Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Preventing Grace

Home
Evangelical
Shut Up, They Explained

Shut Up, They Explained

Last updated on: September 11, 2020 at 9:04 am by Anne Kennedy

Shut Up, They Explained 2020-09-11T09:04:26-04:00 Anne Kennedy

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

It’s Friday! Let’s talk about something appalling!

One

I’m sorry to say that I’ve been reading articles and tweet threads about this new awful Netflix offering—Cuties. I’ve watched a couple of clips of it, and tried to swallow down the “critical” explanation that it’s actually not just child pornography, but “very important” for dramatizing “the difficulties of growing up female in a sexualized and commercialized media culture.”

Here’s an insane paragraph:

“Cuties” is a film of the center, and it’s aesthetically of the center—it depicts the unconsidered without advancing to the realm of the subjective, and it doesn’t allow its young protagonists much discourse, outer or inner. It’s not a movie of introspection and self-consideration; it’s more a story of the rule than of the exception, of what’s unduly extraordinary about the effort to live an ordinary life. As such, it’s a story of French society at large—its exclusions and the exertions demanded to overcome them. Though many of Amy’s actions are dubious, her spirit of revolt is nonetheless sublime and heroic. “Cuties” dramatizes what people of color and immigrants endure as a result of isolation and ghettoization, of not being represented culturally and politically—and of not being represented in French national mythology. Its underlying subject is the connection of personal identity to public identity—and the urgency of transforming the very notion of French identity, of changing the idea of who’s considered the representative face of France. That idea is brought to the fore in an extraordinary, brief, symbolic ending; it’s enough to give a right-winger a conniption.

Two

My goodness, if objecting to this film makes me a “right-winger” I guess you can go ahead and apply the slur. I’ve basically embraced the ridiculous term TERF (trans-exclusionary-radical-feminist…a person who believes that being biologically female is a thing) so sure, cast my rational, moral, and aesthetic objection as a “conniption.”

Three

Fortunately for me, I have a coherently cobbled together worldview that allows me “discourse,” both “outer and inner” such that I’m not at the mercy of The New Yorker. Truly, for such a time as this, all the people of the world who have rejected any objective moral discourses of reality are backed into an illogical, hysterical, and unimaginative corner. That the way that the writer/director/whatever of this “film” chooses to “critique” the horrors of the sexualization of little girls is by displaying those horrors on the screen for tons and tons of people—lots of them actual men—to watch beggars even irony. That The New Yorker would notice that we need no “discourse” from them, the little girls, is great, I guess, but that’s not a point to be celebrated. Quite the contrary, actually.

Four

Way back when in college I read everything I could by Assia Djebar, an Algerian woman who lived through the horrors of the French-Algerian war, and who talked at length in a lecture I got to hear, about the efforts that women undertook in that conflict. At first, they went about dressed in western clothes, having thrown off the veil. But then they realized that if they took back their traditional clothes, they could smuggle weapons unseen by the French. Of course, gradually the French caught on and made brutal examples of some.

Djebar’s lamentation was not that women participated in the fight for independence or suffered along with them, it was that after independence, they were not included. They were not ever able, at least in her lifetime, to put off the veil neither physically nor metaphorically. Goodness, I need to go back and reread her.

Honestly, I wonder what she would have made of a film like this. It lacks, what do you call it? Nuance? The evocative truth that women occupy a stressful place in the tapestry of human relationships?

Five

Rod Dreher tweets someone who says this: “Let’s grant that Cuties is a genuine attempt to grapple with the no-win clash between patriarchal traditionalism and a modern sexualization of girls that is itself a result of patriarchy. This is not—should not be—a forbidden topic. In fact, it’s a fascinating basis for drama,” which I can absolutely agree with…but, obviously they, the makers of this “film,” do not want to make that kind of fascinating drama. If they did, they would not exploit girls why they were doing it. Also, I don’t think we would delude ourselves that anyone at all actually wants to think about this cultural class one because it would be too painful, and two, because the inner and outer logic of the thing would make your head explode.

Six

Why? Because the gospel of the age—the I must find myself and be happy and everyone must affirm me—necessarily prevents the human person from having any “discourse” or “conversation” or anything like that. It necessarily becomes the twerk on the screen, the consumption of the little girl, the falling silent of the voice forever. And that’s because, when each person is god, only a few of the gods will win out before all the other gods, most of the gods will not have a chance to speak. The brutal rendering of the childish-female body on a screen for the grotesquely wicked man and his enabling women is all you’re left with.

Seven

So no, this “film” isn’t stunning or brave. And the people who took advantage of these girls are going to be answerable for eternity to a God who not only speaks himself, but invites lots of other people, women and young girls included, to call out to him, to lift their voices in his praise, to use words to express the depths of their own selves. Go check out more takes while I go shout at the weeds in my garden.

Signs of the Apocalypse

Feminism

Jen's 7 quick takes

Just Plain Sarcastic

Previous Post

September 10, 2020

On Reading Badly

Next Post

September 13, 2020 The Point of the Entire Exercise

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category books Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Children in Conversation culture watch Daily Devotions Demotivations with Anne faith alone for the grandparents GAFCON In conversation with children In the News Kitchen Notes Lambeth Learning Notes Life Going On Men are Human Notes from Home Pictures Reading the Bible Saturday Links Sermons Signs of the Apocalypse The Bad Word Association The Prayer of Jonah Travel Notes Uncategorized Witless Wednesdays Work and the Christian

Select a Month June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 July 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What did Solomon build for foreign wives that angered God?

Select your answer to see how you score.

High places (shrines) Armies City walls Ships at Tarshish

Books by This Author Books by Anne Kennedy

See All Titles »