Throughout the world, the pain, suffering and voices of little girls are often ignored and silenced. French filmmaker Maïmouna Doucouré's debut film Cuties (Mignonnes) is an arresting assessment of the hyper-sexualization of young girls and grapples with the juxtaposition of this issue in a society where women are becoming increasingly sexually liberated.
The bold and disquieting film follows Amy, an 11-year old girl who moves with her mother and young brothers from Senegal to a jam-packed Paris housing project. While her mother, Mariam (Maïmouna Gueye), has become preoccupied with the devastating news that her husband has taken a second wife, Amy is left to parent her younger siblings. This includes everything from watching them, feeding them and doing the grocery shopping for the household. Similar to films like Beasts of the Southern Wild, Crooklyn and Eve's Bayou, Doucouré shines a light on how quickly Black girls are expected to stand in and complete tasks typically ascribed to adults. In contrast, little Black boys often basque in the attentions of their mothers, free of such expectations.
Though her mother has raised her as a devout, conservative Muslim, Amy soon gets her hands on an iPhone and begins to emulate the more provocative images of women she sees online and in music videos. An outcast in her plain clothing and large Afro puff, Amy soon finds herself fascinated with her classmate, Angelica, a Latinx girl who wears her slick straight hair and quick temper as armor. Angelica is fearless and volatile--the queen bee of her friend group that's dubbed themselves the Cuties. Eager to garner Angelica's attention and earn her place on the Cuties crew, Amy begins wearing her brother's t-shirts as crop-tops while intensely studying the Cuties' mannerisms and behaviors. What starts as an innocent desire to fit in and have a place in her new environment becomes a cautionary tale for not just young girls, but for the rest of the world that has decided that young girls (especially young girls of color) aren't worthy of protection.
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