After watching the movie completely and giving it a thumbs up, I must say that those that view this film as food for pedophiles are the ones that have perverted and sick minds.

This movie has a real deep story behind it. It effectively shows the stress religion, poverty, and patriarchy imposes on young minds, how it etches into the fabric of human interaction and how people follow it in order to survive their own cultures; the example here critiques the Muslim faith, but all religions do it to some extent.

The moment when the mother was forced to telephone other people to announce that her husband was taking a second wife was so well executed. The tear that ran down the daughter's face as she saw her mother lie, probably for the first time; the trembling leg that uncovered her mother's facade and revealed her humanity. It felt as if the daughters perception of life was shattered--innocence lost; a defining moment in everyone's life. I could feel both of their pain in my stomach. I haven't seen something this deep from Hollywood since I can remember.

If all you focused on this movie was the dancing from 11 year old actors, you're a sick-fuck. That's all I have to say.

And that's my problem with this film essentially. If there's someone rewatching this film again and again, how do we not know that they aren't a sick fuck? I don't give a damn about the film otherwise but having things that sick fucks can focus on is the problem essentially. The rest of us don't really care. I certainly don't. I don't even think the film makers completely understand my faith judging from what you said but I'd have to watch the movie to actually know whether they do or not but I won't and cannot because of this useless nonsense. Why even have it in the film at all. Does it enhance the film's message in any meaningful way at all? Does it help us understand something deeper? My problem is the sick fucks who will focus only on the dancing and the obscene shots.

I watched the movie now and have some hot takes.

1) Pedophiles are gonna be pedophile no matter what. It is not some movies concern wether it gives those sick people material or not. In the case of "cuties" it surely did give material to them. But if it had not, those people could easily look for other material, like going to scools, buying magazines, following kids on instagram,... The pool of legal material is almost endless. I can only assume the pool of illigal and explicit material is also quite vast. So expanding this legal, endless pool by adding this movie really does nothing at all.

2) But what was it good for? Why are those scenes needed? To make a controversial point about western culture:
The movie really makes two big points for me. The first is, that in many ways Islam is bad. And not just the radical variety. If you cannot possibly go against your husband and that husband can take wifes as he pleases, this can only mean strain on the family unit that mothers and children have the bear. In these ways patriarchy exists and needs to be abolished by careful and thourough integration. This point is easily taken by "westerners" like myself. The other big point was that the cuties are wrong and bad aswell. It is good if you feel comfortabel woth your body and sexuality but there is a "too early" and "too much" that often gets disregarded. It is not inherantly wrong to tell young girls to restrain themselves. And this was hard for me to swallow because I went in thinking that the controversy was blown out of proportions. Like, sure, let them dance around a bit. But it was not a bit. It was much. Soooo much. And it was soooo clear. In the end I felt sorry for them. And weirded out because I had to watch all of this. In this, my experiences were similar to the protagonists. Spoilers: she finaly got that what she does is wrong. Not only for her, but for anyone her age. Her fashion choices in the end reveal where the movie stands: she does not take the dress for the wedding. That is a no to Islam, when it is lived like that. And she does not dress like a slut (like the rest of the cuties). That is a no to blind tolerance of "western" "values" (-for lack of a better word). In the end she plays jump rope in jeans with other kids and looks perfectly normal. A good ending and a good movie.

I really thought the message was going to be that islam is all bad (which it obviously is not and it was not shown that way) and she has to free herself through the help of her little friends. But they were quite crazy, out of control, violent, overly sexual and a bad influence. The movie ended up being much more nuanced and I liked it much more than I thought.

I think DraconianAC forgets to mention essentially the hole second part of the film. The film is not just a criticism of the autocratic and restrictive culture of Amy's family.

the film essentially tells  the story of a girl that tries to flee from the oppressive and autocratic World of here family but then she realises that the new world she found (pop culture, idols, etc.) is in a different way also very oppressive.
The film uses the dancing and other things to show you how the mechanisms of oppression and conformity funktion in our supposedly free society.

Yeah I 100% agree with you, Cuties is a smart film and I understand why critics gave the film such good notes.

Hmm i might actually see the movie and give a more valid opinion at a later date.

I'm gay and dutch too and this is the exact same thought i had.

A friend of mine made me watch this movie, cuz ''everyone is talking about it''. I usually like her taste, but this was a shit movie, very similar to other dance movies.

That being said, i didn't see anything close to sexualizing children or childporn like the SJW's are describing it online. Americans have always been prude and see perversion whenever they see something they're not used to.

To them europeans or just "French'' people are all walking around naked all time and everyone has sex with each other and no one bats an eye. You see them joke about it in their movies, shows and discussions online.

I think you mistook the point I was trying to make: (You may not agree with it, and I understand)

People who are overly concerned with this films sexual tones are the ones that need help. Why? It simple; in a conversation, have you seen someone take a comment to be sexual when it wasn't implied to be? Well it shows where their mind is. Apply this logic to all these overly touchy people that skip the message of the film and are screaming at what is going on in their minds (what they see), not what the point of the film was about. Can a film be crude? Yes, but when applied effectively, it can be a useful method to shine a light on a topic the audience may be ignorant of. The shock value was not excessive, it was made in a way to make you think, not to give anyone a hard-on. Only perverted minds would see it that way, because that is all they focused on.

"Monkey see, Monkey do." It's what I perceived when I saw the young kids dancing; It's just a basic animal behavior, which we human ARE. That's all it is, little ones emulating the world the adults demonstrate. So why are we so touchy about it? Hypocrisy. We have plenty of that here in the States.

Yes, I agree I didn't mention the hole plot. It just wasn't my MO. I just tried to pick one event that was well executed. I do apologize; however, I don't agree she was fleeing "the oppressive and autocratic world;" It felt more like she was disappointed in her life; there were certain events that propelled her to seek an escape from the stress she was under.

In fact, I don't agree with the film at the end; they give the main character enough maturity to reflect on her actions when in most of the film she never doubted the path down the rabbit hole. So, I don't like happy endings when they don't merit it, but to each his own.

-Edit: I forgot to add something.

From Luxembourg, but close enough I guess.

From what I saw (checked out the movie when I saw this thread to see firsthand what all the fuss was about), it's not nearly as sexualized as the moral guardians claim to be - if at all. At no point are the girls naked, for instance. Sure, they are wearing revealing costumes during the dance competition - but all you see is some leg and a midriff, which means those are not that much different to cheerleader outfits in the US. The whole thing is mostly just a cultural problem in (compared to Europe still very) puritan US:

Guns and excessive violence: Hell yeah!

Girls of different backgrounds trying to discover themselves during early puberty and by doing so going against their elders, who behave like they are still in their mother country (Mauritania or Senegal, going by the language): Hell no, apparently!

Seriously, after reading through the comments here, I felt like most here seem to be exactly like the Auntie of the main character, as she was very negative towards the openness of french culture in general and the dancing they did on stage in particular. The whole movie is just a coming-of-age story peppered with a cultural transition from the main character from the North African Islamic origins of her family to person who accepted the french culture as her own and how those two cultures clash and mesh together in modern France.

I'm stuck in a dilemma now. I'm not one to watch these sorts of films because I feel there are better ways to portray such messages and I don't want to support the creators by watching them. But at the same time, I feel they might not have represented my religion fairly and have protracted it wrongly to people and they might leave the film thinking some wrong things about it so I need to watch it and find out what it says so I can point out the correct cultural criticisms and the wrongful representations and attributions. I don't want people to think the wrong things about my religion nor confuse culture with religion or just straight up movie dramatization and fiction. 

Like people going Hmm Hmm this is Islam when it might not be.