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Cuties Review: 10/10 Wood Chippers

This Movie Made Me Oy Vey All The Way

By Caitlyn Hicks Published 3 years ago 27 min read
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Just to clarify, that isn't a good rating

This may seem off topic, but I’ve been living in the South now for ten years. Northwest Florida to be exact, and also, just to clarify, it has been an awesome ten years. I was born in California (don’t hold that against me) but have lived all across this great nation of ours. I’ve experienced life on the beaches of Southern California, in the woods of Northern California and Oregon as well as the desert and mountains of Arizona. I know well the vastness of both the “Deliverancey” rural areas and the gang ridden big cities of our Midwestern states. While all these areas certainly had their cons, they all came with their pros as well. Still, no place has spoken to me quite like Northwest Florida, and to a certain extent Louisiana, where I vacation as often as possible. You can count on me to espouse the magnificence of Northwest FL fairly often, but I mention it here because of a joke many “natives” of the region have about me. You see, for the ten years I have lived here, our region hasn’t been hit by a single hurricane. There have been several that were heading towards us, but each and every time, the storm either switched directions or dissipated into something much weaker by the time it arrived in our neck of the woods. Locals began to wonder, jokingly and usually after all of our good material had been used up, was Caitlin some sort of good luck charm to ward off hurricanes? Just imagine, me, a Heaven-sent translesbian rain deflector. As an Englishman might say, “Not bloody likely!”, but then again, who knows! I’ve always had the philosophy, but especially in 2020, that I’ll believe anything is possible.

Technically I am an agnostic, although I do believe in God. See, I acknowledge that my believing is merely an act of faith, and that I don’t know if God is real. I do know, however, that according to most religions, one who has the favor of God can lose it due to his or her actions. This might be a lot of rambling, and if you are a pedophile, I am sure you are waiting for me to get to the meat and potatoes of this review, but not too long ago, I watched Cuties. I did so because I wanted to see if the outrage was justified. The movie was being politicized to such a degree, I felt as if I needed to watch it and make a judgment for myself. Was the world I live on truly attempting to normalize pedophilia, or were people just triggered by the dialogue a fresh young filmmaker was attempting to create about the real problem of over sexualizing our children? I watched Cuties to find out, and less than 48 hours later, Hurricane Sally devastated the place I now call home. Did God smite me for watching Cuties? Did some force greater than all of us, something grand and all knowing and all powerful beyond our imagination decide my bold, sinful actions deserved repercussion? The film was so vile and abhorrent, I’m going to just assume yes. By the way, if you’re curious about how the storm was (spoiler alert: it was wank) you can read my review of Hurricane Sally here.

In total, I counted seventeen scenes that were extremely troubling to me in this film. Now, I am not defending the film when I say this, but let’s cover the “Is Cuties child porn?” question; Cuties isn’t child porn. It comes as close as humanly possible to child porn as non child porn can get to being child porn, but if these seventeen troubling scenes were created with adults, nobody would consider it pornography. Sexually charged? You bet cha! Hot even? You know it! If this movie was reshot, Psycho style, scene by scene, but with adult women instead of children, taking the low standard set by OnlyFans and Girls Gone Wild, it is inconceivable that people wouldn't be pleasuring themselves to the adult remake of Cuties. So, obviously, pedos everywhere with a Netflix subscription are beati....erm, masturbating rigorously right now. Some might argue this makes the film child porn, but honestly, Victoria’s Secret catalogues are not pornography, and yet would have to be considered so if we went by the previous standard of considering commonly accepted whack off material pornography.

So, what is Cuties then? Well, it is a film with a lot of buts; a marvelously produced contradiction. It is an actually touching and well written coming of age story highlighting several uncomfortable truths when it comes to the lives of girls who are slowly transforming into young women, but features trashy, exploitative cinematography which would seem more at home in a Cardi B music video or the aforementioned Girls Gone Wild VHS tapes from the 90’s than an iconic, society shaping drama like Wag The Dog or Network. It is a statement against the hyper sexulaztion of our youth, but it also sexualizes children in what should be objectively horrific ways. Mostly though, it is a movie with lots of lude, disgusting close ups of young girls butts. Please note that these shots, that if they were of Torrie Wilson, I would be having everyone I know watch them. They are that crass. Unless you’re a pedophile. Then you’d say they are first class. I guess perception really is everything.

The film starts off with the immediately troubling image of a young girl crying! It’s the main character, who I’m going to call MC in this review. I’m not going to use any of the actual names of the characters, as I need to do all I can to dehumanize these characters to assist me in pretending this film wasn't real. So, we see MC crying, complete in hooker makeup, and then we cut what appears to be a time previously in her life. She is exploring her new, vacant apartment, which we find out later to be in a public housing building. MC fights with her little brother, like most sisters and brothers of that innocent age do, before we are treated to the family partaking in some sort of Muslim pep talk in a basement (sans Joe Biden).

After their anti-feminist/pro Islam chat, MC leaves the basement and wanders a bit from her elders, stumbling upon her building's laundry room and one of the most worrisome sections of not just this film, but any film ever, up to and including Cannibal Holocaust. In this laundry room we see a female dancing. Like MC, the audience only sees this girl from behind, but she is shaking her hips like a true pro. I mean that in a genuine way; many of the strippers I have seen in real life couldn’t match the sensuality or tempo achieved by this mystery person. What perturbs me so much about this is the film is shot in such a way we can’t actually see the age of this mystery person. Of course, it is a child's body dancing, but without seeing her from the front (did I make a mistake assuming gender? 2020 is so dang confusing), the audience is unsure if this is a petite woman or something way too young to be dancing like that on camera. The scene goes on for such a long time that it can’t be perceived as anything but sexual. Call me crazy, but it is edited and shot in such a way one could imagine the point being to titillate the viewer, regardless of their stance of banging kids. I couldn’t help but think that this was in some way a purposeful trick, like Michael Scott using a slideshow to sell paper (or was it printers by that point?) and seduce women at the same time. Like I said, call me a crazy, tinfoil hat wearing son of a gun, but it was almost as if someone said to themselves “Oh yea, you don’t think children are sexy?”, got really mad about that fact, and then set off to remedy the situation, using any means necessary. The scene ends when Laundry, who is drying her hair with a clothes iron on an ironing board, sees MC, who then scampers off like Jerry from Tom.

One thing I didn’t mention about their new home is it features a door with no handle, only a keylock. The mystery of this deepens when MC’s Mom comes out of the room at night, seemingly soullessly depressed, having only a bra for a top, and goes and lays down in her own room. The next day, MC tries the Laundry hair drying technique, but burns her hair in the process. When I complimented the movie earlier, I want to clarify, I really do think this could have been a good film. With a completely different philosophy when it comes to cinematography and editing, this movie might have been an actually well made cautionary tale for young ladies. The hair drying bit is an example of this film that could have been. Unfortunately, what these French folk got on camera was something that no young person should watch because they wouldn’t understand the film’s message and would instead emulate the main characters, a la Beavis & Butt-Head. It is something no person of age should watch because, like I said, this is as humanly close to child porn as something can get without actually being child porn. They rode that fence as expertly as Piper Perri rides, well, you know.

MC, at her first day at school, sees Laundry with her gang of equally slutty dressed friends, who I’m going to call Braids, Fatty, & Baby Baby Spice. They do some rebellious stunt where they act as if frozen once the bell to get to class rings, which infuriates the principal. Luckily for them, the principal is some French lady, and not Rick Latimer. (That’s right, these references are to entertain me, and not you, and don’t you forget it.) Next, we get some sensual dancing from MC in her Mom’s bedroom, obviously mimicking Laundry, but oh-uh, her Mom comes home, causing the young main character to panic and hide under the nearest bed like she was playing Outlast in real life. Again, giving credit where credit is due, I thought it was well done, showing MC’s lack of interest in her family’s culture and the corresponding guilt with her sudden fascination of western dancing through her terror of being discovered by her Mother. While hiding under the bed, we learn that MC’s Dad is a really cool guy and has bagged himself a second wife, much to the chagrin of his first, her Mother. See, despite being in France, MC’s family is steeped in Senegalese Muslim tradition, so multiple wives ain’t nothin but a thing to her people. Both Mother and daughter cry from this news. Despite my jokes and my apprehension about the film I was watching, I genuinely felt for these characters during this scene. It was well done, beyond competent filmmaking, and gave me the feels, as the youth say. Or maybe not the youth, but at least people younger than me.

While out shopping and running errands with her little brother, MC sees Laundry, Baby Baby Spice, Fatty and Braids all dancing in some alley somewhere. Desperate to know more about their way of life, she begins spying on them. When the gang realize they are being watched, the girls who put the "girls" in "girls gone wild" begin hurling both insults and rocks at whoever their watcher might be. One hits MC right in the forehead, confirming to the girls the next day at school that she was indeed the one from the incident. Of course, this earns their ire, causing them to bully MC further. However, back in the projects later that day, some dude, presumably Laundry’s Father, is chasing her through the hallways while the kid is carrying a pile of his laundry which he needs for work. MC grabs Laundry by the hand, leads her to her apartment, and threatens the police to Laundry’s Father when he demands to be let in. The guy, a wimp, goes away, and then Laundry does some weird thing where she spits on some flour or something and rubs it on MC’s forehead wound. Have I been a sucker for using Neosporin all this time?

Let me go back a second. In between Laundry and MC becoming friendly, there was a scene where her cousin brings some gifts to her and her family from her Father, including a dress designed to be worn at the wedding of himself and his second, assumedly hotter, younger and thinner wife. Beyond the gifts, the cousin has brought supplies to pimp out the locked up room too. While helping her kin bring items into the house, MC pockets his cell phone. This phone sort of becomes her link to becoming accepted by the bad girl group at large, as she can film the girls dancing so they can see their mistakes and improve their skills. She can film other things too, oy vey. I'll get to that later.

So for a bit now, this has been quality filmmaking. I mean, there was that laundry scene, but it was effective in a storytelling sense as it was life altering for MC to realize that she herself, and kids her age, could be as womanly and independent as Laundry was in that laundry room. If the shots were done differently, I’d have had no problem with the scene, and probably would even complement it, but for the most part, this movie has been setting the foundations for a well told coming of age flick. Then this next scene happens, and my alarm bells really started going off. The girls are all in the bathroom together, talking about sex and showing their ignorance to the matter. The film is clearly showing us that these girls, despite how they view themselves and what they would like to be, are still very much still children. They talk about guys peeing on them, or was it into their mouths, I honestly don’t remember, but either way, it was the type of conversation that sexually curious children might have, albeit a bit on the gross side. To be fair to Cuties, before discovering porn, I had similar conversations as a child. After leaving the bathroom, they then swoon over some older boys, and dare MC to go and film the guy’s dick while he’s peeing. Desperate for friends, she goes in with the camera on her stolen phone a-rolling, although it turns out she was too nervous to properly film his wang, instead mostly getting the floor, which earns her whining from the group. The whole piss motif of this scene, with the conversation amongst girls and the filming of the urinating boy, was off putting to me. It seemed more like some version of American Pie where the characters were ultra religious and therefore ignorant to how sex works despite being seniors in high school than something appropriate for pre-pubescent and barely pubescent kids.

Which brings me to a problem. Cuties is right to say that children, and by extension teens, are over sexualized. Who of a certain age doesn’t remember Britany Spears in a schoolgirl skirt, or any number of ladies from various Disney related escapades looking rather ravishing from time to time? They weren’t just touted as youth, they are touted as sexy and beautiful. People watched Ariel Winter grow up in Modern Family, and now, pictures of her in a bikini is clickbait for celebrity websites across the web. Sure, she is a grown woman now, and I don’t ever remember that character being sexualized at a young age in that show, not that I was an ardent watcher, but to deny that people are attracted to young women is delusion of the highest order. Go ahead and tell me that’s not true, even if you don’t believe it. Go ahead, do it. *laughs in teen porn sales* See, that’s my response every time. There had to have been a negative effect on kids who watched Miley Cyrus after she started being as smutty as she is now on stage.

Is 18 the right age? Is it 17, 16, or even 21? There are actual people who say that love knows no age limit (I call them "awful human beings who need to be removed from society"), and I don’t mean dudes on 4chan trying to be edgy with their memery. Obviously, I think the age for consent needs to be much older than 11, which was the age of the girls in this film, but could I definitively say that 18 is better psychologically for women than 16 or 20? How could I? Sexual and emotional intelligence, like every other form of intelligence, develop at different paces person by person. Some females are too smart to get played by 15 and could write a book about what game is and how to spot it, while others are 42 and still haven’t learned the way of the world when it comes to some men and their predatory tactics. The world is not black and white; because everything has such situational nuance it is hard to understand that just because column A is true, the contradictory column B can be equally true. How else could Cuties be both a devastatingly accurate portrayal of life for many young people and garbage which deserves nothing but vehement hatred?

To get back to the movie (unfortunately, I’ve been avoiding that), MC and Laundry break into the mysterious room with no door knob, finding a magnificent, lavish bedroom. If you could somehow make a princess feel at home in a housing project, this guy figured out a way how to make it happen, let me tell you. The girls, also impressed with the luxuriousness of the room, jump on the bed like Kevin McCallister before relaxing to watch YouTube in style on its comfy splendor. The two watch a video from some local dance crew of young women, who do look legal, and not just legal to a Frenchman either. I am talking barely legal here, but of age nonetheless. I think the characters are billed to be in an older grade in high school, but I can’t be certain on that. Regardless, I was speaking to the age of the actresses. One of the girls in the video shows her boob at the end of a dance while Laundry complains of their local popularity. I had heard people say that one of the MC’s friends was the one who showed their boob, so I was relieved when I saw this scene, as at this point I felt there was a good chance I wasn’t going to see a bare chested eleven year old. Which was an odd feeling, as not even during 9mm did I have to worry about having to witness actual child porn while watching a movie.

The scene was fine, competent and all that, as was the one which followed, which culminated with MC dropping the house phone out their window and into the street when her Father asked to talk to her. I actually popped pretty hard for this, as I do enjoy a strong, independent woman and seeing MC attempting to figure out what it means to be one is often endearing in Cuties, unfortunately.

We then see the gang of girls trying to chat up some older boys, but MC ruins it when she reveals they are 11, and not the 14 the other girls were pretending they were. Braids then finds a condom on the ground which she blows up like a balloon, or maybe it was Baby Baby Spice, honestly I can’t remember, because even while I am acknowledging the positive elements of the film, I am in shock from how grotesque what I am watching is. (The filth hadn’t even begun) Freaking out, the girls fear Braids or Baby Baby Spice just contracted AIDS and other various STD’s by touching a used condom (which would be “Blood likely!”) We then have a shot of Fatty’s bra I am doing my best to forget, followed up by something I truly am having a hard time wrapping my head around.

You know the stereotypical 80’s film montage? Of course you do, we all do. Even if we didn’t grow up in that era, South Park had its memorable “Montage” song and all, which was memed to death, so we all just know that films often convey passing of time with music and shots of main characters getting progressively better at something important. Well, watching videos on her stolen phone one night, MC gets the bright idea to add twerking to their dance routine. There’s nothing better than twerking to make it through the pre-selection audition for the local dance contest after all! What followed was a montage scene that felt straight out of Woody Allen’s masturbatory fantasies where the girls try to teach their little underdeveloped bodies how to shake that thang right. Butt touching, butt grabbing and butt shaking abound, every single little thing about this scene, from what the children were doing to what the cameramen were doing, felt so incredibly wrong it is hard to properly put into words and needs to be experienced to be truly understood. I don’t recommend anybody do this however; I imagine sticking one’s hand in a garbage disposal would also be a unique experience that people don’t necessarily need to experience, although could never truly understand its horror without going through the trauma firsthand. I hated this scene, and it was as close to child porn as I had ever seen on camera. Of course, the movie does outdo itself later.

What better way to follow up literally the absolute most perverse thing I had ever seen in a film than with a heart to heart? Laundry confesses to MC that her parents always working messes with her head, to which MC replies that she hates her own Father too. The following day, it is time to audition for the big dance contest, but oh crap, one of the community leader ladies from their mosque is telling MC she needs to start cooking the dinner for her Father’s wedding! There’s a scene that’s totally unbelievable when it comes to how people bleed where MC cuts her fingers in the basement but it doesn't start bleeding until she gets to her room and touches her dress. At this point, she’s bleeding like a stuffed pig who somehow pissed off both Freddy and Jason. I get what they were trying to do with the scene, but it was just dumb and unrealistic. Eventually, MC just runs away to make it to the audition, but the girls are already in front of the judges by the time she arrives! Feeling lost and dejected, MC walks home. Once there, the kid is saved from an ass whooping when she has blood all over her crotch. I don’t know if she got her period randomly right then for the first time, or if the blood from her finger cut with delayed bleed physics stained her pants, but whatever it was, it saved her butt. I take that back; this film is too corrupting and an innocent phrase like “saved her butt” will be twisted into something pornographic.

*Contemplates going into the plot hole of MC having the cell phone and using it constantly but the cousin isn't able to find the phone or contact customer service to get it shut off and order a new one when the cousin clearly has the money to do so but decides against it because this review needs to just end so I can forget this film exists*

While the girls are pissed, they eventually forgive her and believe MC’s story on why she was late. This leads to the gang breaking into a laser tag arena for some reason. They’re eventually caught by the security guard, who wants them to call their parents. The girls are calling the guy a pedo and complaining about being grabbed when a second security guard appears. During this confrontation, they get a text message that they were accepted into the dance competition, and start celebrating wildly, as if they are oblivious to the trouble they are in. The girls being who they are, of course dancing is involved in the celebration. The second security guard licks his lips and then tells the girls to beat it, before going to the bathroom to do that very thing himself. Okay, we didn’t see the character go masturbate from the interaction, but I don’t think I’m alone in my interpretation that the character was certainly going to relieve himself to the image of the girls later.

What else could possibly come after finding out about making their way into the contest than another awful montage? Seriously, this garbage would have been too filthy for grown women to do on Baywatch, who is King of the Montage Featuring Scantily Clad Ladies. At one point, Baby Baby Spice did a standing splits, with the camera then zooming into her crotch. I would bet money the b-roll of this film is a sought after relic for pedophiles worldwide. It is hard to say whether or not this scene was more or less loathsome than the previous montage, but they were both irrefutable evidence that some people really do want to normalize pedophilia. I’m not saying all of Hollywood, or all of Netflix, or all of this production staff are pushing forward a pro pedophile agenda, but some of Hollywood, Netflix and the production staff of Cuties? 100%.

So the next day MC goes to school completely whored up, and of course the whole dang school is colored impressed don’t you know. Later that day though, they run into that dance group who threw boob into their choreography, and they apparently don’t like 11 year olds who dress like sluts as much as me, for one of their ranks maliciously throws an empty soda can at the preteens. Not having it, MC walks up to the older girl and starts hitting her! Being less experienced and weaker, MC eventually loses the melee, and gets pantsed in the process. While her clothes were all top dollar and fashionable as a Frenchman, her underwear was as ratty as a trucker’s, subsequently ruining her reputation. Little known fact, but in France, not wearing designer underwear is a sin, although from what I hear, the populace typically freeballs it.

Not only is her reputation toast, but the blowback is impacting the whole crew, who begin to push MC out. Texting Laundry, she is doing her best to salvage her relationship with the girls when her cousin happens upon her, discovering the fate of his missing cellular telephone. They fight over the device, with MC eventually grabbing it from her cousin and locking herself in her bathroom. In a foolish bid to appear grown and sexy after the underwear incident, and in a sheer panic knowing she is about to lose her ability to freely communicate with the outside world, MC snaps a pic of her vag and uploads it to French IG, which apparently doesn’t block child porn (much like Netflix).

Instead of saving her rep, the vag shot only further solidifies MC as a whore to her peers. In fact, while on her way to the chalkboard, a boy in her class smacks her ass, and when criticized by the teacher, victim blames MC for posting the vag shot online. Infuriated, the young, free-spirited, emotionally confused dancer stabs her fellow student in the hand with a pencil. Her punishment at home? Ass beating followed by being sprinkled with holy Islam water. Yes I wrote "vag shot" three times (well now four) in this paragraph, to repulse you in a similar way to how all of this repulsed me.

Thankfully we’re nearing the end of this film. The girls, wanting to escape MC’s bad slutty reputation for their good slutty reputation (?) have traded her out and brought Fatty back to the group. MC is having none of it though, and on the day of the big dance competition, ambushes Fatty by some canal, shoving her into the water. The kid can’t swim, but MC leaves her to fend for herself, running off to replace her at the dance-off. Laundry, Braids and Baby Baby Spice are none too pleased about this, but with Fatty’s absence have no other choice but to accept MC back onto their team.

What follows is worse than the other two montage scenes. You know those shorts some girls wear where the bottom part of their butt cheeks poke out? The girls were wearing these, and dancing, and twerking, and generally acting like drunk college girls who feed on attention. The crowd, including the judges, are mostly positive and receptive to this too, with a few exceptions throughout. In fact, the majority of them are clapping along like everything they were seeing was not just acceptable, but neat.

Out of nowhere and mid dance routine, guilt catches up to MC, who freezes and starts sobbing before running off stage, abandoning her friends who had just given her a second chance. She runs home, where the community leader lady acts as if she is going to open up a can of whoop ass on MC, who is still dressed in her hooker attire, until Mom intervenes, saving her child from the wrath of a rightly outraged elder. Mom gives MC permission to bail on the wedding, so MC puts on some normal kids clothes, not indicative of her culture but not sexual in any way, shape or form, and then jumps rope with neighborhood kids outside her building. The camera starts floating into the air, and with each jump, MC keeps going unrealistically higher and higher, symbolizing she finally feels free and at peace with herself.

Especially with the ending, it is easy for the filmmakers to argue this film is against the hyper sexualization of children. In fact, had they kept the script, but changed the way they shot the characters and probably the crowd’s reaction during the dance competition, it would have been an effective vehicle to do so. However, when your camera lens is stuffed up an 11 year old’s ass crack, you lose all credibility when saying you don’t believe in the sexual exploitation of children. I don’t know if the director herself is a pedophile, and if she purposefully made as close to child porn as possible. Maybe she is, maybe she isn’t, I wouldn't be surprised either way. I also think it is impossible that there weren’t perverted pedophiles involved in the financing, production and distribution of this film. It is hard to say which people in the credits should never be left alone with children, but it is unfathomable to think they are all innocent.

Regardless, I do rate this film a 10/10 wood chippers, and hope that this film inspires a deeper look into the entertainment industry so the public can root out the pedophiles within, so that some good comes from this monstrosity of a film. Do not watch for any reason whatsoever, it will steal a piece of your soul. Having so little of that thing left by this stage of my life, I couldn’t have regretted it more.

Thanks for reading you ham n' eggers. Bored while you're pooping? Read some more BTG articles on my Vocal blog and check out all sorts of great reviews, how to guides, our book club, merchandise featuring largely guns made of bacon and even more at 2020's most masculine website, bacontitsgunsandnowhining.com

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About the Creator

Caitlyn Hicks

Co-Founder of Bacon Tits Guns and no whining. If you don't like stuff we say, please no whining please.

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