It's nuanced, which is why people are fighting about it so fruitlessly: because the correct position is not easily summarized or clearly to one side.
It's obvious people who assumed the film was glorifying this stuff before they saw it jumped the gun. They hadn't seen the film or considered that it might be depicting something to expose it as unacceptable. Now that the film is out, we can see this is true, but we can also see that the filmmakers probably depicted too much in the service of that.
It's obvious people who assumed the film was glorifying this stuff before they saw it jumped the gun. They hadn't seen the film or considered that it might be depicting something to expose it as unacceptable. Now that the film is out, we can see this is true, but we can also see that the filmmakers probably depicted too much in the service of that.
What it most reminds me of is Child Bride. An old sexploitation movie that tried showing the dangers of children being married off when they're still kids. The only problem was the 10 or 15 minute nude skinny dipping scene while some middle-aged hillbilly is watching from a bush and salivating.
That's the problem with cuties. It poses as a social commentary on young girls being unnecessarily sexualized, while at the same time there's a bit too much close-up camera work.
I guess Shirley Temple movies belong in there somewhere. I actually enjoy Shirley Temple movies, but there's always that scene where I'm thinking that maybe, just... umm... did we really need to have Shirley being passed from man to man while she's singing about a good ship lollipop?