2023 Lookback

Happy Holidays! As you can tell, this year has not been the best for my writing inspiration. I’ve been busy with school and my mental health has been up and down (world events don’t help), so I was only able to write *checks blog* 2 posts for the whole year? And one was just an update? Goodness.

Anyway, 2023 is almost done. Here’s a general reflection of my thoughts of the media landscape, as well as what my fave movies, games, and TV shows were.

Source: The Walt Disney Company website (https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/disney100-october-celebration/)

As someone who is still a hardcore Disney fan, seeing the company have a pretty disastrous 100 year anniversary was a bit depressing to witness, but sadly, not surprising. Lately, the company as a whole seems to care about appealing to as many people as possible that they end up not really appealing to anyone. I think people are sick of Marvel and Star Wars all the time (as well as other movies trying to BE Marvel and Star Wars), and it doesn’t look like Disney is really taking the hint. The company has gotten extremely risk-averse, which goes against Walt Disney’s original methodology of pushing boundaries.

Now, I have studied the history of the company extensively and throughout their hundred year history they have gone through peaks and valleys. The 1990s were a peak, the 2000s were a valley (albeit with a few cult classics), the 2010s were a peak, and the 2020s are a valley. Because of this, I’m not scared of Disney ‘dying’, but I do think they need to have some major shakeups if they want to save their reputation. Some fresh faces at management who actually research and listen to criticism of how to make better products and experiences are a good start. And budgeting their films more reasonably so they don’t have to rake in a billion dollars just to break even (seriously, what movie needs to cost $200 million?).

I gotta say tho, the Disney film that came out in 2023 that disappointed me the most was Wish. It was supposed to be a celebration of Disney, but instead it fell flat on its ass. I wrote a review of the film HERE, but basically, for a film that was supposed to be all about the magic of Disney, it lacked anything that made previous Disney films so great. There are no charming or likeable characters, no spectacular moments of animation, no heart. Even the music is bland. It is the most boring and lifeless Disney movie I’ve seen in a long time. That may be because one of the writers (Allison Moore) has literally never worked in animation before and the other writer (Jennifer Lee) is just not a good writer. Jennifer Lee is well known for helming the lucrative Frozen franchise, a franchise that I happen to have extreme prejudice towards (except for the second movie, but that’s besides the point). Lee was placed in charge of Walt Disney Animation Studios after John Lasseter was given the boot, but, unless the problem lies with upper upper management, she’s clearly not fit for the job, as only Encanto was able to rekindle the Disney magic that’s been lacking for many audiences since the highly polarizing Ralph Breaks the Internet.

The magic isn’t completely gone, as the short film Once Upon A Studio was VERY well received and reminded me why I loved Disney so much. But it needs better, more experienced leaders and focus less on making as much money as ungodly possible and more on telling a good story that will be cherished for years to come.

The best film I saw this year–by a country mile–was Godzilla Minus One. Literally everything about this movie is great. The acting is great. The writing is great. The visuals are great. The spectacle and scope are great. It’s just great. It’s one of the few Kaiju movies where you actually give a shit about the human characters, and realize just how dangerous and horrifying creatures like Godzilla actually are.

I don’t want to spoil too much since this is absolutely a film you need to see in theaters, but at its core, it’s a movie about trauma and survival. This movie takes place in Japan right after WWII, when the country and many of its people were in shambles. The characters in the film must make a conscious decision to live despite Godzilla trying to destroy them and the rest of the world being apathetic to them, and it makes for an emotionally captivating, breathtaking epic. In an age where many people have become sick of Hollywood, foreign cinema is here to remind us that film is still a legitimate art form, and a great form of storytelling.

After the disappointing ending for Steven Universe, I put off watching television for a long time because I was scared of facing similar heartbreak (the show ended on a bad note for one of my all time fave characters). Thankfully, I was able to watch a few shows that managed to lift my spirits.

The first of these shows was Disney’s The Owl House, which I watched earlier this year. It’s a children’s animated show about a human girl traveling to a world of witches, Titans, and magic, and finding love, friendship, and defeating evil on the way. Like Steven Universe, The Owl House also deals with found family and queerness, but is superior in pretty much every way. The characters are VASTLY more likeable and well-defined, the story is tightly-woven and compelling from episode-to-episode, and even though the show was forced to end prematurely because of a studio exec who allegedly claimed the show “didn’t fit their brand”, it managed to deliver a mostly satisfying finale, giving everyone proper closure and having a truly epic final showdown between good and evil.

Another show that I’m enjoying so far is Invincible, which had its second season premiere this November. Invincible is an adult animated superhero show where the eponymous hero must struggle with his father’s legacy. When the man you looked up to and considered a hero for so long did something so unspeakably brutal, how do you reconcile with yourself? Invincible is a well-written, mature story, and a perfect antidote to Marvel fatigue.

But my fave show this year is probably Blue Eye Samurai, a show my mother and I practically binged earlier this month. Set in Edo-era Japan, the show is about the journey of Mizu, a half-Japanese, half-white warrior out for revenge against the four white men who lived in Japan when it was closed to the outside world and therefore would’ve fathered Mizu. Mizu’s entire life was filled with discrimination, hate, and hardship, and Mizu is out for bloody, bloody revenge. The show is gorgeously animated (every frame is art), the action is fantastic, and every character is richly written and developed, making for an exciting and engrossing view. It also has some of the best disability rep in any media, with a wide range of disabled characters that are not made to be pitied or ‘cured’. The show recently got renewed for a second season, and I am beyond hyped for more.

Those are the biggest things I wanted to reflect on for this post. Some other movies I’ve seen this year that I enjoyed include Nimona, Across The Spider-Verse, and Suzume. I haven’t seen Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron yet but I hope to catch it before the year ends.

As for games, I’ve played a lot of great indies this year. Some of my faves that came out this year include Slay the Princess, A Space for the Unbound, Sanabi, Little Goody Two Shoes, and Dave the Diver.

Okay, I think a wrote enough for now. I hope I made up for lost time. May 2024 bring more great art to watch, play, and read!

How To Undermine a Message: Netflix’s Cuties

This article contains discussions of the sexualization of young girls. Reader discretion is strongly advised. 

When Netflix unveiled its first look at the new film Cuties, it was a disaster. Netflix used a poster of scantily clad, prepubescent girls in suggestive poses to promote the new movie, and people were rightfully offended. People left and right accused Netflix of promoting p*d*philia, harassed the director, and started the Twitter hashtag #CancelNetflix. When the film was finally released on September 9th, it just got worse.

However, some people (including prominent film critics), rushed to defend the film, saying that the poster was inaccurate and that the film was actually a condemnation of such imagery, not promotion, and that it was ‘beautiful’ and ‘worth a watch’.

It seemed as if people were discussing two separate films, so I decided to watch the film for myself to see what was true. What I found was, ultimately, a film that TRIED to serve as a warning about the sexualization of young girls, but ultimately backfired horrendously. 

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Cuties (originally titled Mignonnes) is a 2020 French film (not a Hollywood film, let’s make that clear) directed by Maïmouna Doucouré in her directorial debut. Doucouré, a woman of Senegalese descent, based the film partially on her own experiences as a Muslim refugee, and from witnessing an event where 11-year-old girls were dressed and dancing in a highly sexualized manner. Doucouré wanted to make a film highlighting how social media pressures young children to dress and act provocatively (a legitimate issue), and thus Cuties was born. 

In the film, 11-year-old Amy moves from Senegal to Paris with her ultraconservative Muslim family. Her father is taking in a second wife, and even though the mother is clearly upset by this, the rest of the family encourages her to be supportive and accept the new wife. Amy, however, does not accept it. She seeks to rebel, and falls in with a group at her school called the ‘Cuties’. 

The Cuties in question are a group of young girls who are obsessed with getting into a dance competition by twerking. They are HIGHLY fascinated by all things sexual (without any real comprehension or understanding of it), and thus serve as a culture shock for Amy. She becomes drawn to the group and is determined to enter the dance competition, posting suggestive pictures of herself on social media for clout. The film shows Amy go on a downward spiral as she lies to and steals from her family to support her habit and assault her peers, before making peace with her family and learning to act her age. 

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Throughout the film, I was struck by how utterly unlikable the entire cast was. The Cuties themselves are complete brats, showing no respect for their teachers or parents (the parents are completely clueless as to what their children are doing), bullying and hitting the other kids (they throw rocks at Amy when she catches a peek at them dancing), and even try to take a picture of a boy’s penis as he’s using the bathroom (specifically, they coerce Amy into doing it, although she doesn’t succeed). 

The movie shows them repeatedly engaging in inappropriate acts, including blowing up a condom like a balloon to simulate a large bust and trying to engage in webcam p*rn. When they dance, the camera lovingly takes closeup shots of their bums (which they will occasionally slap) and suggestive poses. It’s in extremely poor taste, to say the very least. 

Amy herself isn’t much better. She steals her older cousin’s phone, and when he confronts her about this (and this is where the movie really takes a turn for the worst), she literally tries to seduce him in order to get it back. He rebuffs her, and she snatches the phone from him, rushes to the bathroom, and (I’m sorry for typing this), takes a picture of her genitals and posts it online before giving it back to him. We don’t see any actual nudity, but we still see the act. When Amy is confronted for this, she is given an exorcism and a visit from an Imam, but she faces no real consequences; she is not grounded, the authorities are not involved. Amy also tries to drown one of the Cuties (we’re left uncertain if she survives) to get into the competition and faces no repercussions for this, either.

Despite the girls allegedly trying to be sexual in order to be ‘cool’, all the adults onscreen (save for two security guards) are outright appalled at their behavior. And that is, ultimately, why the film fails.

Rather than serve as a condemnation of a perverse society where girls are increasingly and subtly encouraged to act more ‘mature’ in order to please certain adults, the film frames (intentionally or not) the Cuties themselves as the perverts, and a bad influence on Amy. Rather than point out how adults often groom children online, the girls themselves are seen as trying to seduce older men. The girls are highly sexual but there’s no explanation given for how or why they’re like this other than jabs at social media and a brief mention on how one of the girls has neglectful parents. At the end of the film, Amy ditches the Cuties entirely but stays with her family, even if she refuses to attend her father’s wedding. The film completely neglects to address the root issue or show the girls how to explore their bodies in a healthy way and instead offers a shallow, disturbing representation of prepubescent children twerking and acting inappropriately meant to shock the viewers. 

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While it is crucial we talk about how girls are becoming more sexualized at an increasingly young age, I’m not convinced that this was the way to do it. The film is so poorly directed that it completely fails at what it tries to do. A more skilled director would’ve made everything implied (rather than shown) with careful shots, cuts, and edits, but Doucouré insists on having the camera ogle the young actresses’ nether regions to say “OMG this is bad!! Be disturbed!”, not realizing that this could very well serve as self-gratification material for the very people she’s trying to call out. 

What especially bothers me is how the film’s defenders snobbishly dismiss its critics for not getting the supposed message. If only a select few people (re: people who studied film in university) can understand what a film is trying to say, then it’s not a good film. Something with an important message and a call to action (the director says that the film is ‘feminist’ with an ‘activist message’) should be accessible to all people, not just an elite few.

Ultimately, Cuties comes across as an exploitation flick rather than a thought-provoking, ‘beautiful’ film with something meaningful to say, made only to appeal to film snobs and rely on shock value for views. Even if the director did have good intentions, the fact that more people are angry at her than the topic she called attention to says enough. 

If you want to watch something that has a similar premise but actually succeeds in its message (and is appropriate for kids to watch), consider The Proud Family episode “Hip-Hop Helicopter” on Disney+. It actually explains WHY the girls dress and dancing provocatively is bad without making them be the lecherous ones (it makes it clear they’re pressured by older teens and adults to be ‘cool’), and they suffer actual consequences for disobeying their parents. If you want a more mature film that takes a closer look at the exploitation of women and girls in media, consider Perfect Blue by Satoshi Kon; the main character is an adult but is simultaneously sexualized and infantilized by her fans and producers. If you want to make a film highlighting the trend of young girls becoming more sexual on social media, consider making a documentary. There is literally nothing in Cuties that you can’t get anywhere else, or make in another format.