And, of course, you can't make a movie about young girls forming a twerking dance troupe without actually putting young girls in a twerking dance troupe This is what Richard Kelly said about SparkleMotion in Donnie Darko, that he *hated* having to cast and direct that part
-
Show this thread
-
That it was important to put that element in Donnie Darko because it really was something about Hollywood he despised that made his skin crawl But that meant that for that part of the movie to *work* he had to cast actual tween girl dancers who were "credible" as such
2 replies 3 retweets 49 likesShow this thread -
And interact with all the pushy stage moms who saw this movie as just an audition for their daughters' dance skills -- which it was, that was the whole benefit to being in the movie from their POV -- that he was trying to satirize and attack Huge moral headache for a director
1 reply 3 retweets 51 likesShow this thread -
It sounds like Maïmouna Doucouré had positive intentions, and the people saying "Everyone behind this movie should be thrown in jail!" aren't helping the discourse But still, I dunno, it's a complicated questionhttps://www.cineuropa.org/en/interview/390968 …
2 replies 4 retweets 54 likesShow this thread -
This is a raw topic after all the discussion of Shane Dawson and his shameless sexualization of his tween audience (which he defended as "satire") I think it matters that Maïmouna Doucouré is a woman herself, and this movie is rated TV-MA and not intended for children to watch
1 reply 2 retweets 46 likesShow this thread -
Even so I admit I kind of cringe at the stuff the reviews say she had her actors do for the sake of the story (at one point one of the girls finds a used condom and blows it up like a balloon, not knowing what it is until too late)
2 replies 1 retweet 36 likesShow this thread -
So I do feel like Netflix's marketing team stepped in it here by launching a campaign that feels so much like it just straightfowardly is what is being satirized (uplifting tween twerking crews as "empowering") But the concept is inherently problematic no matter what
2 replies 2 retweets 36 likesShow this thread -
Replying to @arthur_affect
I feel like the message of "sexualizing ourselves is the only way to escape poverty" could be done with older characters and then a scene or subplot to indicate how young it starts. But uuuuugh at this rate im gonna have to watch it
1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes -
Replying to @Plutoburns
It sounds like it's not primarily about escaping *poverty*, although the money is a factor It's about how Amy sees Cuties as her escape from this stifling culture that tells her being a woman is a life of drudgery and servitude, the fucked-up idea of sexuality as "empowering"
1 reply 1 retweet 10 likes -
Replying to @arthur_affect @Plutoburns
And -- this is the dicey part -- it's because she's only 11 that the movie gets across the idea that this is FUCKED UP as strongly as it does If she were 14 or 16, and *especially* if she were 18 or 20, people would just go ahead and say "Hell yeah it is empowering you go girl"
3 replies 2 retweets 12 likes
That's the whole problem with satire, of course -- it's quite likely that even despite making the premise as deliberately shocking as she did, Doucouré has not escaped the segment of her audience that unironically does think 11-year-olds twerking is empowering
-
-
Replying to @arthur_affect
Or the REALLY gross ones who granted theres basically no way to dodge if you pick this as your topic
1 reply 0 retweets 3 likes -
Replying to @Plutoburns
Yeah I mean that's the problem with doing satire, *especially* in a movie as opposed to in text It's Truffaut's thing about how you can't do an antiwar war movie, because just showing war and killing is going to excite the people who like that kind of thing Only worse
1 reply 2 retweets 22 likes - Show replies
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.