Cuties actresses: too young?

submitted by slushpilot from self.GenderCritical

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[–]MarkTwainiac 10 insightful - 1 fun10 insightful - 0 fun11 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

The reason this movie is causing such outrage (and good for that!) is precisely because these girls look so young on screen. Their characters are 11 in the story—but the actresses themselves actually look a bit older in recent public appearance photos. (See link above.) I don't know how old they were when filming completed, though.

I don't know how old all the girls in the film were at the time of filming, but the lead actress was 11. From an interview in Variety with the producer of the film from January 2020, long before the public began to protest against sexualizing such young girls to show that sexualizing young girls is wrong:

“Cuties” is about the hyper-sexualization of pre-adolescent girls. It follows an 11-year-old girl of Senegalese origin...

Variety: How did you cast the 11-year-old female lead, Fathia Youssouf Abdillahi? Producer Zangaro: The casting process was a saga. We spent over six months and saw 650 candidates and it was only in the very last hour of the last day that we found Fathia. It was a really emotional moment.

Variety: How did (the director) Maimouna (Doucouré) work with the young cast? Producer Zangora: She already worked with a young cast in “Maman(s)”. It’s amazing to watch. She works at the same level as the kids. She has a deep and intimate relationship with them. She acts with them. She cries, and they cry. There’s a magical link and a deep sense of trust.

Variety: What was the inspiration for this project? ProducerZangora: It came from Maïmouna’s personal experience. She grew up in a large family living in one room in the 19th district of Paris, in a social housing project. She regularly goes back to the neighborhood to see her family and in one of the local festivities she saw a group of young 11-year-old girls dancing very provocatively...

https://variety.com/2020/film/global/zangro-sundance-cuties-1203467120/

There's usually quite a long time period between when footage for a film is originally shot and when the film is finally released, and it's already been nearly a year since this film was released. The script was completed and won a Sundance award in early 2017.

Given how long editing and production of films takes, I imagine all the footage was shot in 2018.

Girls (and boys) change a lot in appearance and maturity between 11 and 13 or 14.

I couldn't figure out what on the producer's Twitter feed was giving you second thoughts .

Curious to hear your thoughts: what's the right age for a child actress to be able to participate in a conversation about hypersexualization: when can she show everyone how absurd and horrible it really looks? It's probably not 11. But it's probably not 18 either—because by then "sexy" is already expected, and the absurd juxtaposition in the message is lost on the audience.

There is no "right age for a child" to "participate in a conversation about hypersexualization." This child and the other children in this movie were not "participating in a conversation." They were being exploited and sexually abused by the adults who made the film for the purpose of advancing the adults' careers and making the adults money.

It's probably not 11. But it's probably not 18 either—because by then "sexy" is already expected, and the absurd juxtaposition in the message is lost on the audience.

The concern here should be on the children, and what's in their best interests, not on the audience and or the film's "message." Sorry, it sounds like you are saying that because the sexual exploitation of minors is already rife and "expected" in our culture, laws and standards meant to safeguard children's wellbeing should be lowered further to allow for more and more child sex exploitation at younger and younger ages.

[–]slushpilot[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I couldn't figure out what on the producer's Twitter feed was giving you second thoughts

There's what looks like current photos of the cast which made me realize they're no longer 11. So if it was shot 2-3 years ago, that about lines up with what they look like today (13 or 14).

Not really second thoughts, though. Fact is, they were 11 when it was made and I'm not defending that. It just made me wonder if the general reaction would still be the same if they looked like the pubescent teenagers they are now—and if not, why not.

This child and the other children in this movie were not "participating in a conversation."

Agreed. They were 11 and not really equipped to understand what their role meant: and that in itself is exploitative.

made the film for the purpose of advancing the adults' careers and making the adults money

The film does seem to have been made with some purpose beyond profit—we're all talking about how outrageous it is, aren't we... it could've just as easily been deleted from existence (and it still might).

For good or bad I'm assuming the lead stars established their own careers and made money from their roles too. They and their families might not understand how it was wrong (yet) but then I hope they use the money to go to school at least. Nobody's making as much as Netflix off the back of the controversy, of course. That's a separate discussion though, separate from how the film was made. Maybe the dirty money should at least go to a good cause.

it sounds like you are saying that [...] laws and standards meant to safeguard children's wellbeing should be lowered further

Absolutely not.

But it doesn't seem like any laws were broken or it wouldn't've been distributed: hence the question, does this mean we are collectively OK with this kind of acting at 11? Apparently not, and I at least find that heartening.

[–]MarkTwainiac 5 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 0 fun6 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

But it doesn't seem like any laws were broken or it wouldn't've been distributed: hence the question, does this mean we are collectively OK with this kind of acting at 11? Apparently not, and I at least find that heartening.

Very interesting point! It only just now clicked in my brain that this film was of course made in France, a country where there's traditionally been a widespread willingness not just to turn a blind eye to pedophilia, but to celebrate it.

Which comes across loud and clear in these videos from 1984 of one of France's most esteemed and lionized artists of the modern era, Serge Gainsbourg, considered "the closest thing the French have to royalty" back then, performing his celebrated song "Lemon Incest" with his 13 year-old daughter Charlotte:

https://youtu.be/khy_0BTIdmg

https://youtu.be/LE06lqT0Y2g

BTW, Charlotte Gainsbourg would grow up to have a career in avant garde music and film, notably starring in Lars von Trier's controversial (and IMO unwatchable) film "Nymphomaniac." More on her life here:

https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/i-feel-completely-free-how-charlotte-gainsbourg-stopped-caring-20190101-p50p14.html

France historically has been loathe to enshrine concepts such as "statutory rape" and "legal age of consent" into law the way most other Western countries have. The failure do so generated controversy in 2018 - the year "Cuties" was shot - after several high profile rape cases in which the victims were each 11. From NPR:

The French government has proposed making 15 the age of consent for sex after two high-profile cases in which men escaped rape convictions despite having intercourse with 11-year-old girls.

It would be a first for France, which does not currently have an age of consent.

While the punishment for rape when a victim is younger than 15 carries a heftier penalty under French law (20 years), prosecutors must prove that the sex was forced.

As The New York Times explains, "In France, as long as 'violence, coercion, threat or surprise' is not proven, sexual intercourse with a minor — even one under 15 — is considered an atteinte sexuelle, which is an infraction and not a crime."

"The government has decided to set the age at 15," France's equality minister, Marlène Schiappa, announced Monday, according to Agence France-Presse.

The push to finally set an age of consent follows cases in recent months that have shocked the country.

In November, a 30-year-old man was acquitted of raping an 11-year-old girl because the court said there had been "no violence, coercion, threat or surprise."

In a similar case, also involving an 11-year-old girl, a man who was 28 at the time of the alleged offense faced lesser charges of sexual relations with a minor, but not rape.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/06/591212333/france-to-make-15-legal-age-of-consent-for-sex

Deeper background here:

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/03/frances-existential-crisis-over-sexual-harassment-laws/550700/

France is also a country where intellectuals across the board - including Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and of course Michel Foucault - long have argued that there should be no age of consent.

Earlier this year France started to begin to have a moment of reckoning about its acceptance and celebration of male pedophilia when one of the female victims of long-celebrated writer and open pedophile Gabriel Matzneff, now 83, published a memoir that made it clear that from her POV, being groomed and coerced into sex by a man in his 50s when she was 14 wasn't so much fun:

“The Consent,” a book written by Vanessa Springora, who recounts how she was manipulated by V., a powerful man in his 50s, when she met him at the age of 14 and got involved with him. She also recounts her disillusionment when she discovered that he had a habit of preying on young teenagers and practiced child sex tourism in Asia. Although Springora does not name Matzneff, she told local media that she was referring to him, their relationship and the entrapment she felt.

https://variety.com/2020/film/news/gabriel-matzneff-french-author-metoo-1203459487/

An 83-year-old French writer once feted by the Paris intellectual set now finds himself ostracised because of his writings about sex with teenage boys and girls.

From the 1960s onwards, Gabriel Matzneff made no secret of his passion for seducing adolescents. But a new book by one of the teenagers he slept with in the 1980s has led to a criminal investigation for rape of a minor.

And now debate is raging in France about who is more to blame: Matzneff himself or the world he moved in.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51133850

NY Times piece on the Matzneff case: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/07/world/europe/france-pedophilia-gabriel-matzneff.html

Your point that

it doesn't seem like any laws were broken or it wouldn't've been distributed

seems like it might be true of France. But what about international laws, and laws in the countries where Netflix is making "Cuties" available for streaming?

It seems some countries are making noises about telling Netflix it can't stream "Cuties" within their borders, but so far only Turkey has issued an actual order:

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/turkey-netflix-cuties-movie-banned-underage-exploitation