Peter Fisher

In general I’m not a fan of any media where children, namely 13 year olds are sexualised. Further more the movie frames it in a light where it seems celebrated, I struggle to find the justification that was used to so shamelessly claim the moral high ground. Not too long ago Netflix was rightfully criticised for a series around a twerking competition, yet this received a tsunami of praise(I acknowledge it’s not to the same extreme). I understand why parents would be mad. The clear setting of boundaries in important stages of life is always met with resistance, especially from teenagers, and the movie leaves very few redeeming qualities behind this particular plight that parents face. While the “hovering mum” archetype isn’t the stuff of myth, the creators really did not hold back in exaggerating the dynamic to the highest degree. The movie dismantles the disciplined family model, glorifies a thirteen year old alluding to sexual content and and frames eastern Asian culture in an overtly controlling light. Despite friends of mine highlighting the accuracies (also of an eastern Asian background), the movie launches an inadvertent attack on modern parenting, quite literally making the villain of the movie the mum. If you were a parent and had a movie shamelessly wrest the right to educate your child about this sector of life, while simultaneously making you a potential villain for not idly complying with the erratic decision making of a human being with a still developing prefrontal cortex… you might find it a little jarring. I think women deserve movies to which they can relate. The silver screen needs to do more to normalise periods and get society up to speed with the fact that it is nothing to be ashamed of and is, quite frankly, one of the reasons any of us exist, the analogy made is creative and it worked, but a hard line should be drawn in how much a movie should impose.