TRIGGER WARNING - TALKING ABOUT SEXUAL CONTENT WITH MINORS
I wanted to see if it was really as bad as the trailer and holy shit it's actually the worst thing on Netflix. Yes, even worse than that Space Force blatant propaganda. It's Islamophobic(I was pissed when I wrote this, Islamaphobic is a huge stretch and I can admit when I'm wrong) sexist, and the most disgusting piece of somehow legal pedo bait I've ever had the misfortune of watching. Before watching I thought that since it was French that it might just be an artistic movie that went too far, but no, the writing and editing are awful too. All of the characters besides the protagonist are mean spirited for no good reason. There's not a single likeable character in the movie. I think the movie tries to justify the sexualization as female empowerment (at least the trailer did), but the main character spends the entire movie being pushed around by other girls and women in a desperate attempt to be accepted by others. Only in the actual last two minutes of the movie does the protagonist seem happy to do her own thing.
The girls in the movie are all 11 years old and yet they're half naked for the majority of the movie. At three points in the movie the main protagonist's underwear is shown: once while other teenage girls strip her in a fight and take photos of her panties (the movie zooms in on her butt during this), once while she takes off her pants and panties to take a vag selfie and post it online (no private parts shown thankfully, but much of her bare thighs are), and lastly while her mom and grandma strip her down to a shirt and panties in what I think was supposed to be an exorcism... and they couldn't even do the last one without sexualizing AN ELEVEN YEAR OLD GIRL by having her twerk for two minutes in her panties while the grandma tosses water on her, essentially making it a wet t shirt twerk. I could go on about this but the more I write the angrier I get
I went on Youtube expecting to see a ton of leftists shitting on it, but all I found were right wing reactionaries. Am I missing something here? It's been out for weeks, why aren't they calling this movie out? EDIT: I was wrong about the release date. While the trailer came out weeks ago, the movie has only been out since Sept 9th. It's completely fine that some creators would need time to write a fleshed out script with in-depth criticism of the movie instead of just yelling into a mic for half an hour generating quick and easy content.
EDIT: According to this article the protagonist actress is 14, and last time I fucking checked that's still a literal child. Also one of the supporting actresses is 12 so.... what the actual fuck.
So despite the poor writing choices they originally tried to make a movie about how sexualizing kids is bad... and in the process sexualized actual children for pedos to gawk at.
There were plenty of times they could have turned the camera away or blurred the shot, but instead they centered it and zoomed in. I feel terrible for the underage actresses, this is going to be online for the rest of their lives even if Netflix removes it.
I've read about other Netflix shows that covered teenage puberty that went out of their way to make everyone ugly specifically so that no one would get off to it. This one bolted in the opposite direction.
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It's become more and more apparent to me that movie critics just write what they write based off how they think it'll affect their social standing in the cinematic world rather than actually critiquing the art. Most of the time they're so vague in their criticism I don't understand what they even are. Clout sharks, man.
There’s no way I’m going to watch the whole thing, but I can admit that I can see why the premise seems like something worth exploring. The push-and-pull between the expectations of a conservative religious culture and a modern hypersexualized youth culture... I mean, it’s a very rich topic and also very grim. In the trailer, these girls look desperately awkward to me as they try to imitate adult movements. But, troublingly, it just feels like voyeurism, more like watching a car accident than watching social commentary. They look like children rehearsing not only adult sexuality, but also adult conflicts and socialization.
It just makes me sad.
The Muslims in the movie are very stereotyped and the exorcism stuff near the end was cringe at best. The girls who the trailer implies are her friends are some of the nastiest, mean spirited characters I've ever seen.
And like, yeah, I remember middle school and trying to fit in a group of girls that outwardly hated each other, but the extremes the protagonists goes to (eventually posting a CP selfie of herself on her dad's phone, as well as stabbing a kid in the hand for insulting her) to fit in are incredibly unrealistic. In America you'd get put on a sex offender list for the selfie and go to juvie for the stabbing.
I felt gross the entire time watching the movie, but I think a lot of pedos watching would feel more like the background teenage boys and men in the movie that are seen multiple times oogling the 11 year old girls without consequence.
This is a far different situation from like Big Mouth, where yeah the kids are ugly cartoons and they're voiced by adults.
Big Mouth wasn't my cup of tea, but I appreciated that they went with an ugly aesthetic.
I enjoy it. It's definitely got some crude juvenile humor in it but I appreciate how well it portrays how strange, awkward, and unnerving it can be to grow up.