By now, you've heard that streaming video giant Netflix is presenting a film featuring 11-year-old girls in a highly sexualized way. The details of the film are so gross that I am reluctant to delve into them.
But, the absence of context on just how horrible, explicit, dangerous, and vile this soft-core child porn movie is may dampen the impact of this column.
Here is a scene from the movie (Warning: Explicit Content):
Netflix is comfortable with this. Plenty of people will defend it. This is where our culture is at. pic.twitter.com/UlqEmXALmd
— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) September 10, 2020
IMDb (the Internet Movie Database), which serves as a clearinghouse for data and information related to the film industry, has a remarkable parental warning attached to the movie about, again... it must be repeated with emphasis... eleven-year-old children.
So, I thought the Cuties/Netflix thing was being sensationalized... but the IMDB trigger warning literally describes "female breast nudity of a minor(!!!)"
— Cabot Phillips (@cabot_phillips) September 10, 2020
If you had that on your computer, you're going to jail. If it's on Netflix, it's art??? pic.twitter.com/0eu8dZDX5j
Parental Warning : During one of the many highly sexualized & erotic dance scenes that purposefully exploit & objectify numerous scantily clad under age girls, one of the female child dancers lifts up her cropped top to fully display her bare breast. This is lawfully defined as pedophilia and can be extremely distressing to many viewers.
Trigger Warning : An 11 year old girl watches a female rap music video where naked women role play through dance both heterosexual & lesbian sex acts. An 11 year old female dance group then mimics these sexual moves via on themselves and on each other while the camera zooms in on their sexual body parts as they erotically writher. This can be highly distressing to many viewers.
Female breast nudity of a minor during an erotic dance scene and lengthy & excessive closeup shots of breasts, bums and spread crotches of scantily clad 11 year old girls during numerous sexualized dance routines.
A pair of tight leather pants on an 11 year old girl are forcefully pulled down in the midst of a scuffle; the camera glances at her panty exposed bum.
It's vile. It's dangerous. And, science dictates that this content will ultimately lead to the exploitation, abuse and violence against other young girls.
"According to statistics generated by the United States Postal Inspection Service, 80 percent of child pornography purchasers are active abusers and almost 40 percent of the child pornographers investigated during the past several years have sexually molested children in the past," states the 2005 study from the National District Attorney's Association entitled "From Fantasy to Reality: The Link Between Viewing Child Pornography and Molesting Children."
"Cuties" is the kind of thing that should engender outrage that transcends political party and ideological identity. That children should not be sexualized and that they deserve our protection should certainly be an idea all of us can rally behind and unite over.
Apparently not.
Apparently, according to The New Yorker, if you are offended or outraged by clear examples of child exploitation and pedophilia, you're just a crazy right-winger.
According to the Washington Post, unless you force yourself to watch the entire movie, you have no right to condemn the obvious exploitation of these children and the untold children who will be victims of this trash.
According to The Telegraph, the movie "pisses off all the right people."
Let me go on the record, if being angry over this trash makes you a crazy, right-wing wacko, then I am happy to take that label.
The bigger question should be, what do we call the people who defend, promote, or even profit from this garbage?
Which brings us to Barack and Michelle Obama.
In 2018, they signed a huge, multi-million-dollar production deal with Netflix. Their pal and former National Security Advisor Susan Rice sits on the Netflix board.
So far, they are silent on the "Cuties" controversy. And, make no mistake, the controversy has been with us for weeks, ever since the first artwork and trailers were released for the movie. At the time, Netflix claimed these promotional items did not properly reflect the true nature of the film. Side note: Aren't they responsible for those trailers and artwork?
The Obamas said nothing. Now, the film is out, and we have discovered that the film is, in fact, worse than the original artwork showed. The Obamas remain silent.
We live in an era where Mr. and Mrs. Obama encourage athletes to infect our enjoyment of professional sports with protests, political action, and community organizing techniques. They celebrate activists who march against law enforcement and build the framework for riots and looting. They tempt their most ardent followers to "get in people's faces" and to disrupt.
They are the tip of the spear in demanding that every day Americans disrupt their own lives and their family harmony on the most divisive and controversial political topics.
Yet, on this fundamental, non-controversial and unifying idea that children should be protected and sexual exploitation of minors should be universally condemned, they can't say a word.
There are some things here which are just factual and can't be debated:
1. "Cuties" has scenes that show young children in sexually explicit and exploitive ways. The larger context of those scenes is irrelevant given a pedophile can easily access these pornographic moments and feed his evil without seeing the "larger, broader cinematic message," whatever that may be.
2. This kind of sexually explicit material featuring young children leads to further abuse and sexual exploitation, causing untold innocent little girls serious psychological and physical harm.
3. Barack and Michelle Obama are enriched by the company that has presented this trash to the world. As that company makes money, some of that money is funneled to the Obamas. Thus, the Obamas, even if tangentially, are profiting from this dangerous, abusive content.
4. The Obamas, cash in hand, refuse to say anything... anything at all about this horrible issue.
These things aren't opinions; they are undeniable facts.
With regard to "Cuties," the Obama's silence = violence.