"Inside the grossness of Cuties is a reasonable point — but not one you can tell in film, or at least not in this film." Bullseye from Dreher. https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/cuties-netflix-pretty-babies/

There's a deep irony here I can't quite put my finger on. I've seen many horrified conservatives sharing videos of the worst scenes from this movie--and thus amplifying the # of people that see them-- on the grounds that "we need to see what we're up against," or some such.

But the irony is of course that this is at least ostensibly *the entire aesthetic purpose of the movie,* that the unspeakable preadolescent hellscape depicted is youth culture AS IT ACTUALLY EXISTS TODAY in all its intolerable wretchedness.

So the justification for the movie's creation is in at least this one critical sense *identical* to the justification for spreading its vileness offered by its loudest critics!

(I should note that I have not watched this movie and do not plan to so take it for what it's worth!)

The obvious *difference* in the dynamic I'm talking about is in the medium--that this isn't a book, or a cartoon, but a *film,* which in its creation requires actively subjecting actual children to the sorts of depravities ostensibly being condemned.

Which is why in the end, despite the irony I noted before, I ultimately understand and sympathize with the conservatives I mentioned above--the primary evil is not that this movie exists, but that *children were induced to create it*

And why I think the Dreher quote up there at the top nails it. More and more films, please, that crucify a youth culture that chews up and spits out young kids! But only when their creators take pains to ensure they aren't perpetuating the very thing they're supposedly condeming.

It isn't like this is an impossible undertaking. One recent movie that (I thought) struck the right balance was 2018's Eighth Grade, which was absolutely devastating in its scorn for what the machine we've created puts kids through without being an ounce pornographic.

Don't have a bow to put on this. Woe to the inhabitants of the earth, I guess.