Clare DePew

Many of the comments and reviews for this film totally missed the mark here. Yeesh. Monica Hesse writes a thoughtful piece about this movie for The Washington Post called "Cuties on Neflix is an unflinching look at what it means to be a preteen girl. No wonder people can't handle it." Read it. I'll try not to repeat too much of what she writes, but I will echo that this film is important. This film intends to make viewers uncomfortable and as it holds up a mirror to a society that sexualizes women while it demonizes their sexualities, a world where social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram are how young people, especially young girls, find their role models with little adult guidance on those platforms. This film shines a light-bright and blaring-on the confusion, the discomfort, the pain, trials and errors, and the immense pressure that preteen girls face as they try to become women in a world where being a woman is so complicated. This isn't a story about young girls being sexy, this is a story about the society that we all exist and participate in. As Hesse writes, "Healthy adults won’t see the characters as sex objects; they’ll see them as children and they’ll see the dancing as disturbing." This story should make you reflect on your own experience as a preteen, the preteens girls you know, or the women who were once preteens. It should make you think about the way all of us, including you, participate in societies and cultures (yes, white, Westernized folks, that means us too) that put the kind of pressure on women that each female character in this film faces. Yes, it should make you uncomfortable. And you should sit with that discomfort.