Italian Novus Ordo Bishops’ Newspaper defends Quasi-Pedophilic Movie “Cuties”

A flick so revolting, even secularists are in shock…

Italian Novus Ordo Bishops’ Newspaper defends Quasi-Pedophiliac Movie Cuties

(We have blurred grave immodesty and suggestive poses in this
snapshot from the movie, which is featured in the Avvenire article.)

This post is being written with tears in the eyes, a lump in the throat, and mixed emotions. The emotions are anger, sadness, and nausea.

Avvenire is the official newspaper of the Italian Novus Ordo bishops’ conference, the so-called Conferenza Episcopale Italiana (CEI). On Sep. 16, 2020, this paper published an article defending the disgusting, evil, and utterly revolting movie Mignonnes, which in the English-speaking world has been released under the title Cuties.

Most people will already have heard about this sick film and so will be familiar with the controversy. For those who are not, the official storyline found at the Internet Movie Database gives enough of a hint as to the direction in which the movie goes: “Amy, an 11-year-old girl, joins a group of dancers named ‘the cuties’ at school, and rapidly grows aware of her burgeoning femininity – upsetting her mother and her values in the process” (source).

Cuties was released in the United States on Sep. 9 on Netflix, which prompted a #CancelNetflix campaign on social media. Although we live in a sick and perverted secular society and the forces of Organized Naturalism are working hard to break down even that final barrier, most people still retain enough minimal decency to hold that the pedophiliac sexualization of preteens definitely crosses the line into the intolerable.

Not so with the Italian Novus Ordo bishops, apparently. The headline of the Avvenire article translates as: “The boycott. ‘Mignonnes’ (Cuties) is a tough but educational film” (Il boicottaggio. “Mignonnes” (Cuties) è un film duro, ma educativo). It was written by Novus Ordo journalist Andrea Fagioli, who claims that “there is no ‘scandalous sexualization of adolescents’ as some of the 600,000 petitioners [against Netflix] wrote.”

Really? Let’s see.

Or rather, let’s not. The following is a blurred version of the original movie poster used by Netflix to promote the film (which they have since replaced with a different one).

No scandalous sexualization of children, eh?

To be clear: We blurred the image. The original is not blurred. There is a short clip of this dance scene on Twitter, but we decided not to link it — it’s the kind you can’t watch for more than two seconds (it takes one second for you to process what you’re actually seeing, and another second to find the off button).

In his article Fagioli, who is married and has three children, tries to downplay the scandal, claiming that people who are outraged at Netflix over Cuties “either didn’t see it or really limited themselves to the [movie] poster.” One may be excused for not wanting to see the flick after seeing the poster, but for those who remain irate “even” after actually watching the film, Fagioli has another explanation for their “misplaced” outrage:

…they either didn’t get it or looked at it with the wrong eyes. The film by the Franco-Senegalese director Maïmouna Doucouré does not revolve around a “scandalous sexualisation of adolescents” nor obviously “incentivises paedophilia”, as some of the more than 600,000 signatories of a petition against the online giant of film and TV series distribution have written.

No sexualization of adolescents, really? As “Fr.” John Zuhsldorf has aptly remarked, perhaps that is because “they are too young to be adolescents.” Touché!

While Fagioli admits that the movie is “very tough” — whatever that is supposed to mean — he refers to the “much more complex context” that the plot presents. He asserts that the director “tries to highlight, albeit in a contradictory way, [the girls’] innocence, the fact that they are little girls (one is ugly, one is fat, one has pimples …) who do things out of their reach, while never going to the extreme.” He notes that the preteen girls “talk, even in foul language, but then show that they know nothing about sex, nor do they care if they are considered indecent.” Fagioli lauds “the beautiful finale in which, with the game of jump rope, she rediscovers herself for what she is: still a child.”

Hey, that’s a great cover story, isn’t it? It’s really a film about girls’ innocence, you see! Never mind that it’s about destroyed innocence — you’ve got to appreciate the complex context and all that… And if you’re scandalized by that, why then you’re obviously some provincial, bigoted, mental midget who just doesn’t get it! It’s clearly not a movie to arouse the lusts of pedophiles or anything — how dare you (wink, wink)!

To add insult to injury, Fagioli has the audacity to conclude that “when understood correctly and presented well, Mignonnes can become an educational film.” But of course. We just have to understand it.

No doubt, it’s all about education — perverted sex education, perhaps. The secular “Parents Guide” on the Internet Movie Database lists 13 scenes/instances that fall under the “Sex & Nudity” category. We will definitely not quote that here. Those who “must” know about it can find that information easily. In the United States, Cuties has an official parental guidelines rating of TV-MA, for “mature audiences only” — by which they mean that it is intended for adults and “may be unsuitable for children under 17” (source). We would add it is unsuitable for adults, too.

The highly useful and entirely dispassionate secular movie evaluation site Kids-In-Mind summarizes its own assessment of Cuties as follows:

The Kids-In-Mind.com evaluation includes many scenes of preteen girls dancing with highly sexualized gestures and movements, with a few that include partial preteen nudity, a few scenes of sexting, some groping in a school setting, many arguments with a few leading to scuffles and fights, a near drowning, and at least 5 F-words and other strong language.

All the reviews of Kids-In-Mind describe movie contents objectively and in explicit detail. In other words, you are straightforwardly told what a given film shows — nothing more, nothing less. No content is praised and none is condemned; it is simply made known.

Ladies and gentlemen, we were going to quote from Kids-In-Mind‘s more detailed review as well, but upon reading the first few lines of text under its SEX/NUDITY category, we simply cannot. The entire detailed written review can be found here.

What we will show, however, is the Kids-In-Mind ratings chart for Cuties:

We repeat: This movie is being defended as educational (and therefore worth seeing) by the official newspaper of the Italian bishops’ conference. The journalist who wrote it “has collaborated on Page 3 of the [Vatican newspaper] ‘Osservatore Romano’, has conducted for several years a daily press review at Radio Toscana and has been regional president and national advisor of the Ucsi (the Catholic Union of the Italian Press)”. Enough said.

There is, then, one positive aspect to it all: We now know what kind of movie the Italian Novus Ordo bishops like to watch.

“And whosoever shall scandalize one of these little ones that believe in me; it were better for him
that a millstone were hanged around his neck, and he were cast into the sea.” (Mk 9:41)

We used the help of DeepL.com, Google Translate, and an Italian native speaker to help with translations from the Italian.

Image sources: own composite with elements from avvenire.it (screenshots, modified) / Wikimedia Commons / kids-in-mind.com (screenshot) / shutterstock.com
Licenses: fair use / fair use / fair use / paid