary-review/ that talked about how it was condemning it, not condoning it and that scenes in the trailer and posters weren't "part of the movie they had seen."

So, we thought we'd watch it last night and see if it was worth canceling Netflix over. That seems fair enough, considering we were willing to give Netflix the benefit of the doubt.

So, kids to bed, off we went. Wife with the remote in hand ready to skip forward or turn off at the drop of a hat.

The Good: It's a pretty legitimate commentary on the gross sexualization of girls and women in general. The crux of the show is that these girls are watching Miley Cyrus/Beyonce level entertainment and social media and doing nothing else but copying it---thinking that is how you get likes. They are clueless as to what it all implies, but they know what people like, and no one important is explaining to them it's not appropriate.

The Bad: (Outside of the comment below, the movie has a very brief frontal nudity from an adult female. It also shows more skin on dancing women than you'd wish you weren't watching when your mother is in the room. There are also a few conversations about sex that are very skippable. It tries to point out how clueless the girls are about sex but comes off as being at least a little bit gratuitous. We also skipped one scene where the girls are all on a video chat as well as when the girl takes the phone in the bathroom and a weird seance type moment where mom and grandma are casting out sins or something like that. There's also a dance scene on stairs that is worth skipping and the dance scene at the end is worth skipping too).

To the elephant in the room: The movie condemns the sexualization of women and girls by showing its effects--nothing wrong with that. In particular, it does that by showing you how absurd it is when young girls follow suit. If filmed and portrayed in the right way, probably nothing wrong with that either. Boys are taught to hit like Mike Trout to get praise; girls are taught to dance and dress like a whore to gain recognition. That's a pretty aggressive way to say it, but I'm not wrong, and the movie isn't wrong in that general sense.

The problem with the movie is they fall into the same trap they are condemning--to an alarming degree. It shows that the sexualization of women has terrible ramifications by, you guessed it, sexualizing women---in particular girls. And I don't mean the storyline sexualizes them. The message is otherwise useful. But the film could have been shot into the same effect without the camera angles and closeups. It was truly disturbing more than one time, and you had to look away. How a closeup on a young girl's backside dancing in leather pants, that contributes literally nothing to the storyline, would pass the muster of every Netflix compliance officer is bewildering. She can dance, sure. You can shoot it in such a way that makes the point that she likes to dance and is cool. But why such gratuitous camera work? It's pedophilic.

I guess one could argue, the ridiculousness of the sexualization is only made clear if you also show it happening. That's the irony, I think, the producers/directors were trying to delve out. "See how stupid this is? Well, that's what you are teaching these kids." But that point could have been made without actually sexualizing young women--a crime in a lot of places.

Is that worth canceling Netflix over? Maybe. It's definitely not worth upping my subscription and asking for more of it.

We did cancel Netflix. That was a good reason to finally do it, but we also just redid our Hulu subscription and will work through that before eventually going back to Netflix once something comes out we really want to see.