I Watched ‘Cuties.’ This is the Conversation We Need to Have.
Tags: Film, Empowerment, Culture, Women, Social Media

I Watched ‘Cuties.’ This is the Conversation We Need to Have.

I remember the first time I danced with boys. A middle school social event. I think I was 12. Nearly frozen with a self-conscious fear of “doing it wrong,” I managed to sway my hips in time to the music for the momentous 15 seconds he was behind me. A year later, I was confidently winding along to Sean Paul like I’d been doing it my whole life.

I remember hiding — so much hiding — throughout my childhood. Hiding in my room to practice dancing in front of the mirror. Hiding under the covers to explore my own body like it was something to be ashamed of. Hiding in the bathroom to read the instructions on the tampon box regarding correct insertion. Hiding my legs when they began to grow hair. Hiding my interest when I started to feel attraction to boys. Hiding anger, disappointment, intensity, desire.

It would appear that hiding is a quintessential motif of girlhood. Or at least my girlhood.

I don’t remember anyone ever explicitly telling me that I should be ashamed of these things. Ashamed of my body, with its blood and its hair and its desires. Ashamed of my heart — its rage and tears and needs. And yet, if I had to name the emotion behind all that hiding, I would certainly have to call it shame.

I grew up on a steady diet of girls’ magazines, The Disney Channel, AOL chat rooms, and conventional advertising. All of it seemingly innocuous when taken in parts, and yet, those messages of shame were omnipresent just beneath the surface. I fed on them. Messages like,

A makeover is the road to empowerment.

Being naked in front of the class is the worst possible nightmare.

Menstruation is a curse.

Pimples are a catastrophe.

Girls should play nice.

Anger is bad, and so is crying in public.

Thank god I grew up before the era of social media. Most of these subliminal lessons I have purged by now; nonetheless, I think they are still coded somewhere in my cells.

Without naming it as such, I was at war with inculcated shame for a long time. I believe I won. Today, I run my hands over my body, and I do not feel shame. I embrace my blood, my sweat, my desire, my hair, my pleasure, my emotions, and my needs.

And yet, movies like “Cuties” by director Maïmouna Doucouré take me back to those confusing messages of pre-adolescence: The pressure, and the curiosity, to express sexuality coupled with so much shame — and innocence. The agonizing fear of “doing it wrong,” which follows us into early adulthood, if not further.

Girls receive impossibly entangled messages about who they can and cannot be. I worry that girls’ empowerment often leaves the takeaway, “You can be anything you want… except what you are.”

Be louder. Shut up. Be more adult. Be more innocent. Be sweet. Be fearless. Be everything — no! Not like that.

I saw myself reflected in the 11-year-old cast of “Cuties.” I identified with their innocent desire to be grown women. I spent much of my childhood playing at being an adult, too. But as we see in “Cuties,” those games can become dangerous.

So, what can we do about it?

Controlling exposure to popular culture and other influences on the internet seems a near-impossible solution, and not a very good one anyway. I think sex-positive and body-positive health and wellness education from an early age is probably a good place to start. Empowerment Self Defense that teaches girls to set boundaries and trust their intuition is also a highly promising solution to add to the pot.

Any practice or methodology that combats the dominant narrative bombarding girls and women — anything that inspires self-love, confidence, and agency — seems like a reasonable starting point, too.

I grew up in the 90s and early 2000s. These issues are not new, although social media and increasingly sexualized popular culture certainly don’t help. Maybe the best thing we can do, as women, is embody the kind of self-acceptance and respect we wish for the next generation.

“Cuties” is a powerful warning of what we stand to lose if we do nothing at all.