there's a flashback in euphoria where maddie has sex for the first time with an adult and it is brushed over with the simple comment that she was the one in control. speaks perfectly to your statement that teenage girls are portrayed to be sexually powerful
There's some really creepy BS in Euphoria. I'm transfem and got more than a lil uncomfortable with how the first shot of Jules is the bulge in her panties, it was rlly the first time I understood why that stuff grosses out cis women.
I understand this , but we as a society keep watching the same shit and listening to the same shit. Unless everyone on this sub is staying away from the “art” of these really bullshit shows . Sexualizing a person who signed a contract and decided to get naked and sexualizing themselves for money and more gigs isn’t something I will have pity for . I’m talking about a 16 and up. You can’t be this stupid to believe all this shit
@@emzetkin1100personally, being a cis woman i wasn’t bothered by any shots of any of the girls in bikinis or underwear bc every girl had a moment where they were shown. This might’ve been an uncomfortable for trans viewers being that might be fetishization in & of its self showing a bulge shot (idk). To me it was only weird because it was the first time we realize she’s a trans girl (i’m pretty sure) before they introduce her story and say it. Her being gr00med and the shots of her looking up in the hotel room with nate’s dad saying creepy a** sh*t to her are the most jarring & horrifying to me.. weirdly enough sam levinson doesn’t find a way to glamorize it i don’t believe.
I honestly felt like puking throughout the whole video. Just even the name of the trope itself makes my stomach churn. It is really disgusting how deep-rooted and normalized this is in our media and it only contributes to the normalization of powerful men taking advantage of young people
Many are powerful men, but there are plenty of women who take advantage of young people as well. Way more than you think. They support those powerful men. Seems people like you only think it's wrong because you think it's only men doing it.
35:55 I absolutely HATE the "she knows what she's doing" perverted mindset so many men seem to have. Like, no tf she doesn't, you just see your sεxual fantasies as reality and appropriate.
they do that to absolve themselves of guilt. they know what they're doing is wrong but if they can convince themselves that its the young girls that are sexually aggressive and experienced, then they can sleep better at night. it's all about their egos
God, THIS. They always present it like it's the woman's conscious choice to attract "him" specifically (even if she wasn't even aware of his presence).
the fact that being exposed to these films at an early age warp your self image to the point that you fear growing old and losing “relevance” even though you’re still a teen is so depressing (and it’s even worse now as an adult)
@@Biblicallyaccurateanger im the same age and in the same boat lol i havent watched the video maybe ill be like thrown into a depression after but the way i try to think of it is like women's beauty is just based off their proximity to youth and beauty has no reflecttion on who you are, i am genuinenly excited to get older and have wrinkles and everything because i feel like since theres so much pressure for women to stay and look young its like im rebelling against that and having wrinkles and visible signs of aging shows you've lived and your alive and your body has seen and went through so much it's beautiful, even if you never have kids just by the fact that you're alive you're providing life to so many organisms on your body as is
@@bk9661🎯🎯🎯💯 💫 that part! Growing old means living through life & experiences… never again NEVER believe the hype of these cry baby male incels it’s a trap in itself 💯🥰 that’s a fact‼️💯🎯
@@billmcgee8804ngry about a child being exploited and sexualized…? Your comment is so weird. Those men didn’t act like that because they were ”expected to” but because they’re ped0s. Also why do you think we mistrust men? Probably because we’ve been given reason to. The odds of being attacked by a shark is 1 in 3.7 million. The odds of a woman being attacked by a man is 1 in 6 yet the fear of men is what is seen as unreasonable but being afraid of sharks is reasonable?
I think I can speak for many women in saying that our view of our bodies at 18 isn't "our prime" so it's quite telling that this photographer believes otherwise lol... No sir, apparently the teenage body is YOUR prime ideal and to gaslight young women into believing this along with you is only to your benefit.
YES! I am 30 now, and I would consider myself prime. It’s amazing how much better I feel about how I look and my body, and I get a lot more genuine compliments (not cat calls) now as a fully grown adult on my appearance than I ever did as a teen
@@catgrrrlart absolutely! I'm just about to turn 40 and my 30's were definitely the time I've felt more confident in my body and more complimented (uncreepily) than ever before. You grow into yourself, you know what style you like and what makes you feel comfortable, and you're more accepting of yourself. When I was 18, I was spotty and thought that a plaid shirt and corduroys are peak style, lol (not that there's anything wrong with them, it's just that I think I was a bit afraid to explore more feminine things - I was definitely affected by the "not like other girls" trope).
You don’t decide your prime! Is men , not you. You’re sexual attractiveness comes from the outside not from you, I can say Im in my prime now even broke and with acne
Protect your girls like the children they are! DO NOT protect them like potential temptresses whose purity must be kept! Your girls are children with their own autonomy and developing minds, not people who must be kept under control to seem decent. No children ask for it!
American Beauty is like “oh no the apathetic man has a well paying job, a huge house, and a healthy family, how horrible for him, what a bitch wife who he married and neglects emotionally”
In Euphoria, you should’ve also mentioned the romanticization of Maddy and Jules, having sex with way older men. Sam & his teams excuse for Maddy / Jules having sex with predators is “these females are owning their sexuality.” That doesn’t make it okay for Maddy or Jules to be sexually involved with predators. The sex scenes they show to was obvious they were trying to romanticize the situation.
I can see that with Maddie, but in my opinion, as someone had had relationships with older men when I was 17, but I didn't see Jules that way. It made me incredibly sad watching Jules because I've been there myself. It wasn't romanticized in my opinion, it made me feel bad and gross for the way I behaved when I was 16 and 17. 😊
Zelda Fitzgerald said it best "the best thing a woman can be in this world,is a pretty little white fool." Also immortalized,though stolen, by her husband in the Great Gatsby.
Researching and creating this essay was also healing for the same reason 😭 I’m glad you found some healing from this. Thank you for taking the time to watch and comment! 💖
Euphoria specifically should have been set in college. End of story. Them being high schoolers only creates problems. College kids though doing everything depicted there is more realistic.
Even as a man I have been harassed and bullied and shamed for not finding women babyfied in media attractive. Anyone who says this isn’t a problem is lying
@@loubloom1941 Way to gatekeep suffering from the patriarchy... And Idk, I think Id consider it harassing if Im repeatedly getting comments online and in real life calling me names and insulting me
I believe you. I have witnessed normal guys get harassed by perverted and low quality men over not acting and thinking like they do. Bad men become aggressive when good men do not agree with them because they don’t want to be exposed for the dogs they are and rather pretend that all men are like that. Normal mentally healthy and good men do not get turned on by this trash so you should just stand firm in who you are.
not saying ur lying but ur trying to make urself the victim by this and u clearly arent. u can never understand what it feels lik to be sexualised the way women are.
I am so glad you brought up the kat camgirl storyline thingy. Catering to older men online does not help your body image issues or your self esteem. Their validation means nothing, they'd give it to any girl who'd get naked for them. And the experience usually leaves the young girls feeling gross. It isn't empowering to be seen as an easy target to take advantage of. Those men don't see the girls as people, their gaze will not make you feel strong and in-control but like a piece of meat they tricked into getting what they want. You don't want that.
I thought later or in the second season it will be explored why this is a damaging mindset. Also with Jules and sleeping with older men conquering femininity. For me it was legit the only possible way the script could go. I guess because they didn't glamourise addiction like in other media.
When i was 14yo some woman approached me and she asked me if i wanted to be a model, after that i got to second modeling agency where was some male hairdresser who has commented that i look like a child and the other woman has said “with make up we can fix that”. They also made me braids similar to Dominque Swain in Lolita and they did it purposely. It was in 2016. It was very awkward and i was so young and confused, everybody told me i looked amazing but i could feel that things are not right. After that i started listening to Lana and things got even worse for me and as i got older i started to romanticize that kind of behavior and i ended used by older guys. Now I’m recovering from all those sick things.
Ugh I’m so sorry that you had to go through this. I can relate to this so much, as similar things happened to be and I definitely began to romanticize that lifestyle at a very young age due to the media I consumed. I’m glad you’re beginning to recover from those experience, sending you love and thank you for sharing 💖
I’m so sorry you went through that love 😢I know Lana’s songs do romanticize some bad aspects of life but damn to me Lana was like a book or a film, not something which would actually influence me in the real world, guess I was wrong. Hope ur doing okay now ❤
@@rosie6a lot of people felt this way about lana del rey. Developing minds arent capable of differentiating when there arent life experiences to compare. Marketing that music to teenage girls in the tumblr era was a recipe for disaster.
As a teenaged girl of 15 or 16 (I will soon be 30), I still remember MY OWN FATHER OPENLY and UNABASHADLY describe his fantasies of STEALING AND SNIFFING MY PANTIES AND MASTURBATING TO THEM. I remember being between the ages of 9-11 and unaware of my body language and his asking "do you want me to lust after you?!" And mom being okay with it! He's done more even worse sexual grooming/abuse to me but this sickens and confuses me still. My idiot mother found him lying on top me and said and did NOTHING.
This is so disgusting🤢🤢🤢,is he still alive?is your mother still with him unaware that he's such disturbing peace of sh!t?I hate this cruel malecentric world
Im so sorry! Its insane that one person could be capable of being sexually abusive to their own child, let alone that a mother could sit by and watch. Im sending you love ❤
It's crazy too because I feel like with the bimbo movement on tiktok it's almost the opposite of what films like house bunny and legally blonde set out to achieve. those movies emphasized that you can be ultra feminine and smart and a multifaceted human being, while so many tiktoks made for the "bimbo movement" seem to emphasize that you can be ultra feminine and.... stupid? like so many tiktoks when talking about femininity are like "i'm a woman and i don't use my brain" or "explaining things for the girls to understand" and it's just shopping and makeup metaphors... it feels like we've gone backwards 😭
I think the message is that women can be vain and love pink and girly things and be dumb and still demand to be treated with respect. We don’t have to be exceptionally smart or interesting or have to make up for caring abt our appearance and loving feminine things to deserve to be treated like human beings.
Its SO INTERESTING to me after seeing the brooke interview where the reporter asked her about waiting fir marriage "when (she) plays the kinds of roles you do" - because nobody ever asks a man who is mostly typecast as villians in roles like murderers and rapists and pedophiles and cannibals etc. Nobody ever asks the men who are typecast as nazis if playing nazis makes it hard for them to maintain their religious beliefs. Nobody ever questions them based on the roles they play. And men have infamously played roles like Jared Leto as the Joker where he was method acting, and acted terribly to others during filming/on set. The ridiculous catch 22 women are put in drives me insane - women are SO GOOD at acting that they can manipulate men into anything, but are incapable of separating the roles they play as actors and their sense of self. Women mature faster then men and should know better/be held responsible for 'influencing' male behaviour or to be responsible for childcare etc while still children, but are too immature and stupid to run for office or be prime minister/president. Women are better at household tasks like doing laundry, dishes and cooking, but shouldnt be in 'male-dominated' fields like engineering or being a professional chef (laundry and dishes both use machines, as does cooking - i know men who cant operate a microwave, dishwasher or laundry machine) Its blatantly clear that that women actually are is told whatever is needed in that moment to make us do what society wants, and isnt based in reality at all
Lolita being called a love story for a long time it still disgusts me to this day, and to this day there are ppl that see it as a love story,🤮 and yes "Why the hell did they make a Lolita movie?". I am truly worried and scared for the children out there, I wish safety and happiness to them, and I wish healing to the children who were victims of these disturbing behaviours. I still remember that time I was 6 and my mother told me to change my skirt because it was too revealing for my uncles who had came for a visit.
I got a physical copy of the book hoping it wouldn't have that awful quote from the New York Times calling it "The only true love story of the century." Unfortunately it does... Ironically it has a forward about how the book wasn't supposed to be a love story among a small biography of Nabokov. Grrrr.
@@princesskenny360Good book? You've never read the book! The movies show Lolita exactly as Humbert sees her in the book, so what are you talking about? Seriously, I'm curious. Can you explain?
@timmytee734 but we don't see the real girl, compared to the fantasy. And we don't see the real humbert. Why do we get a romanticised pedophile, when we should see horrific real life like abuse ? Even the autor didn't like the movies and the cast of the lolita.
@@timmytee734 ...the book and the novel are completely different presentation wise. Timestamp 11:15 onward goes over it. The author was livid that the movie adaptations were perverted.
OMG, I did not know about Shirley Temple's literal sexy baby movies, that is so disturbing, why was this made?! Really good essay, I think you are going to have a lot of success on RUclips with this format :)
@@k_a_y_l_e_e yeah, tbh, a lot of older generations and adults in general tend to look at the past through a glorified, nostalgic perspective, usually because they were kids back then and probably didn't face or understand the complexities, and have a similar mentality as an adult esp when a new generation comes along. what some don't understand is that certain things have been here since the beginning of time and it's an endless cycle
More about Natalie Portman- her portrayal in “Leon, the Professional” was based on the director’s, Luc Besson (he also directed The Fifth Element) relationship with his wife at the time, who he met when she was 12 :(
not to mention the fact that since this trope influences modern beauty standards women and girls who do not fit these standards can feel like they need to- thus putting them in a very vulnerable position. As a teenage girl who was bigger i would sometimes look at the attention my friends would be getting and feel envious. like somehow this harassment was a validation of their worth and experience that i would not experience. I recognize how screwed up that is but genuinely it felt like there was something wrong with me because i WASN'T sexualized. which is just all sorts of messed up.
As an early bloomer, one of my only features about myself that I liked were my breasts. They were large so my sex appeal should be higher than others. However, I was bigger so I didn't get the attention I wanted and I was jealous of the other girls.
I first saw American Beauty in a philosophy class. And when we finished the movie my friends and I were talking about how we hated the main character and how he was portrayed as a good man. To our surprise in class after finishing the film our teacher spent most of the time talking about how good and admirable the main character was and even said that the character Angela "asked for that". We didn't get to confront him about it and I regret not having done so but still that old man must have had the brains to understand that what he said was morally wrong.
Love this essay. Adding on to the subject of euphoria. Like you’ve said, it’s not the fact that teenagers have sex. It’s how the sex if depicted as adult sexuality which is highly sensationalised, fetishised, and objectified. The show does not show what real sex looks like, especially for teenagers who are just learning to explore it. Sam Levinson is a misogynist, and it shines through on the screen.
Yeah I mean Sex Education (the series) is out there covering teen sexuality without sexualising them. I was kind of hoping for it to be used as a counter example.
In a recent interview, Sean Young claimed that Ridley Scott had her do the sexual assault scene in “Blade Runner” as “punishment” for Sean Young rejecting Ridley Scott’s advances. 😬
I swear I could do a part 2 to this video because the amount of additional things I’ve learned about some of these directors and producers… yikes it goes even deeper
@@FinalGirlStudios You read right! It also didn’t help that Sean Young and Harrison Ford didn’t get along during filming because Harrison was annoyed by Sean’s amateur acting. Knowing all that stuff just makes the rape scene in “Blade Runner” painful and awkward to watch because I feel so bad for Sean Young. In fact, Sean Young deserved better considering how she was gaslit and blacklisted, all because she refused to put up with misogynistic, creepy men.
@@FinalGirlStudiosIn the case of Marilyn Monroe, Marilyn was actually a natural BRUNETTE who dyed her hair blonde during her early modeling days. Therefore, Marilyn Monroe disproved the myth that blonde hair dye cause a drop in IQ. If Marilyn Monroe were a brunette, people wouldn’t have doubted her intelligence (although she would still face sexism).
I think Noah Schnapp got the countdown clock shit too. It’s fucking gross. I pretty much watched the kids from Stranger Things grow up. They are still kids to me. The very idea itself is disgusting.
@@FinalGirlStudios apparently not. I was PISSED when I found out people pulled some weird shit with the Stranger Things cast. There was also when a guy said Finn Wolfhard had the best porn name and a girl said she wanted Finn to hit her up in 4 years. He was like 14 at that time.
the fact that i constantly feel like my "peak" age of desirability is coming to the end at 17 years old really puts into perspective just how much the sickening normalization of sexualizing and romanticising minors is plaguing the media and our entire society
As a young woman myself (19) i definitely don’t think this is the peak age. Because it takes girls/women a few years to figure out their style, what works for them, and also taking care of themselves.
Your brain is not yet developed , that happens at 25. Also why would you want to be desirable to creepy middle aged men? Because the "male gaze" says you should be?
I'm 25 and I can tell you from experience, 17 is not peak age. 17 or 19 yr old girls are teens, I was so dumb when I was that age and I didn't even realize it, I thought I was mature when really I wasn't. You'll grow up and realize this as well, at 17 you're a child, you should focus on studying and playing! Because if you put too much attention on looks and relationships I'm 100% sure you'll regret it like many of us have. Try to ignore the media, you're a baby still, focus on you and the things you like and I'm sure you'll do great. ❤ I'm not saying you're dumb btw, just that your brain isn't fully developed yet and thinking you're "mature for your age" like many predators tell us is a lie, take care of yourself.
There's a feminist essay from the 70s or mayve early 80s called "Playboy isn't playing" that touches on when it became popular to depict women as sexualized children.
Wow. Simply wow. One of the best video essays I’ve watched period. As a woman who recently turned 40, I can confirm that the “sexy baby” trope has affected my self image precipitously. My brain latched on to the number “40” (even though I was “too old” for most men at 25) as the point of no return for my attractiveness. I have a loving husband who finds me completely attractive but for some reason, grief about the loss of my youth set in and I felt old, ugly, and fat. Hollywood and pop culture have done a bang up job of infecting women’s brains to the point I honestly felt my life was purposeless if people didn’t find me conventionally (i.e YOUNG) attractive. I snapped out of it when I realized where that shit came from but it’s still such a struggle for women to age in our society. I watched a movie recently where the actress (in her late 20s or early 30s) had a remarkably-beautifully!-expressive face. It was so strange to see an actress with prominent folds on her forehead when she expressed frustration or confusion. Botox and fillers are so standard it was shocking to see an actress with wrinkles and folds when she expressed emotions. (There’s nothing inherently wrong with adults getting cosmetic surgeries/enhancements for themselves. It cannot be denied that pop culture fuels that industry.)
Thank you so much for sharing! Your husband doesn’t love you for “some reason”, I don’t know you but I’m sure your husband loves you because you’re a beautiful, kind-hearted, intelligent woman. Real men find maturity, and wisdom sexy. I also want to add that 40 isn’t old! You’re still young and when you are actually elderly you’re going to look back on yourself now and think “I was so young and so hard on myself” And I agree with you, I’m not against Botox or plastic surgery but it is a little dystopian to me that we as women are literally paralyzingly the muscles in our face to try and remain youthful looking. When expressing is such a big part of our lives and the way we communicate as humans. I also think smile lines are the most beautiful thing in the world, they’re a physical imprint of all the moments you’ve laughed and smiled and I think they should be celebrated rather than shunned. Ageing is such a blessing that many people in this world are not given the gift of. It can be hard to de-program ourselves from the youth fetishizing propaganda our media pushes on us but I am happy that women like yourself are doing the work to unlearn this toxic mentality. I am sending you love, and thank you again for sharing a little slice of your story with me!💖
@@FinalGirlStudios wow! Thank you for your lovely response! I’m going to be bingeing your channel this weekend! I’m just so blown away by your intelligence, creativity, and kindness. 💖
From an 18 yr old woman, i know that we don’t know each other, but i love you. You’re incredible, wise and full of beautiful experiences and memories. Your husband is a lucky man and all pf those reasons play a way bigger part in why he loves you than looks alone. Although i am absolutely sure that you’re stunning on top of that!!! My mother is 53 yet the most beautiful woman to me. No woman my age or ,,considered sexier/hotter” will ever come close to the beauty that my mom has. When i look into her eyes i see a woman with endless empathy and kindness that sacrificed everything she could to make me happy and give me a good life. I look up to incredible,amazing older women that i have in my life!! God bless you miss and i love you. Again i know that we don’t know each other but i love you and God loves you!!🙏🤍🤍
Wow. I relate so much as a now 34 year old woman. Our human societies are rooted in misogyny that runs so deep we have internalized shame and feelings of worthlessness. Hollywood is a tool that is used to brainwash the masses and many actresses are used as “beta kittens” as part of mkultra programming. A woman is extremely scary to a misogynist because at 25 our prefrontal cortex fuses and our brains are more mature in reasoning and decision making. This is scary because we are less easy to control which is why they prey on young girls and women in their early twenties. A woman who is healthy is also still fertile up into her early 50’s so the lie that young women are desirable because of their fertility is idiotic considering many are on birth control and these men who use them do it for fetish and not to procreate, think Leonardo DiCaprio. We have worth as women and it goes beyond what we can do for a man or a man’s desire. God made as us valuable equals, not inferior slaves to men. We have been lied to.
yes there is. botox literally paralyzes muscles in your face. cosmetic surgery is unnecessary, and botox is poison. most cosmetic surgery patients are women and most surgeons are men. stop lining the pockets of misogynist men
This was so fucking nauseating. Listening to numerous men try to dismiss and gaslight anyone who took issue with the intentional, blatant sexualization of children was infuriating. The photographer who shot a naked 10yo Brooke Shields for fucking PLAYBOY- how and why did this even happen?? It’s hard not to think that many straight men would willingly exploit a young girl if they felt they could get away with it. I still remember how terrifying the onset of puberty was. I was desperate for it to hold off for a little longer, feeling my childhood slip away every time I received unwanted attention from grown men.
Really well-made essay! It's SO infuriating how the men who adapted Lolita just embodied Humbert in their directorial choices and exploitations instead of doing the book justice and adapting it the way Nabokov intended. It was heartbreaking to learn about what came of Sue Lyon too. Brooke Shields' documentary about growing up exploited in Hollywood comes out soon; I definitely look forward to hearing her share her story
I never realized till just now that the concept has been central to the genre since its inception. The woman who invented the science fiction genre (Mary Shelley) created a character with the body of an adult and the naivete of a brand-new being. Except she didn't make it sexual. Because the concept of an adult with the mind of a child has plenty of questions within it to explore without stooping to sensationalism.
i always hate watching your videos not because they are bad or inaccurate but because i know you're right and the subject matters are so traumatizing that confronting them makes me feel physically ill. i dont know how to feel, i dont know how i'm supposed to recover or how i'm going to able to sleep tonight
Ah, I understand how you feel! I appreciate the support but remember to take a break from this type of content when you feel you need it. Sometimes it can be overwhelming to consume a lot of this type of information at once.
I look way younger and I've had grown ass men hit on me thinking I am in school and it's so gross. When I was really in school I didn't really know how to process it, u r told to be polite to adults and not cause a scene.
Thank you for this essay. It was very interesting. I’m in my mid 30s, so I grew up in the 90s and the 2000s. It’s hard to realize that a lot of movies that I enjoyed growing up are so problematic, but it’s great to be able to find essays like this that are so well researched and analyzed. I find especially Natalie Portman‘s speech to be very compelling because I do remember that she was very much considered the smart girl, and that image was pushed very heavily. I’m so sad that she did that intentionally to avoid being sexualized as a young woman.
Natalie Portman’s speech gives me chills every time, I got teary eyed multiple times editing while I watched her speech. I couldn’t image being 12 and reading that letter. It’s funny I always related and looked up to her because of her “smart girl” image. Thank you for taking the time to watch and comment 💖
@Fawn that was what made her push the smart girl image immediately since that was her first film. She covers the timeline of it in the video and mentioned the movie too.
God I HATE it when people say stuff like that “sex is like water” quote. It’s so fucking gross that it’s still a common sentiment. People still call sex a “need” or act like “it’s not a big deal”, and I’m sorry but I absolutely can’t see how there’s any purpose to making statements like that that don’t lead back to coercion and excusing predators. No one would have to “explain” their sexuality and how it’s “necessary” if they weren’t pushing it on someone who didn’t like it. You don’t need to explain something that’s already wanted and welcome. Calling sex a need or acting like it’s this unavoidable part of your nature and people just HAVE to do it is just like the “blue balls” myth. This way of talking exists purely to pressure people into sex that they don’t want (and for the record I’m talking about sex and not masturbation, by all means go home and jerk off, just don’t try to make it other people’s business). We already know that sex is natural, we exist because of a whole long line of people having sex. I’m sick of people trying to use “ending the stigma” as an excuse to push sexual topics and suggestions onto other people. If they wanted it, you wouldn’t need to tell them why it’s okay. We don’t need to worry about “unhealthy shame” unless someone actually fucking mentions feeling shame. We don’t need this preemptive strike against shame, if someone doesn’t like your sexual advances, that’s their goddamn business and you have no right to assume that it’s because they’re a “prude” or they have too much unhealthy shame. Sex positivity needs to focus a whole hell of a lot less on how natural and “normal” sex is, and a whole hell of lot more on RESPECTING that it’s a big deal for many people and they’re completely justified in NOT wanting to do it, or in feeling uncomfortable. People need to stop treating a lack of desire to have sex as something to be fixed and treated, and start treating it as a boundary that deserves to be respected. Not questioned.
The stuff you said about blue lagoon is part of why I get so upset by the “romantic” plots and icky-ass makeout scenes in earlier stranger things. People LOVE to justify this stuff by insisting that “we all did this at that age, it’s just realistic” and admittedly stranger things definitely doesn’t do the same level of sexualization, but I just don’t give a shit about whether it’s “true to life” or not. I don’t EVER want to see a scenario happen where underage actors are put in front of a camera and told to make out by grown ass adults. It’s, in my opinion, ALWAYS WRONG. Always. A person under 18, and especially under 16, shouldn’t be doing any more than a tiny peck on the lips on camera. It’s fucking gross to think of the directors telling these kids to do this, we don’t EVER need that type of “realism”. Especially when honestly I really don’t think all of us WOULD have been behaving sexually or super into relationships and making out when we were younger, if it weren’t for media written by adults constantly, constantly telling us that it’s what we SHOULD be doing. Sure, maybe we’d still come up with it on our own. But we sure as hell don’t need increased pressure to do this shit from grown-ass adults.
When I was 16, I was working at a grocery store for one of my first jobs and part of my job was retreiving carts from the parking lot. I was repeatedly approached by one red headed man who I would guess was in his 30s or 40s. It would happen every couple weeks where he would very closely follow me into the store as I pushed a row of carts in. One time he asked me if he could take me on a date and I told him that I was only 15. I wanted to seem younger so he would leave me alone, but he continued by saying "That's okay, no one has to know". I refused politely becuase I didnt really know any better. He left and I went back out to the lot and he drove by me and blew me a kiss as he left. I think about this interaction a lot and wish that I would have hummilliated him or hit him. It fills me with anger and disgust that he felt so comfortable acting that way to a very clearly under-aged girl (our name tags were even different colors for minors at the place I worked) in broad daylight in a very public place. I had a fascination with Lolita when I had heard of it because it seemed to mirror some interactions that I had been a part of as an under aged girl. I first watched the 1997 Lolita and a few years later read the book and the perspective of both stories are completely different.
we should also be criticizing the porn industry, too, the way we criticize movies and tv shows. i think the producers' and directors' porn watching habits affect the kind of content they choose to create. some of the most popular porn categories are "barely legal", "stepfather stepdaughter", and "daddy dom little girl". and some of these videos include actual minors, whether they were trafficked into the industry, their SA was recorded, or some boyfriend filmed them without their consent and uploaded the recording on pornhub. that site doesn't have a verification process, so you can never know for sure that what you are seeing is consensual. it's a misogynist and racist industry but for some reason most people think that it's above criticism
this!! its absolutely crazy how literally the main tropes in porn revolve around incest or pedophilia in some way, only excusing it by putting "legal" or "step" in the title. it genuinely scares me that this is what a shocking amount of men in our world get off to
All of these experiences from these notorious actresses are so horrifying, infuriating, and saddening. From your first segment of this video hearing about what THE Shirley Temple dealt with is insane. I'm honestly surprised and impressed that she was able to get out of those situations without being used by those men and I'm glad she was able to make that first guy feel embarrassed after she started uncomfortably giggling. He deserved to feel small and belittled after attempting to assualt a 12 year old girl. But when you got to second guy I was assuming Shirley would see the stockings and simply walk out and that would be the end of the interaction. Not that he literally had a button that automatically locked the door so that she couldn't escape. I've heard if the common place manipulation and rufies, but having a locking system like that in which it could trap vulnerable people with this predatory monster just as you said: something out of a movie.
I'm so sorry that horrible photographer assaulted you. You're doing amazing work with the content you make. I so admire it, and that you're being the change you want to see - it gives me life, knowing that teenage girls these days have access to this kind of content and do talk about it.
It’s also interesting that the actress that played Joi in Blade Runner (Ana de Armas) later was cast as Marylin Monroe in Blonde: an entirely fantasized and sexualized depiction of Monroe’s life and career.
Yesterday I was looking for a new show to watch and came across the k-drama "Legend of the blue sea" in which a beautiful mermaid finds herself stuck with a con man, she is gorgeous but has the life experience of a child and is very naive like a child. She was depicted doing exact things a child would do and honestly it seems innocent but this agenda is so ugly.
At least the 1948 British comedy “Miranda” averts the “Born Sexy Yesterday” trope by portraying the titular mermaid as an *amoral seductress who goes after married men and engaged men.* Miranda may be naïve on land, but it’s because *she flouts social norms,* not because she has the mind of a child. Miranda can be seen as a metaphor for post-war optimism and liberation, hence why she doesn’t have any of the sexual hangups that proper English ladies have. Miranda lacks a filter and is openly horny.
Great job, middle aged dude here appreciating your analysis. I keep thinking about the modern porn industry in this context, and the (imo) impossibility of squaring its current incarnation with the values of feminism or just plain anti-pedophilia. I sincerely wonder how many generations forward it will take for the social-“no” to outweigh the insistent emotional ubiquity of sexualizing young women.
I thought the “Born Sexy Yesterday” trope died in the 2010s, but it turns out that I was wrong since the 2023 film “Poor Things” grossed $108.6 million worldwide on a budget of $35 million and was praised by critics. Not to mention that Emma Stone won the “Best Actress” Oscar for her performance in “Poor Things”: ruclips.net/video/XDYBUnCqsyw/видео.htmlsi=vs0Wp6TRNbUQ73xd&t=4m25s You read right! Then again, the Academy loves awarding able-bodied actors who play mentally challenged characters (provided that they’re not “too mentally challenged”, as evidenced by Bella’s baby brain rapidly maturing). Furthermore, Emma Stone had already won at the Golden Globes, Critics Choice Awards, and BAFTA for her performance in “Poor Things”, so clearly the people who voted for Emma Stone thought that playing a “sexy baby” was ART! 😂
Thank you for speaking about this! I wanted to mention another factor in this whole thing and that is how this can affect neurodivergent people as well. I am on the autistic spectrum, being autistic is often associated with traits that are considered "childish", like naivety, straight forward speech, "childish" interests and hobbies (colorful lights, cartoons and things like this that I find comforting sensorially), high pitched soft voice, and trouble navigating complicated spaces (I sometimes need help crossing busy streets, and I feel the need to hold the hand of someone who's accompanying me to feel safe), emotional outbursts etc etc. Personally I am also asexual, which surprisingly seems to illicit even more sexualization from men. I straight up decided to stop trying to entertain the possibility of a relationship with a man, cause more often then not I felt this extreme infantilizing, predatorial behaviour from them. Although I don't have learning disabilities, and I have an high IQ, just because I need a little support men treat me like a dumb little child who's in need of being taken care of, and at the same time a sexual object. Often I was approached by "anime girls lovers" That wanted an hentai girlfriend, Or patronizing men who never took me any seriously. They were pushy and manipulative. The worst thing is that for some time I had started to internalize that sexualization. I almost completely gave up on the idea of an healthy relationship. Thankfully i was able to find a good person in the end, also asexual and on the spectrum, and for the first time I am starting to understand what it means to be respected in a relationship. Sadly, people with learning disabilities, lower IQ or in need of more support could easily fall victim of manipulation and gaslight, abusive relationships or s.a. and I believe that this sexualization of childishness is partly to blame too, because the same traits that make us easier targets are the same traits that make predators attracted to us. It's infuriating.
I’ve always said that female characters who embody the “born sexy yesterday” trope (that is, a mature-looking, sexualized woman with a childlike brain) are often coded as autistic or neurodivergent: ruclips.net/video/0thpEyEwi80/видео.html See Madison in “Splash”; Ariel in Disney’s “The Little Mermaid”; Celeste in “My Stepmother is an Alien”; Giselle in Disney’s “Enchanted”; and Sheena in “Sheena”. Ironically, Daryl Hannah who plays Madison in “Splash” is autistic in real life, which only furthers the autism coding of her character Madison: ruclips.net/video/Utp7RTRUbnY/видео.htmlm59s
I'm glad you found a partner and was able to see what actual normal relationship is. It's hard to find and start romantic relationship in sex addict society, especially for asexual people, so moments like yours give hope that there still a possibility.
I work for a suicide hotline and I am convince that most incels are ND. They don’t understand that those stereotypes are just fiction. I don’t mean people participating actively and educating themselves. Rather the content they share gets in the head of ND people. It’s so dangerous for media to keep this trope going. A lot of ND people use media as examples on how to conduct ourselves. I literally expect conversations to sound scripted and edited. Because I have them in my head 20 times before trying. As SM breaks down the walls more and more ND people will. Become visible and have opportunities they never had before. And I hope those of us who can see through it can help our ND friends who can’t.
I know it wasn’t the focus of the video but hearing Monroe talk about when her body would cease to “in shape” so matter of fact if not even given a hint of looking forward to it is so heartbreaking that she didn’t get to experience that, leaving her even more to be immortalized as just that body
I remember when I watched Glee as a teenager I thought I was abnormal or weird because I wasn't constantly having sex like the teens in the show and I compromised myself in ways that were dangerous to catch up to what I thought was normal for a 15 year old girl. I started selling newds to 40 year old men when I was 13 because of the way teen girls were portrayed in media and glamorized. Thanks for this video
This video essay is a lot! During quarantine I've been unpacking a lot of mindsets and cultural mindsets I saw as normal at one point in time, such as romanticizing older men- teen girls romantic and sexual attraction, being mature for my age, dealing with mommy issues, my strained interpersonal female relationships (due to devilish trauma involving bullying and CSA by women and girls (that in and of itself an issue to unpack regarding holding female predators accountable) and instances of older men that went over my head until years later), then me dealing with mental illnesses and personality disorders that run on my both sides of my family, and that I never got a chance to know what normal girlhood was like in terms of friendships and crushes cause I grew up so fast and I was mostly focusing on surviving and not having a nervous breakdown. (And I was an awkward recluse and loner at that.) And recently I reached the conclusion that I'm a late bloomer and even my navigating these various aspects of my life are complicated and messy (especially as I'm a black/mixed Jew who's autistic, disabled, interfaith, intersex, dark skinned and plus sized), particularly in context with reclaiming agency and autonomy. This is quite long but this video taught me a lot that I'll be thinking about for a long time.
Wow thank you for sharing this! I deeply relate to a lot of this. The topics I discussed in this essay I have been lamenting over for years, and continue to lament over them. I relate to you, and I also deeply related to Mena Suvari when she was speaking about how she was put into these weird situations with older men and never told it was wrong, but looking back she now sees that it was indeed wrong. And how people would praise her for being and looking “mature” and therefore treated her differently, which is something I also relate to and seemingly you do as well. And then the intersections of one’s identity certainly further complicates one’s experiences as you stated. Thank you for taking the time to share this, your comment really touched me. 💖
Thanks! And black and brown women and girls face similar devilish pedophilia, hypersexualition, objectification and sexualized infantilization (and in ways that are darker and nefarious), but that's another topic for another time. And recently I've delved into various subcultures such as punk rock, cripple punk, BDSM and agere as my way of reconciling my child-like side and my adult maturity in balanced and healthy ways, and I'm genderfluid and nonbinary and lately male and female gaze in pop culture and mainstream media has kinda disinterested me. So now I try to have my own gendered gaze 💖 And p.s. thank you for sharing your story. I wish you well 💐
Hello. I'm a filmmaker and film teacher. I enjoyed your video on Věra Chytilová's groundbreaking film Daisies. I just finished watching this comprehensive video essay on Hollywood's cinematic and actual crimes against women. I praise you for your balanced, nuanced and committed approach to this difficult subject matter. I appreciate that your video essay covers Hollywood media from the past as well as media from your generation. As you argue and show in your essay, it's unfortunate that the more things change, the more they still remain the same. I always teach in my film history classes that even though technology has "advanced", human ideas and behavior in depicting ourselves and others haven't really changed all that much for better, and sadly, for worse. I was familiar with many things you discussed here like the horrific treatment of Shirley Temple and Brooke Shields. I also learned a lot of new things especially when it comes to how working on these films and the behind-the-scenes real life bad and criminal behavior destroyed and damaged the actors like the cases of Sue Lyon and Mena Suvari. I also greatly appreciate that you're not afraid to criticize the "sacred cows" of Hollywood canon like the Blade Runner films, American Beauty, Kubrick's Lolita adaptation and Woody Allen's Manhattan. Your video essay could be a companion piece to Nina Menkes's documentary essay film "Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power" where she breaks down the male gaze using examples from canonical cinema made by mostly men and some women. I highly recommend you check out her fiction films as well like the excellent "Queen of Diamonds".
Thank you so much for your kind words! I appreciate you taking the time to watch and comment, it means a lot, especially coming from a teacher and filmmaker! And thank you for the recommendations I will certainly check them out!! 💖
I feel like a lot of girls are like this now between the ages of 18-26. Sometimes I've even seen it mixed with other elements like goth or even alt. Especially when it comes to social media.
Oh it easily goes up to age 35 now lol. Look at Grimes. She naturally has a young look, but in the past couple years she has gone hard on cosmetic procedures and makeup, as well as posing with upper teeth showing and leaning into lisp, to continue to present as adolescent.
its the same alt bitches that ruined hello kitty that think "reclaiming" this aesthetic makes them hot and powerful, and that men hate them bc they cant control them anymore. but men (and girls like me) just hate them bc of their annoying personalities
It’s very alive and very well in older women too. Society doesn’t even blink at all the over-50s who still dress to maximize their sexy baby persona. I feel so angry for them, especially for women with feet utterly destroyed by a lifetime in heels.
This is why I've never cared for My Fair Lady, even though I generally love musicals and pretty dresses and such. The ending really rubs me the wrong way. George Bernard Shaw had to fight critics and audiences who wanted to change the ending of his play, Pygmalion, to have a happy ending between Henry Higgins and Eliza Dolittle. He wrote Eliza to leave Higgins for good and marry Freddy, fulfilling her independent personhood. But, of course, when it was adapted to film, they changed the ending anyway.
I always liked to believe the return to Higgins was short lived, based on what Mrs. Higgins says and that Higgins doesn’t really even display romantic interest until after Eliza leaves
honestly, i don't think the issue in fifth element with her not speaking english is the way she says it, but the way that the other characters react and TREAT her like a child and speak to her in the way they would a toddler.
At first i thought she was speeking another language and the people around her were idiots haha. I guess it would have been better if she couldn't speak at all if the plot needs that obstruction.
Hey! I hope you read this comment. I entered this video thinking it was such an interesting topic and one I'm very much interested in, as it deeply resonates with me. Then I got to the part where you spoke about being sexually assaulted by a photographer, and I just wanted to leave a comment here telling you that I'm really sorry you had to go through that horrible experience as a teenager, and that you're not alone in that. I can only wish you the best and hope that you've been able to recover from that experience, although I know one never does... it's just easier to cope with it, and you grow from it. When I was 15 I started talking to someone 11 years older than me. Then at 16 we "dated" for a while. He was the first person I had "sex" with. Over the years something didn't sit right with that relationship, and I realized it WASN'T right, and that he had taken advantage of me. The power imbalance... Now I've begun to call it for what it is: abuse. So anyways. I just wanted to share that and to tell you that sadly many women can understand your experience and share it... and we're here, together. Also, I'm gonna use this opportunity to say that I love your content. I only recently found it, but it's literally so on point with everything I consume here on youtube it's crazy hahaha,. It's really well made, I can tell you put a lot of effort, work and research into everything you do. Thanks for making the type of content you make, I resonate with it a lot. I send you love from Argentina!😊
I deeply appreciate your kindness! Yeah I experienced so many sketchy situations with older men, especially throughout my teens. I think it’s why I feel so passionately to speak out about this predatory standard because I was taught to believe it was normal. I’m sorry that you also had to experience predatory circumstances. Thank you for sharing a little slice of your story, and for your kind words. 💖☺️
I would like to just Add that in the majority of adaptations of "Dracula" the character of 'Lucy Westenra' even tho describe in the book as kind, pure and beautiful, she is depicted in the movies are a sl4t and this is just my trying to figure out why. My theory: Lucy is 19 years old and daughter of a wealthy family, and she has 3 suitors of course as she is very beautiful and kind, but she is not the main female protagonist and she dies at the middle of the book by the hand of Dracula, that in my opinion Dracula could symbolize a s*xual predator, why? because thought the book, the emphasis how sweet and pure is Lucy's personality and also Dracula is a vampire and they drink blood being a reference for other body fluids, sadly in movies Lucy is portrait as "dirty" and more s*xual. She plays with the suitors heart and she kind of like to to be assaulted by Dracula.
It’s that whole scene from “Pretty Baby” - “you’ve got to act like you don’t want it, then after a while, act like it starts to feel good!” Men feel that young girls are impressionable and don’t know any better; they can be the best they’ve ever had, because they’ve never had anyone else. They can be the Ultimate Lover, the Ultimate Man, because they can shape this girl’s world to bias toward that. It’s fucking pathetic.
They wanted to turn Lolita into a love story????? That is sympathetic to the pedophile rapist???? I cant even begin to describe the amount of disgust i feel in hearing that
I am 35 years old, have a 12 years old daughter, and I am horrified to realise that late how much fucked up my life has been as a girl, teenage girl, young adult, and then adult. All those things I thought were totally normal, that no one in my family or surroundings would step up to help me see... I wonder if I would ever have realised anything if my daughter wasn't on the verge of becoming a teenager and didn't pass the age of my first sexual assault. This all is deeply engraved in our education. And I think it is probably even worse here in France, the way sexualisation of young girls is accepted.
i just recently started watching your channel and every video so far has been amazing but so deeply visceral at times. seeing these pictures of such obviously young girls and their CHILD bodies makes me feel exposed! like it sends me back to being 14 and feeling like i can’t escape eyes and that was just as a normal person. their abuse has been immortalized and praised for decades and they are ridiculed for being destroyed by their experiences. i wish this was discussed more because almost every girl i know has gone thru something similar to this but talking about it makes everyone feel uncomfortable.
even more sick that these men are blaming their perverted attraction to children on the children and acting like a child could somehow be predatory or sexually manipulative to an adult. this is such a common perspective i have seen in real life as well to the point that the child themselves believes that they were in control or initiated that contact. these babies need to be protected.
Oh my gd, I felt sick finding out about the Brooke Shields photoshoot. That's so disgusting. This is an excellent video essay, and I can't imagine it was easy to make. Great work
thanks for this video, im 30 and i have been feeling the "im too old, i lost my prime", wich is sad and unfair, i mean male actors get their first role at 40, why i feel like my life is already over?. This video explained it to me. Im no longer inocent or naive, in fact im doing my phd in biology, and im very cunning. These attributes are great, but men view it as something bad and they put me down because they feel treatened. With this video and the barbie movie, i have decided that i'll not longer allow men to hurt me. Maibe i'll be single forever, but i'll be sucessful. THANK YOU.
Fabulous analysis. I'm surprised this isn't viral yet. Incredible job and I hope this video soon gets all the attention it deserves. Thank you for the time and effort you poured into this.
I’m 30 minutes in and I need to pause again. And this time I don’t know that I can watch the rest, I might have to come back tomorrow. I’m Gen X so to look back with this context at movies, and Hollywood names that were held as legends for my generation, makes so much things that our generation had to deal with, make sense. In a want-to-puke kinda way. I am so so grateful you made this video. I learned so much. Thank you. This video is gonna make it to all the group chats I’m part of, one of our best weapons is to spread the information, and this type of researched content, especially with men.
I can't believe Shirley Temple dealt with all that from producers and I applaud the audacity she had to defend herself. Also I love your conclusion regarding a liking a work while also being critical of it. I like both Blade Runner films and I have to admit its depictions of women and BIPOC are not strong. The second film does improve it IMO, but it will probably take another 30 years to get a third movie that will be even better.
I feel like there's some similarities between Lolita and gigi where a young (obviously considered to be much younger then made into a woman ) girl is groomed to be a mistress for a much older man also the lovely thank heaven for little girls sung by a very old man yay
I agree! I thought about including Gigi but I had so many examples for the Lolita trope that I didn’t. Although I think Lolita the novel takes a more critical approach to the topic whereas Gigi the novella is written as a comedy (which I didn’t really enjoy at all). I actually like Gigi (1958) despite its controversy, but yeah the opening song is one of the creepiest songs I’ve ever heard.
Yep, this trope is definitely limited to women. The only male character I can think of that even remotely fits the "sexy baby" trope is Stewie Griffen, and he's more like an elderly, genius man in a baby's body. And the only reason I even remotely thought of him in context of this is that we saw him twerk one time that I can remember.
Yeah I would argue Stewie isn’t sexualized in the same context. Though I do think men and boys can be victimized by the “sexy baby” trope, most notably Björn Andrésen who rose to fame as a teen in Death in Venice, in an almost boy-Lolita-esque role. He faced a lot of the same premature sexualization that Mena Suvari, Sue Lyon, Natalie Portman, etc experienced. There is a very interesting documentary about Björn and his experience as a young star called “The Most Beautiful Boy in the World” which I really enjoy.
@@FinalGirlStudios Yes, I saw the movie based on Death in Venice when I was in college and I remember the character Tadzio. I haven't seen the documentary, but I read an article about that actor more recently and how much he was sexualized.
I’ll submit that women online tend to infantilize male characters they like (coined “woobification”) and they definitely enjoy born-sexy-yesterday naïveté, but I believe this is done most often because they are projecting what they know into fiction in an effort to humanize characters and bring them closer to their own experiences. Rarely have I seen women emphasize the physical likeness of men to prepubescents or to portray prepubescents as ‘seductive’ in an uncritical manner. How much of that is because it’s simply not done to boys I don’t know, since little girls have been so objectified in comparison and women do not get the same pass for being sexually edgy. They police each other MUCH more.
Oh and the female appeal for sexual naïveté is, “this man hasn’t learned an inclination to hurt me,” while the male appeal is, “this girl is vulnerable and hasn’t learned to get away yet.”
i hate chobbit with all my being, all my soul, i could never go beyond episode 2, no matter how many people told me it was good, or a classic. it feel disgusting. Just the fact alone that he has to touch her inside to " awaken" her is trully disturbing . And kinda feel like rape she couldn't say anything, i hate hate it.( the authors is a women so why !!??) At least the opening is fire.
Yeah I went to re-watch it earlier this year because I love the character design of Chi, I just think she’s so cute, but when I got to the part when he “turns her on” I was like oop-😳 and felt so uncomfortable and didn’t watch much further than that lol
Later in the story, when she is touched there unwantedly, she basically goes rogue and glows and it breaks the entire circuit and all computers go down for a bit, lol… she can only be touched by the one who loves her. She literally can’t be assaulted. Also, she’s a robot, she doesn’t have real feelings…
@@ducky19991 that where i think the story is weird, she should only be touch by the people she love and not people who loves her. Do you get the difference?
@@ducky19991 the fact that she is a robot that is designed to look like a human female makes the whole concept weird af. It’s just odd to create human like things and do things to it that you wouldn’t legally be able to do to a human woman or worse young girl. It’s like trying to find workarounds to your darkest fantasies.
this was such a fantastic essay, i was genuinely flabbergasted when i saw it didnt have more views. your video deserves to blow up!! the amount of effort put into the research and organisation of ideas is commendable. cant wait to see what else you put out!
Beauty is power, a power that men seek to control. If she is beautiful and intelligent, they cannot control her and fear she will weaponize her beauty and that will render THEM "powerless".
Halfway thru the video, I wanted to comment on "the Born Sexy Yesterday" trope, to note that the born-sexy role of Leeloo (played by Mila Jovovich) was under the director Luc Besson, who also directed Leon the Professional just three years earlier. In The Professional, there is a love interest named Mathilda, played by a 12 year old Natalie Portman, of the main guy (a 45 year old Jean Reno). But stranger than fiction was the fact that it was based upon a real life twelve year old child actress Maïwenn who director Luc Besson met and dated when she was 12, the same age as Mathilda in the film. It's very hard to separate the art from the artist in situations like that.
Watching the first section & realizing I`ve only ever known Shirley Temple as a child actress who had a non-alcoholic drink named after her, but never anything she acted in. And I guess I know why now. Hate that!! SO Much
incredible video, the sickness you mustve endured to craft such a thoughtful, nuanced and holistic piece of such violence is heartbreaking, but what you created out of that is incredible. thank you for the effort you commit to this and thank you for taking on the burden of educating others on it.
My exboyfriend liked controlling what i did. I was never over 115 pounds from the age of 14 to 18, i was always short like 4'9 or 4'10, i wore short skirts or pants with my underwear showing, he told me he wanted me to look like an anime girl. I didn't mind because I thought we would get married after i graduated. He went to prison right after i turned 18 during my senior year because he molested a little girl. I only found out because my exgirlfriend was one of his friends
Wow wow wow the Brooke shields photographs shocked me. I had a friend whose father did that to her and her sisters when they were children (took “sexy” nude photos) and he is in jail for the rest of his life. I can’t believe this was published in a magazine
Dude this was SUCH a great video. I had just finished a literary analysis for "No Use Escaping Tomie" for an assignment, and the point at 25:05 was so well said and so perfectly encapsulated what I wanted to say about Tomie’s relationship to her teacher in the first chapter that I was so sad I hadn't seen this video first to help me say it better. Wonderful work, just such an efficient and well said analysis 🙌👍
This desperately makes me want to reshoot lolita with its original themes just for the societal reaction. It pains me to think that humbert would still be defended and sympathized with
Imagine a Lolita remake where Dolores herself is never entirely shown, except for odd shots of her eyes, hands, etc. It would be really cool and artsy, and a more accurate adaptation without sexualizing a young actress.
This is such a well-researched video and you put so much effort into it! Thank you for creating this, I really enjoyed watching it. It definitely changed how I perceive the exploitation of young girls and women in media
probably the most interesting and important video essay i have ever watched on youtube, helped me develop myself intelectually but also emotionally as a man, thank you so much for it
I was watching this in class and just trying not to cry and feel sick at the thoughts, im just binging your videos and im just also filled with so much rage, in a good way as these videos portray a lot of feelings of many women
I’m going to binge watch your channel while I exercise (I’m a full time artist.. hardly watch anything) I can see you really do your homework. Your channel is very special to young women and also guys that may be trying to make sense of our bizarre world. Thank you so much 😊
there's a flashback in euphoria where maddie has sex for the first time with an adult and it is brushed over with the simple comment that she was the one in control. speaks perfectly to your statement that teenage girls are portrayed to be sexually powerful
I wish I would have remembered this while making the video! I completely forgot this happened
and she was what, 13? 14? disgusting
There's some really creepy BS in Euphoria. I'm transfem and got more than a lil uncomfortable with how the first shot of Jules is the bulge in her panties, it was rlly the first time I understood why that stuff grosses out cis women.
I understand this , but we as a society keep watching the same shit and listening to the same shit.
Unless everyone on this sub is staying away from the “art” of these really bullshit shows .
Sexualizing a person who signed a contract and decided to get naked and sexualizing themselves for money and more gigs isn’t something I will have pity for .
I’m talking about a 16 and up. You can’t be this stupid to believe all this shit
@@emzetkin1100personally, being a cis woman i wasn’t bothered by any shots of any of the girls in bikinis or underwear bc every girl had a moment where they were shown. This might’ve been an uncomfortable for trans viewers being that might be fetishization in & of its self showing a bulge shot (idk). To me it was only weird because it was the first time we realize she’s a trans girl (i’m pretty sure) before they introduce her story and say it. Her being gr00med and the shots of her looking up in the hotel room with nate’s dad saying creepy a** sh*t to her are the most jarring & horrifying to me.. weirdly enough sam levinson doesn’t find a way to glamorize it i don’t believe.
I honestly felt like puking throughout the whole video. Just even the name of the trope itself makes my stomach churn. It is really disgusting how deep-rooted and normalized this is in our media and it only contributes to the normalization of powerful men taking advantage of young people
Many are powerful men, but there are plenty of women who take advantage of young people as well. Way more than you think. They support those powerful men.
Seems people like you only think it's wrong because you think it's only men doing it.
Me too
I feel the same 😢
Same here, and still, we are asked why we are growing to hate men as a collective idea and why we generalize men's behavior.
35:55 I absolutely HATE the "she knows what she's doing" perverted mindset so many men seem to have. Like, no tf she doesn't, you just see your sεxual fantasies as reality and appropriate.
they do that to absolve themselves of guilt. they know what they're doing is wrong but if they can convince themselves that its the young girls that are sexually aggressive and experienced, then they can sleep better at night. it's all about their egos
facts!!
@@bastetowl3258well said!!
God, THIS. They always present it like it's the woman's conscious choice to attract "him" specifically (even if she wasn't even aware of his presence).
Who tf is “they” ?!
the fact that being exposed to these films at an early age warp your self image to the point that you fear growing old and losing “relevance” even though you’re still a teen is so depressing (and it’s even worse now as an adult)
I feel you :(
Ugh so true
So true. I feel lile i’m having a mid life crisis despite being only 17😭
@@Biblicallyaccurateanger im the same age and in the same boat lol i havent watched the video maybe ill be like thrown into a depression after but the way i try to think of it is like women's beauty is just based off their proximity to youth and beauty has no reflecttion on who you are, i am genuinenly excited to get older and have wrinkles and everything because i feel like since theres so much pressure for women to stay and look young its like im rebelling against that and having wrinkles and visible signs of aging shows you've lived and your alive and your body has seen and went through so much it's beautiful, even if you never have kids just by the fact that you're alive you're providing life to so many organisms on your body as is
@@bk9661🎯🎯🎯💯 💫 that part! Growing old means living through life & experiences… never again NEVER believe the hype of these cry baby male incels it’s a trap in itself 💯🥰 that’s a fact‼️💯🎯
drake literally KISSED a teenager on stage at a concert in front of thousands, so cant be shocked that euphoria is so fucked up
he's def a nonce
YOO this is so forgotten!
I knew nothing about the Brook Shields photoshoot..Oh my god. I feel like puking. Add this to the reasons we all have growing existential dread.
Right… it made me so unbelievably angry whilst making this video
I literally had no idea that they did that to her. And her mother of all people….??
Horrifying.
@@billmcgee8804ngry about a child being exploited and sexualized…? Your comment is so weird. Those men didn’t act like that because they were ”expected to” but because they’re ped0s. Also why do you think we mistrust men? Probably because we’ve been given reason to. The odds of being attacked by a shark is 1 in 3.7 million. The odds of a woman being attacked by a man is 1 in 6 yet the fear of men is what is seen as unreasonable but being afraid of sharks is reasonable?
EXACTLY
fr…. its so disturbing
I think I can speak for many women in saying that our view of our bodies at 18 isn't "our prime" so it's quite telling that this photographer believes otherwise lol... No sir, apparently the teenage body is YOUR prime ideal and to gaslight young women into believing this along with you is only to your benefit.
Yesss!! 👏🏼
YES! I am 30 now, and I would consider myself prime. It’s amazing how much better I feel about how I look and my body, and I get a lot more genuine compliments (not cat calls) now as a fully grown adult on my appearance than I ever did as a teen
@@catgrrrlart absolutely! I'm just about to turn 40 and my 30's were definitely the time I've felt more confident in my body and more complimented (uncreepily) than ever before. You grow into yourself, you know what style you like and what makes you feel comfortable, and you're more accepting of yourself. When I was 18, I was spotty and thought that a plaid shirt and corduroys are peak style, lol (not that there's anything wrong with them, it's just that I think I was a bit afraid to explore more feminine things - I was definitely affected by the "not like other girls" trope).
Biologically speaking at 18 you’re in your prime, yes. You’re are just insecure
You don’t decide your prime! Is men , not you. You’re sexual attractiveness comes from the outside not from you, I can say Im in my prime now even broke and with acne
Protect your girls like the children they are! DO NOT protect them like potential temptresses whose purity must be kept! Your girls are children with their own autonomy and developing minds, not people who must be kept under control to seem decent. No children ask for it!
American Beauty is like “oh no the apathetic man has a well paying job, a huge house, and a healthy family, how horrible for him, what a bitch wife who he married and neglects emotionally”
In Euphoria, you should’ve also mentioned the romanticization of Maddy and Jules, having sex with way older men. Sam & his teams excuse for Maddy / Jules having sex with predators is “these females are owning their sexuality.” That doesn’t make it okay for Maddy or Jules to be sexually involved with predators. The sex scenes they show to was obvious they were trying to romanticize the situation.
Yeah, I call bullshit on Sam. He can say "girl power" all he wants, but we know that's the furthest from his mind.
I think we'll see Sam Levinson get exposed for doing some heinous shit to a trans woman.
Uhhh how about we just simply stop consuming the shit the media shoves down our throats and calls art
I can see that with Maddie, but in my opinion, as someone had had relationships with older men when I was 17, but I didn't see Jules that way. It made me incredibly sad watching Jules because I've been there myself. It wasn't romanticized in my opinion, it made me feel bad and gross for the way I behaved when I was 16 and 17. 😊
Did he use the word „females“ to describe them?
Zelda Fitzgerald said it best "the best thing a woman can be in this world,is a pretty little white fool." Also immortalized,though stolen, by her husband in the Great Gatsby.
As someone who grew up romanizing these relationships this was healing
Researching and creating this essay was also healing for the same reason 😭 I’m glad you found some healing from this. Thank you for taking the time to watch and comment! 💖
Same here!
Euphoria specifically should have been set in college. End of story. Them being high schoolers only creates problems. College kids though doing everything depicted there is more realistic.
Even as a man I have been harassed and bullied and shamed for not finding women babyfied in media attractive.
Anyone who says this isn’t a problem is lying
Keep doing you bro you’re a gem!!
I agree but I doubt you've been harassed over it.
@@loubloom1941 Way to gatekeep suffering from the patriarchy...
And Idk, I think Id consider it harassing if Im repeatedly getting comments online and in real life calling me names and insulting me
I believe you. I have witnessed normal guys get harassed by perverted and low quality men over not acting and thinking like they do. Bad men become aggressive when good men do not agree with them because they don’t want to be exposed for the dogs they are and rather pretend that all men are like that. Normal mentally healthy and good men do not get turned on by this trash so you should just stand firm in who you are.
not saying ur lying but ur trying to make urself the victim by this and u clearly arent. u can never understand what it feels lik to be sexualised the way women are.
I am so glad you brought up the kat camgirl storyline thingy. Catering to older men online does not help your body image issues or your self esteem. Their validation means nothing, they'd give it to any girl who'd get naked for them. And the experience usually leaves the young girls feeling gross. It isn't empowering to be seen as an easy target to take advantage of. Those men don't see the girls as people, their gaze will not make you feel strong and in-control but like a piece of meat they tricked into getting what they want. You don't want that.
AMEN
I thought later or in the second season it will be explored why this is a damaging mindset. Also with Jules and sleeping with older men conquering femininity. For me it was legit the only possible way the script could go. I guess because they didn't glamourise addiction like in other media.
When i was 14yo some woman approached me and she asked me if i wanted to be a model, after that i got to second modeling agency where was some male hairdresser who has commented that i look like a child and the other woman has said “with make up we can fix that”. They also made me braids similar to Dominque Swain in Lolita and they did it purposely. It was in 2016. It was very awkward and i was so young and confused, everybody told me i looked amazing but i could feel that things are not right. After that i started listening to Lana and things got even worse for me and as i got older i started to romanticize that kind of behavior and i ended used by older guys. Now I’m recovering from all those sick things.
Ugh I’m so sorry that you had to go through this. I can relate to this so much, as similar things happened to be and I definitely began to romanticize that lifestyle at a very young age due to the media I consumed. I’m glad you’re beginning to recover from those experience, sending you love and thank you for sharing 💖
I’m so sorry you went through that love 😢I know Lana’s songs do romanticize some bad aspects of life but damn to me Lana was like a book or a film, not something which would actually influence me in the real world, guess I was wrong. Hope ur doing okay now ❤
@@rosie6a lot of people felt this way about lana del rey. Developing minds arent capable of differentiating when there arent life experiences to compare. Marketing that music to teenage girls in the tumblr era was a recipe for disaster.
Lana del Rey romantices all these very creepy aspects of society. Sadly we’re not ready for this conversation
😢❤️ I am so sorry
As a teenaged girl of 15 or 16 (I will soon be 30), I still remember MY OWN FATHER OPENLY and UNABASHADLY describe his fantasies of STEALING AND SNIFFING MY PANTIES AND MASTURBATING TO THEM. I remember being between the ages of 9-11 and unaware of my body language and his asking "do you want me to lust after you?!" And mom being okay with it! He's done more even worse sexual grooming/abuse to me but this sickens and confuses me still. My idiot mother found him lying on top me and said and did NOTHING.
I'm so sprry ypu had to go through that, that's horrible:(
This is so disgusting🤢🤢🤢,is he still alive?is your mother still with him unaware that he's such disturbing peace of sh!t?I hate this cruel malecentric world
That sounds so sick and wrong and I’m sorry you had to go through that 😢
Im so sorry! Its insane that one person could be capable of being sexually abusive to their own child, let alone that a mother could sit by and watch.
Im sending you love ❤
It's crazy too because I feel like with the bimbo movement on tiktok it's almost the opposite of what films like house bunny and legally blonde set out to achieve. those movies emphasized that you can be ultra feminine and smart and a multifaceted human being, while so many tiktoks made for the "bimbo movement" seem to emphasize that you can be ultra feminine and.... stupid? like so many tiktoks when talking about femininity are like "i'm a woman and i don't use my brain" or "explaining things for the girls to understand" and it's just shopping and makeup metaphors... it feels like we've gone backwards 😭
I think the message is that women can be vain and love pink and girly things and be dumb and still demand to be treated with respect. We don’t have to be exceptionally smart or interesting or have to make up for caring abt our appearance and loving feminine things to deserve to be treated like human beings.
Tick tock is created fore the sole purpose of making us go backwards
Its SO INTERESTING to me after seeing the brooke interview where the reporter asked her about waiting fir marriage "when (she) plays the kinds of roles you do" - because nobody ever asks a man who is mostly typecast as villians in roles like murderers and rapists and pedophiles and cannibals etc.
Nobody ever asks the men who are typecast as nazis if playing nazis makes it hard for them to maintain their religious beliefs. Nobody ever questions them based on the roles they play. And men have infamously played roles like Jared Leto as the Joker where he was method acting, and acted terribly to others during filming/on set.
The ridiculous catch 22 women are put in drives me insane - women are SO GOOD at acting that they can manipulate men into anything, but are incapable of separating the roles they play as actors and their sense of self. Women mature faster then men and should know better/be held responsible for 'influencing' male behaviour or to be responsible for childcare etc while still children, but are too immature and stupid to run for office or be prime minister/president. Women are better at household tasks like doing laundry, dishes and cooking, but shouldnt be in 'male-dominated' fields like engineering or being a professional chef (laundry and dishes both use machines, as does cooking - i know men who cant operate a microwave, dishwasher or laundry machine)
Its blatantly clear that that women actually are is told whatever is needed in that moment to make us do what society wants, and isnt based in reality at all
Lolita being called a love story for a long time it still disgusts me to this day, and to this day there are ppl that see it as a love story,🤮 and yes "Why the hell did they make a Lolita movie?". I am truly worried and scared for the children out there, I wish safety and happiness to them, and I wish healing to the children who were victims of these disturbing behaviours.
I still remember that time I was 6 and my mother told me to change my skirt because it was too revealing for my uncles who had came for a visit.
lolita is such a terrifyingly good story as a book , but just wierd and creepy as a movie .
I got a physical copy of the book hoping it wouldn't have that awful quote from the New York Times calling it "The only true love story of the century."
Unfortunately it does... Ironically it has a forward about how the book wasn't supposed to be a love story among a small biography of Nabokov. Grrrr.
@@princesskenny360Good book? You've never read the book! The movies show Lolita exactly as Humbert sees her in the book, so what are you talking about? Seriously, I'm curious. Can you explain?
@timmytee734 but we don't see the real girl, compared to the fantasy. And we don't see the real humbert. Why do we get a romanticised pedophile, when we should see horrific real life like abuse ? Even the autor didn't like the movies and the cast of the lolita.
@@timmytee734 ...the book and the novel are completely different presentation wise. Timestamp 11:15 onward goes over it. The author was livid that the movie adaptations were perverted.
It's baffling to think about how Portman endured all that and still signed the Polanski petition
She's also a zionist
@@irulan8854 I'm honestly way too tired of politics... your shit's gonna make matters worse.
OMG, I did not know about Shirley Temple's literal sexy baby movies, that is so disturbing, why was this made?! Really good essay, I think you are going to have a lot of success on RUclips with this format :)
Thank you so much💖
i just think it's funny that people think society is just now becoming twisted when, in fact, society has not changed at all. the technology has.
@@k_a_y_l_e_e yeah, tbh, a lot of older generations and adults in general tend to look at the past through a glorified, nostalgic perspective, usually because they were kids back then and probably didn't face or understand the complexities, and have a similar mentality as an adult esp when a new generation comes along. what some don't understand is that certain things have been here since the beginning of time and it's an endless cycle
More about Natalie Portman- her portrayal in “Leon, the Professional” was based on the director’s, Luc Besson (he also directed The Fifth Element) relationship with his wife at the time, who he met when she was 12 :(
wtf I didn’t know that. I always thought that movie looked weird, gave me the ick. Makes sense considering
not to mention the fact that since this trope influences modern beauty standards women and girls who do not fit these standards can feel like they need to- thus putting them in a very vulnerable position. As a teenage girl who was bigger i would sometimes look at the attention my friends would be getting and feel envious. like somehow this harassment was a validation of their worth and experience that i would not experience. I recognize how screwed up that is but genuinely it felt like there was something wrong with me because i WASN'T sexualized. which is just all sorts of messed up.
Yes! So true
FACTS
Truth
As an early bloomer, one of my only features about myself that I liked were my breasts. They were large so my sex appeal should be higher than others. However, I was bigger so I didn't get the attention I wanted and I was jealous of the other girls.
I too struggled with this and now that Im nearly 50 I realised how wrong it was, but I was so envious.
I first saw American Beauty in a philosophy class. And when we finished the movie my friends and I were talking about how we hated the main character and how he was portrayed as a good man. To our surprise in class after finishing the film our teacher spent most of the time talking about how good and admirable the main character was and even said that the character Angela "asked for that". We didn't get to confront him about it and I regret not having done so but still that old man must have had the brains to understand that what he said was morally wrong.
BRUH WHAT THE FUCK??
Sadly men do understand they are morally wrong for this,but instead of making it right,they literally DOUBLE DOWN on it and then get mad at us women!!
Wtf
Reminds me of reading The Assistant in an English class after the R scene I hated the male protagonist
Love this essay. Adding on to the subject of euphoria. Like you’ve said, it’s not the fact that teenagers have sex. It’s how the sex if depicted as adult sexuality which is highly sensationalised, fetishised, and objectified. The show does not show what real sex looks like, especially for teenagers who are just learning to explore it. Sam Levinson is a misogynist, and it shines through on the screen.
Yeah I mean Sex Education (the series) is out there covering teen sexuality without sexualising them. I was kind of hoping for it to be used as a counter example.
In a recent interview, Sean Young claimed that Ridley Scott had her do the sexual assault scene in “Blade Runner” as “punishment” for Sean Young rejecting Ridley Scott’s advances. 😬
WHAT
I swear I could do a part 2 to this video because the amount of additional things I’ve learned about some of these directors and producers… yikes it goes even deeper
@@FinalGirlStudios You read right!
It also didn’t help that Sean Young and Harrison Ford didn’t get along during filming because Harrison was annoyed by Sean’s amateur acting.
Knowing all that stuff just makes the rape scene in “Blade Runner” painful and awkward to watch because I feel so bad for Sean Young.
In fact, Sean Young deserved better considering how she was gaslit and blacklisted, all because she refused to put up with misogynistic, creepy men.
@@FinalGirlStudiosIn the case of Marilyn Monroe, Marilyn was actually a natural BRUNETTE who dyed her hair blonde during her early modeling days.
Therefore, Marilyn Monroe disproved the myth that blonde hair dye cause a drop in IQ.
If Marilyn Monroe were a brunette, people wouldn’t have doubted her intelligence (although she would still face sexism).
@@FinalGirlStudiosyes please do! I came back to this video to rewatch since it was so well done
I think Noah Schnapp got the countdown clock shit too. It’s fucking gross. I pretty much watched the kids from Stranger Things grow up. They are still kids to me. The very idea itself is disgusting.
Omg not Noah😭 Can people just be normal???
@@FinalGirlStudios apparently not. I was PISSED when I found out people pulled some weird shit with the Stranger Things cast. There was also when a guy said Finn Wolfhard had the best porn name and a girl said she wanted Finn to hit her up in 4 years. He was like 14 at that time.
@@starrsmith3810Ew
the fact that i constantly feel like my "peak" age of desirability is coming to the end at 17 years old really puts into perspective just how much the sickening normalization of sexualizing and romanticising minors is plaguing the media and our entire society
As a young woman myself (19) i definitely don’t think this is the peak age. Because it takes girls/women a few years to figure out their style, what works for them, and also taking care of themselves.
Your brain is not yet developed , that happens at 25. Also why would you want to be desirable to creepy middle aged men? Because the "male gaze" says you should be?
I'm 25 and I can tell you from experience, 17 is not peak age. 17 or 19 yr old girls are teens, I was so dumb when I was that age and I didn't even realize it, I thought I was mature when really I wasn't. You'll grow up and realize this as well, at 17 you're a child, you should focus on studying and playing! Because if you put too much attention on looks and relationships I'm 100% sure you'll regret it like many of us have. Try to ignore the media, you're a baby still, focus on you and the things you like and I'm sure you'll do great. ❤ I'm not saying you're dumb btw, just that your brain isn't fully developed yet and thinking you're "mature for your age" like many predators tell us is a lie, take care of yourself.
There's a feminist essay from the 70s or mayve early 80s called "Playboy isn't playing" that touches on when it became popular to depict women as sexualized children.
Wow. Simply wow. One of the best video essays I’ve watched period. As a woman who recently turned 40, I can confirm that the “sexy baby” trope has affected my self image precipitously. My brain latched on to the number “40” (even though I was “too old” for most men at 25) as the point of no return for my attractiveness. I have a loving husband who finds me completely attractive but for some reason, grief about the loss of my youth set in and I felt old, ugly, and fat. Hollywood and pop culture have done a bang up job of infecting women’s brains to the point I honestly felt my life was purposeless if people didn’t find me conventionally (i.e YOUNG) attractive. I snapped out of it when I realized where that shit came from but it’s still such a struggle for women to age in our society. I watched a movie recently where the actress (in her late 20s or early 30s) had a remarkably-beautifully!-expressive face. It was so strange to see an actress with prominent folds on her forehead when she expressed frustration or confusion. Botox and fillers are so standard it was shocking to see an actress with wrinkles and folds when she expressed emotions. (There’s nothing inherently wrong with adults getting cosmetic surgeries/enhancements for themselves. It cannot be denied that pop culture fuels that industry.)
Thank you so much for sharing! Your husband doesn’t love you for “some reason”, I don’t know you but I’m sure your husband loves you because you’re a beautiful, kind-hearted, intelligent woman. Real men find maturity, and wisdom sexy. I also want to add that 40 isn’t old! You’re still young and when you are actually elderly you’re going to look back on yourself now and think “I was so young and so hard on myself”
And I agree with you, I’m not against Botox or plastic surgery but it is a little dystopian to me that we as women are literally paralyzingly the muscles in our face to try and remain youthful looking. When expressing is such a big part of our lives and the way we communicate as humans. I also think smile lines are the most beautiful thing in the world, they’re a physical imprint of all the moments you’ve laughed and smiled and I think they should be celebrated rather than shunned. Ageing is such a blessing that many people in this world are not given the gift of.
It can be hard to de-program ourselves from the youth fetishizing propaganda our media pushes on us but I am happy that women like yourself are doing the work to unlearn this toxic mentality. I am sending you love, and thank you again for sharing a little slice of your story with me!💖
@@FinalGirlStudios wow! Thank you for your lovely response! I’m going to be bingeing your channel this weekend! I’m just so blown away by your intelligence, creativity, and kindness. 💖
From an 18 yr old woman, i know that we don’t know each other, but i love you. You’re incredible, wise and full of beautiful experiences and memories. Your husband is a lucky man and all pf those reasons play a way bigger part in why he loves you than looks alone. Although i am absolutely sure that you’re stunning on top of that!!! My mother is 53 yet the most beautiful woman to me. No woman my age or ,,considered sexier/hotter” will ever come close to the beauty that my mom has. When i look into her eyes i see a woman with endless empathy and kindness that sacrificed everything she could to make me happy and give me a good life. I look up to incredible,amazing older women that i have in my life!! God bless you miss and i love you. Again i know that we don’t know each other but i love you and God loves you!!🙏🤍🤍
Wow. I relate so much as a now 34 year old woman. Our human societies are rooted in misogyny that runs so deep we have internalized shame and feelings of worthlessness. Hollywood is a tool that is used to brainwash the masses and many actresses are used as “beta kittens” as part of mkultra programming. A woman is extremely scary to a misogynist because at 25 our prefrontal cortex fuses and our brains are more mature in reasoning and decision making. This is scary because we are less easy to control which is why they prey on young girls and women in their early twenties. A woman who is healthy is also still fertile up into her early 50’s so the lie that young women are desirable because of their fertility is idiotic considering many are on birth control and these men who use them do it for fetish and not to procreate, think Leonardo DiCaprio. We have worth as women and it goes beyond what we can do for a man or a man’s desire. God made as us valuable equals, not inferior slaves to men. We have been lied to.
yes there is. botox literally paralyzes muscles in your face. cosmetic surgery is unnecessary, and botox is poison. most cosmetic surgery patients are women and most surgeons are men. stop lining the pockets of misogynist men
“Sexy” and “baby” should never ever be in the same sentence. Leave kids alone.
This was so fucking nauseating. Listening to numerous men try to dismiss and gaslight anyone who took issue with the intentional, blatant sexualization of children was infuriating. The photographer who shot a naked 10yo Brooke Shields for fucking PLAYBOY- how and why did this even happen?? It’s hard not to think that many straight men would willingly exploit a young girl if they felt they could get away with it. I still remember how terrifying the onset of puberty was. I was desperate for it to hold off for a little longer, feeling my childhood slip away every time I received unwanted attention from grown men.
Really well-made essay! It's SO infuriating how the men who adapted Lolita just embodied Humbert in their directorial choices and exploitations instead of doing the book justice and adapting it the way Nabokov intended. It was heartbreaking to learn about what came of Sue Lyon too. Brooke Shields' documentary about growing up exploited in Hollywood comes out soon; I definitely look forward to hearing her share her story
I never realized till just now that the concept has been central to the genre since its inception.
The woman who invented the science fiction genre (Mary Shelley) created a character with the body of an adult and the naivete of a brand-new being. Except she didn't make it sexual. Because the concept of an adult with the mind of a child has plenty of questions within it to explore without stooping to sensationalism.
That’s a fantastic point!
Ironic since the movie “Poor Things” is basically what would happen if you made Frankenstein’s monster an incredibly horny woman.
i always hate watching your videos not because they are bad or inaccurate but because i know you're right and the subject matters are so traumatizing that confronting them makes me feel physically ill. i dont know how to feel, i dont know how i'm supposed to recover or how i'm going to able to sleep tonight
Ah, I understand how you feel! I appreciate the support but remember to take a break from this type of content when you feel you need it. Sometimes it can be overwhelming to consume a lot of this type of information at once.
I feel this same way
I look way younger and I've had grown ass men hit on me thinking I am in school and it's so gross. When I was really in school I didn't really know how to process it, u r told to be polite to adults and not cause a scene.
Thank you for this essay. It was very interesting. I’m in my mid 30s, so I grew up in the 90s and the 2000s. It’s hard to realize that a lot of movies that I enjoyed growing up are so problematic, but it’s great to be able to find essays like this that are so well researched and analyzed. I find especially Natalie Portman‘s speech to be very compelling because I do remember that she was very much considered the smart girl, and that image was pushed very heavily. I’m so sad that she did that intentionally to avoid being sexualized as a young woman.
Natalie Portman’s speech gives me chills every time, I got teary eyed multiple times editing while I watched her speech. I couldn’t image being 12 and reading that letter. It’s funny I always related and looked up to her because of her “smart girl” image.
Thank you for taking the time to watch and comment 💖
Did you forget Leon the professional..
@Fawn that was what made her push the smart girl image immediately since that was her first film. She covers the timeline of it in the video and mentioned the movie too.
Your channel has been one of the most eye-opening things in my life as a male adult and as a member of society. I am immensly thankful for your work!
This is such a kind comment thank you! I appreciate your willingness to hear my perspective and thoughts. Thankful to have you as a viewer!🥰
God I HATE it when people say stuff like that “sex is like water” quote. It’s so fucking gross that it’s still a common sentiment. People still call sex a “need” or act like “it’s not a big deal”, and I’m sorry but I absolutely can’t see how there’s any purpose to making statements like that that don’t lead back to coercion and excusing predators. No one would have to “explain” their sexuality and how it’s “necessary” if they weren’t pushing it on someone who didn’t like it. You don’t need to explain something that’s already wanted and welcome. Calling sex a need or acting like it’s this unavoidable part of your nature and people just HAVE to do it is just like the “blue balls” myth. This way of talking exists purely to pressure people into sex that they don’t want (and for the record I’m talking about sex and not masturbation, by all means go home and jerk off, just don’t try to make it other people’s business). We already know that sex is natural, we exist because of a whole long line of people having sex. I’m sick of people trying to use “ending the stigma” as an excuse to push sexual topics and suggestions onto other people. If they wanted it, you wouldn’t need to tell them why it’s okay. We don’t need to worry about “unhealthy shame” unless someone actually fucking mentions feeling shame. We don’t need this preemptive strike against shame, if someone doesn’t like your sexual advances, that’s their goddamn business and you have no right to assume that it’s because they’re a “prude” or they have too much unhealthy shame. Sex positivity needs to focus a whole hell of a lot less on how natural and “normal” sex is, and a whole hell of lot more on RESPECTING that it’s a big deal for many people and they’re completely justified in NOT wanting to do it, or in feeling uncomfortable. People need to stop treating a lack of desire to have sex as something to be fixed and treated, and start treating it as a boundary that deserves to be respected. Not questioned.
The stuff you said about blue lagoon is part of why I get so upset by the “romantic” plots and icky-ass makeout scenes in earlier stranger things. People LOVE to justify this stuff by insisting that “we all did this at that age, it’s just realistic” and admittedly stranger things definitely doesn’t do the same level of sexualization, but I just don’t give a shit about whether it’s “true to life” or not. I don’t EVER want to see a scenario happen where underage actors are put in front of a camera and told to make out by grown ass adults. It’s, in my opinion, ALWAYS WRONG. Always. A person under 18, and especially under 16, shouldn’t be doing any more than a tiny peck on the lips on camera. It’s fucking gross to think of the directors telling these kids to do this, we don’t EVER need that type of “realism”. Especially when honestly I really don’t think all of us WOULD have been behaving sexually or super into relationships and making out when we were younger, if it weren’t for media written by adults constantly, constantly telling us that it’s what we SHOULD be doing. Sure, maybe we’d still come up with it on our own. But we sure as hell don’t need increased pressure to do this shit from grown-ass adults.
Thank you! I stopped watching Stranger Things after all the child kissing scenes that one season. Why is that entertainment for people?!
When I was 16, I was working at a grocery store for one of my first jobs and part of my job was retreiving carts from the parking lot. I was repeatedly approached by one red headed man who I would guess was in his 30s or 40s. It would happen every couple weeks where he would very closely follow me into the store as I pushed a row of carts in. One time he asked me if he could take me on a date and I told him that I was only 15. I wanted to seem younger so he would leave me alone, but he continued by saying "That's okay, no one has to know". I refused politely becuase I didnt really know any better. He left and I went back out to the lot and he drove by me and blew me a kiss as he left. I think about this interaction a lot and wish that I would have hummilliated him or hit him. It fills me with anger and disgust that he felt so comfortable acting that way to a very clearly under-aged girl (our name tags were even different colors for minors at the place I worked) in broad daylight in a very public place. I had a fascination with Lolita when I had heard of it because it seemed to mirror some interactions that I had been a part of as an under aged girl. I first watched the 1997 Lolita and a few years later read the book and the perspective of both stories are completely different.
we should also be criticizing the porn industry, too, the way we criticize movies and tv shows. i think the producers' and directors' porn watching habits affect the kind of content they choose to create. some of the most popular porn categories are "barely legal", "stepfather stepdaughter", and "daddy dom little girl". and some of these videos include actual minors, whether they were trafficked into the industry, their SA was recorded, or some boyfriend filmed them without their consent and uploaded the recording on pornhub. that site doesn't have a verification process, so you can never know for sure that what you are seeing is consensual. it's a misogynist and racist industry but for some reason most people think that it's above criticism
this!! its absolutely crazy how literally the main tropes in porn revolve around incest or pedophilia in some way, only excusing it by putting "legal" or "step" in the title. it genuinely scares me that this is what a shocking amount of men in our world get off to
What I don't like in porn is that people that don't watch it is considered anormal.
I started masturbating to music instead of porn. Feels boujee
All of these experiences from these notorious actresses are so horrifying, infuriating, and saddening. From your first segment of this video hearing about what THE Shirley Temple dealt with is insane. I'm honestly surprised and impressed that she was able to get out of those situations without being used by those men and I'm glad she was able to make that first guy feel embarrassed after she started uncomfortably giggling. He deserved to feel small and belittled after attempting to assualt a 12 year old girl. But when you got to second guy I was assuming Shirley would see the stockings and simply walk out and that would be the end of the interaction. Not that he literally had a button that automatically locked the door so that she couldn't escape. I've heard if the common place manipulation and rufies, but having a locking system like that in which it could trap vulnerable people with this predatory monster just as you said: something out of a movie.
I'm so sorry that horrible photographer assaulted you. You're doing amazing work with the content you make. I so admire it, and that you're being the change you want to see - it gives me life, knowing that teenage girls these days have access to this kind of content and do talk about it.
I’m sorry I accidentally just removed someone’s comment and idk how to get it back😭 if that was you and you see this I’m so sorry 💖
It’s also interesting that the actress that played Joi in Blade Runner (Ana de Armas) later was cast as Marylin Monroe in Blonde: an entirely fantasized and sexualized depiction of Monroe’s life and career.
Yesterday I was looking for a new show to watch and came across the k-drama "Legend of the blue sea" in which a beautiful mermaid finds herself stuck with a con man, she is gorgeous but has the life experience of a child and is very naive like a child. She was depicted doing exact things a child would do and honestly it seems innocent but this agenda is so ugly.
Mermaid stories definitely embody the “born sexy yesterday” trope like the 1984 fantasy romantic comedy “Splash” and Disney’s “The Little Mermaid”.
At least the 1948 British comedy “Miranda” averts the “Born Sexy Yesterday” trope by portraying the titular mermaid as an *amoral seductress who goes after married men and engaged men.*
Miranda may be naïve on land, but it’s because *she flouts social norms,* not because she has the mind of a child.
Miranda can be seen as a metaphor for post-war optimism and liberation, hence why she doesn’t have any of the sexual hangups that proper English ladies have.
Miranda lacks a filter and is openly horny.
Great job, middle aged dude here appreciating your analysis. I keep thinking about the modern porn industry in this context, and the (imo) impossibility of squaring its current incarnation with the values of feminism or just plain anti-pedophilia.
I sincerely wonder how many generations forward it will take for the social-“no” to outweigh the insistent emotional ubiquity of sexualizing young women.
God bless you dude, your wife(if you happen to be married myb) is lucky!! God bless you are spot on🙏
@@pravoslavnibalkanci she’s lucky because this man is not a pedo? god standards for men are so low it actually makes me sad to be a straight woman
@@moonlightbae333OP actually makes good points though, idk if it was purely abt that
I thought the “Born Sexy Yesterday” trope died in the 2010s, but it turns out that I was wrong since the 2023 film “Poor Things” grossed $108.6 million worldwide on a budget of $35 million and was praised by critics.
Not to mention that Emma Stone won the “Best Actress” Oscar for her performance in “Poor Things”: ruclips.net/video/XDYBUnCqsyw/видео.htmlsi=vs0Wp6TRNbUQ73xd&t=4m25s
You read right!
Then again, the Academy loves awarding able-bodied actors who play mentally challenged characters (provided that they’re not “too mentally challenged”, as evidenced by Bella’s baby brain rapidly maturing).
Furthermore, Emma Stone had already won at the Golden Globes, Critics Choice Awards, and BAFTA for her performance in “Poor Things”, so clearly the people who voted for Emma Stone thought that playing a “sexy baby” was ART! 😂
Could we look at this as an ableist film? Would someone with the mind of an infant be able to consent?
@@LDrosophila Yes
Thank you for speaking about this! I wanted to mention another factor in this whole thing and that is how this can affect neurodivergent people as well. I am on the autistic spectrum, being autistic is often associated with traits that are considered "childish", like naivety, straight forward speech, "childish" interests and hobbies (colorful lights, cartoons and things like this that I find comforting sensorially), high pitched soft voice, and trouble navigating complicated spaces (I sometimes need help crossing busy streets, and I feel the need to hold the hand of someone who's accompanying me to feel safe), emotional outbursts etc etc. Personally I am also asexual, which surprisingly seems to illicit even more sexualization from men. I straight up decided to stop trying to entertain the possibility of a relationship with a man, cause more often then not I felt this extreme infantilizing, predatorial behaviour from them. Although I don't have learning disabilities, and I have an high IQ, just because I need a little support men treat me like a dumb little child who's in need of being taken care of, and at the same time a sexual object. Often I was approached by "anime girls lovers" That wanted an hentai girlfriend, Or patronizing men who never took me any seriously. They were pushy and manipulative. The worst thing is that for some time I had started to internalize that sexualization. I almost completely gave up on the idea of an healthy relationship. Thankfully i was able to find a good person in the end, also asexual and on the spectrum, and for the first time I am starting to understand what it means to be respected in a relationship. Sadly, people with learning disabilities, lower IQ or in need of more support could easily fall victim of manipulation and gaslight, abusive relationships or s.a. and I believe that this sexualization of childishness is partly to blame too, because the same traits that make us easier targets are the same traits that make predators attracted to us. It's infuriating.
I’ve always said that female characters who embody the “born sexy yesterday” trope (that is, a mature-looking, sexualized woman with a childlike brain) are often coded as autistic or neurodivergent: ruclips.net/video/0thpEyEwi80/видео.html
See Madison in “Splash”; Ariel in Disney’s “The Little Mermaid”; Celeste in “My Stepmother is an Alien”; Giselle in Disney’s “Enchanted”; and Sheena in “Sheena”.
Ironically, Daryl Hannah who plays Madison in “Splash” is autistic in real life, which only furthers the autism coding of her character Madison: ruclips.net/video/Utp7RTRUbnY/видео.htmlm59s
I'm glad you found a partner and was able to see what actual normal relationship is. It's hard to find and start romantic relationship in sex addict society, especially for asexual people, so moments like yours give hope that there still a possibility.
As a fellow autistic asexual, yikes, I didn’t even think about that.
I work for a suicide hotline and I am convince that most incels are ND. They don’t understand that those stereotypes are just fiction. I don’t mean people participating actively and educating themselves. Rather the content they share gets in the head of ND people.
It’s so dangerous for media to keep this trope going. A lot of ND people use media as examples on how to conduct ourselves. I literally expect conversations to sound scripted and edited. Because I have them in my head 20 times before trying.
As SM breaks down the walls more and more ND people will. Become visible and have opportunities they never had before. And I hope those of us who can see through it can help our ND friends who can’t.
I know it wasn’t the focus of the video but hearing Monroe talk about when her body would cease to “in shape” so matter of fact if not even given a hint of looking forward to it is so heartbreaking that she didn’t get to experience that, leaving her even more to be immortalized as just that body
I remember when I watched Glee as a teenager I thought I was abnormal or weird because I wasn't constantly having sex like the teens in the show and I compromised myself in ways that were dangerous to catch up to what I thought was normal for a 15 year old girl. I started selling newds to 40 year old men when I was 13 because of the way teen girls were portrayed in media and glamorized. Thanks for this video
This video essay is a lot! During quarantine I've been unpacking a lot of mindsets and cultural mindsets I saw as normal at one point in time, such as romanticizing older men- teen girls romantic and sexual attraction, being mature for my age, dealing with mommy issues, my strained interpersonal female relationships (due to devilish trauma involving bullying and CSA by women and girls (that in and of itself an issue to unpack regarding holding female predators accountable) and instances of older men that went over my head until years later), then me dealing with mental illnesses and personality disorders that run on my both sides of my family, and that I never got a chance to know what normal girlhood was like in terms of friendships and crushes cause I grew up so fast and I was mostly focusing on surviving and not having a nervous breakdown. (And I was an awkward recluse and loner at that.) And recently I reached the conclusion that I'm a late bloomer and even my navigating these various aspects of my life are complicated and messy (especially as I'm a black/mixed Jew who's autistic, disabled, interfaith, intersex, dark skinned and plus sized), particularly in context with reclaiming agency and autonomy. This is quite long but this video taught me a lot that I'll be thinking about for a long time.
Wow thank you for sharing this! I deeply relate to a lot of this. The topics I discussed in this essay I have been lamenting over for years, and continue to lament over them. I relate to you, and I also deeply related to Mena Suvari when she was speaking about how she was put into these weird situations with older men and never told it was wrong, but looking back she now sees that it was indeed wrong. And how people would praise her for being and looking “mature” and therefore treated her differently, which is something I also relate to and seemingly you do as well. And then the intersections of one’s identity certainly further complicates one’s experiences as you stated.
Thank you for taking the time to share this, your comment really touched me. 💖
Thanks! And black and brown women and girls face similar devilish pedophilia, hypersexualition, objectification and sexualized infantilization (and in ways that are darker and nefarious), but that's another topic for another time. And recently I've delved into various subcultures such as punk rock, cripple punk, BDSM and agere as my way of reconciling my child-like side and my adult maturity in balanced and healthy ways, and I'm genderfluid and nonbinary and lately male and female gaze in pop culture and mainstream media has kinda disinterested me. So now I try to have my own gendered gaze 💖
And p.s. thank you for sharing your story. I wish you well 💐
Hello. I'm a filmmaker and film teacher.
I enjoyed your video on Věra Chytilová's groundbreaking film Daisies.
I just finished watching this comprehensive video essay on Hollywood's cinematic and actual crimes against women. I praise you for your balanced, nuanced and committed approach to this difficult subject matter. I appreciate that your video essay covers Hollywood media from the past as well as media from your generation. As you argue and show in your essay, it's unfortunate that the more things change, the more they still remain the same. I always teach in my film history classes that even though technology has "advanced", human ideas and behavior in depicting ourselves and others haven't really changed all that much for better, and sadly, for worse.
I was familiar with many things you discussed here like the horrific treatment of Shirley Temple and Brooke Shields. I also learned a lot of new things especially when it comes to how working on these films and the behind-the-scenes real life bad and criminal behavior destroyed and damaged the actors like the cases of Sue Lyon and Mena Suvari. I also greatly appreciate that you're not afraid to criticize the "sacred cows" of Hollywood canon like the Blade Runner films, American Beauty, Kubrick's Lolita adaptation and Woody Allen's Manhattan.
Your video essay could be a companion piece to Nina Menkes's documentary essay film "Brainwashed: Sex-Camera-Power" where she breaks down the male gaze using examples from canonical cinema made by mostly men and some women. I highly recommend you check out her fiction films as well like the excellent "Queen of Diamonds".
Thank you so much for your kind words! I appreciate you taking the time to watch and comment, it means a lot, especially coming from a teacher and filmmaker!
And thank you for the recommendations I will certainly check them out!! 💖
I feel like a lot of girls are like this now between the ages of 18-26. Sometimes I've even seen it mixed with other elements like goth or even alt. Especially when it comes to social media.
Oh it easily goes up to age 35 now lol. Look at Grimes. She naturally has a young look, but in the past couple years she has gone hard on cosmetic procedures and makeup, as well as posing with upper teeth showing and leaning into lisp, to continue to present as adolescent.
its the same alt bitches that ruined hello kitty that think "reclaiming" this aesthetic makes them hot and powerful, and that men hate them bc they cant control them anymore. but men (and girls like me) just hate them bc of their annoying personalities
It’s very alive and very well in older women too. Society doesn’t even blink at all the over-50s who still dress to maximize their sexy baby persona. I feel so angry for them, especially for women with feet utterly destroyed by a lifetime in heels.
This is why I've never cared for My Fair Lady, even though I generally love musicals and pretty dresses and such. The ending really rubs me the wrong way. George Bernard Shaw had to fight critics and audiences who wanted to change the ending of his play, Pygmalion, to have a happy ending between Henry Higgins and Eliza Dolittle. He wrote Eliza to leave Higgins for good and marry Freddy, fulfilling her independent personhood. But, of course, when it was adapted to film, they changed the ending anyway.
I always liked to believe the return to Higgins was short lived, based on what Mrs. Higgins says and that Higgins doesn’t really even display romantic interest until after Eliza leaves
honestly, i don't think the issue in fifth element with her not speaking english is the way she says it, but the way that the other characters react and TREAT her like a child and speak to her in the way they would a toddler.
At first i thought she was speeking another language and the people around her were idiots haha. I guess it would have been better if she couldn't speak at all if the plot needs that obstruction.
The director and milla worked on a language for the movie and would both speak it
Hey! I hope you read this comment.
I entered this video thinking it was such an interesting topic and one I'm very much interested in, as it deeply resonates with me. Then I got to the part where you spoke about being sexually assaulted by a photographer, and I just wanted to leave a comment here telling you that I'm really sorry you had to go through that horrible experience as a teenager, and that you're not alone in that. I can only wish you the best and hope that you've been able to recover from that experience, although I know one never does... it's just easier to cope with it, and you grow from it.
When I was 15 I started talking to someone 11 years older than me. Then at 16 we "dated" for a while. He was the first person I had "sex" with. Over the years something didn't sit right with that relationship, and I realized it WASN'T right, and that he had taken advantage of me. The power imbalance... Now I've begun to call it for what it is: abuse.
So anyways. I just wanted to share that and to tell you that sadly many women can understand your experience and share it... and we're here, together.
Also, I'm gonna use this opportunity to say that I love your content. I only recently found it, but it's literally so on point with everything I consume here on youtube it's crazy hahaha,. It's really well made, I can tell you put a lot of effort, work and research into everything you do. Thanks for making the type of content you make, I resonate with it a lot.
I send you love from Argentina!😊
I deeply appreciate your kindness! Yeah I experienced so many sketchy situations with older men, especially throughout my teens. I think it’s why I feel so passionately to speak out about this predatory standard because I was taught to believe it was normal. I’m sorry that you also had to experience predatory circumstances. Thank you for sharing a little slice of your story, and for your kind words. 💖☺️
America beauty freaked me out so bad when I tried to watch it in high school I had to turn it off. It made me feel so sick.
The good thing is that there was no rape..
I would like to just Add that in the majority of adaptations of "Dracula" the character of 'Lucy Westenra' even tho describe in the book as kind, pure and beautiful, she is depicted in the movies are a sl4t and this is just my trying to figure out why.
My theory: Lucy is 19 years old and daughter of a wealthy family, and she has 3 suitors of course as she is very beautiful and kind, but she is not the main female protagonist and she dies at the middle of the book by the hand of Dracula, that in my opinion Dracula could symbolize a s*xual predator, why? because thought the book, the emphasis how sweet and pure is Lucy's personality and also Dracula is a vampire and they drink blood being a reference for other body fluids, sadly in movies Lucy is portrait as "dirty" and more s*xual. She plays with the suitors heart and she kind of like to to be assaulted by Dracula.
It’s that whole scene from “Pretty Baby” - “you’ve got to act like you don’t want it, then after a while, act like it starts to feel good!” Men feel that young girls are impressionable and don’t know any better; they can be the best they’ve ever had, because they’ve never had anyone else. They can be the Ultimate Lover, the Ultimate Man, because they can shape this girl’s world to bias toward that. It’s fucking pathetic.
They wanted to turn Lolita into a love story????? That is sympathetic to the pedophile rapist???? I cant even begin to describe the amount of disgust i feel in hearing that
I am 35 years old, have a 12 years old daughter, and I am horrified to realise that late how much fucked up my life has been as a girl, teenage girl, young adult, and then adult. All those things I thought were totally normal, that no one in my family or surroundings would step up to help me see... I wonder if I would ever have realised anything if my daughter wasn't on the verge of becoming a teenager and didn't pass the age of my first sexual assault.
This all is deeply engraved in our education. And I think it is probably even worse here in France, the way sexualisation of young girls is accepted.
Children must be protected. She might think you're a helicopter mum now but she'll be grateful 10 years later. My mum was like that and thank god.
i just recently started watching your channel and every video so far has been amazing but so deeply visceral at times. seeing these pictures of such obviously young girls and their CHILD bodies makes me feel exposed! like it sends me back to being 14 and feeling like i can’t escape eyes and that was just as a normal person. their abuse has been immortalized and praised for decades and they are ridiculed for being destroyed by their experiences. i wish this was discussed more because almost every girl i know has gone thru something similar to this but talking about it makes everyone feel uncomfortable.
even more sick that these men are blaming their perverted attraction to children on the children and acting like a child could somehow be predatory or sexually manipulative to an adult. this is such a common perspective i have seen in real life as well to the point that the child themselves believes that they were in control or initiated that contact. these babies need to be protected.
Oh my gd, I felt sick finding out about the Brooke Shields photoshoot. That's so disgusting.
This is an excellent video essay, and I can't imagine it was easy to make. Great work
thanks for this video, im 30 and i have been feeling the "im too old, i lost my prime", wich is sad and unfair, i mean male actors get their first role at 40, why i feel like my life is already over?. This video explained it to me. Im no longer inocent or naive, in fact im doing my phd in biology, and im very cunning. These attributes are great, but men view it as something bad and they put me down because they feel treatened. With this video and the barbie movie, i have decided that i'll not longer allow men to hurt me. Maibe i'll be single forever, but i'll be sucessful. THANK YOU.
When you spoke on the countdown clocks I immediately thought of Bhad Baby and her open a “prank” OF account the day after her 18th
Fabulous analysis. I'm surprised this isn't viral yet. Incredible job and I hope this video soon gets all the attention it deserves. Thank you for the time and effort you poured into this.
Ah thank you so much for your kindness, and taking the time to watch and comment!☺️
yes 100%
I’m 30 minutes in and I need to pause again. And this time I don’t know that I can watch the rest, I might have to come back tomorrow. I’m Gen X so to look back with this context at movies, and Hollywood names that were held as legends for my generation, makes so much things that our generation had to deal with, make sense. In a want-to-puke kinda way.
I am so so grateful you made this video. I learned so much. Thank you. This video is gonna make it to all the group chats I’m part of, one of our best weapons is to spread the information, and this type of researched content, especially with men.
Gen X too I am glad we are finally seeing the world past the filters we were given
I can't believe Shirley Temple dealt with all that from producers and I applaud the audacity she had to defend herself. Also I love your conclusion regarding a liking a work while also being critical of it. I like both Blade Runner films and I have to admit its depictions of women and BIPOC are not strong. The second film does improve it IMO, but it will probably take another 30 years to get a third movie that will be even better.
Shirley Temple's life honestly makes me nauseous. she was just a BABY😭 also, I love Kinderwh0re style because it is exactly against these ideals
I feel like there's some similarities between Lolita and gigi where a young (obviously considered to be much younger then made into a woman ) girl is groomed to be a mistress for a much older man also the lovely thank heaven for little girls sung by a very old man yay
I agree! I thought about including Gigi but I had so many examples for the Lolita trope that I didn’t. Although I think Lolita the novel takes a more critical approach to the topic whereas Gigi the novella is written as a comedy (which I didn’t really enjoy at all). I actually like Gigi (1958) despite its controversy, but yeah the opening song is one of the creepiest songs I’ve ever heard.
Yep, this trope is definitely limited to women. The only male character I can think of that even remotely fits the "sexy baby" trope is Stewie Griffen, and he's more like an elderly, genius man in a baby's body. And the only reason I even remotely thought of him in context of this is that we saw him twerk one time that I can remember.
Yeah I would argue Stewie isn’t sexualized in the same context. Though I do think men and boys can be victimized by the “sexy baby” trope, most notably Björn Andrésen who rose to fame as a teen in Death in Venice, in an almost boy-Lolita-esque role. He faced a lot of the same premature sexualization that Mena Suvari, Sue Lyon, Natalie Portman, etc experienced. There is a very interesting documentary about Björn and his experience as a young star called “The Most Beautiful Boy in the World” which I really enjoy.
@@FinalGirlStudios Yes, I saw the movie based on Death in Venice when I was in college and I remember the character Tadzio. I haven't seen the documentary, but I read an article about that actor more recently and how much he was sexualized.
I’ll submit that women online tend to infantilize male characters they like (coined “woobification”) and they definitely enjoy born-sexy-yesterday naïveté, but I believe this is done most often because they are projecting what they know into fiction in an effort to humanize characters and bring them closer to their own experiences. Rarely have I seen women emphasize the physical likeness of men to prepubescents or to portray prepubescents as ‘seductive’ in an uncritical manner. How much of that is because it’s simply not done to boys I don’t know, since little girls have been so objectified in comparison and women do not get the same pass for being sexually edgy. They police each other MUCH more.
Oh and the female appeal for sexual naïveté is, “this man hasn’t learned an inclination to hurt me,” while the male appeal is, “this girl is vulnerable and hasn’t learned to get away yet.”
kyle xy is similar but yeah it's very scarce to find them in comparison
i hate chobbit with all my being, all my soul, i could never go beyond episode 2, no matter how many people told me it was good, or a classic. it feel disgusting. Just the fact alone that he has to touch her inside to " awaken" her is trully disturbing . And kinda feel like rape she couldn't say anything, i hate hate it.( the authors is a women so why !!??) At least the opening is fire.
Yeah I went to re-watch it earlier this year because I love the character design of Chi, I just think she’s so cute, but when I got to the part when he “turns her on” I was like oop-😳 and felt so uncomfortable and didn’t watch much further than that lol
Later in the story, when she is touched there unwantedly, she basically goes rogue and glows and it breaks the entire circuit and all computers go down for a bit, lol… she can only be touched by the one who loves her. She literally can’t be assaulted. Also, she’s a robot, she doesn’t have real feelings…
@@ducky19991 that where i think the story is weird, she should only be touch by the people she love and not people who loves her. Do you get the difference?
@@ducky19991 the fact that she is a robot that is designed to look like a human female makes the whole concept weird af.
It’s just odd to create human like things and do things to it that you wouldn’t legally be able to do to a human woman or worse young girl. It’s like trying to find workarounds to your darkest fantasies.
@@ducky19991 you know it's possible to be ass4ulted by someone who "loves" you, right?
Amazing video essay. Hollywood is a scary place and it’s heartbreaking thinking about the thousands of actors and models exploited by the industry
this was such a fantastic essay, i was genuinely flabbergasted when i saw it didnt have more views. your video deserves to blow up!! the amount of effort put into the research and organisation of ideas is commendable. cant wait to see what else you put out!
Beauty is power, a power that men seek to control. If she is beautiful and intelligent, they cannot control her and fear she will weaponize her beauty and that will render THEM "powerless".
Halfway thru the video, I wanted to comment on "the Born Sexy Yesterday" trope, to note that the born-sexy role of Leeloo (played by Mila Jovovich) was under the director Luc Besson, who also directed Leon the Professional just three years earlier. In The Professional, there is a love interest named Mathilda, played by a 12 year old Natalie Portman, of the main guy (a 45 year old Jean Reno). But stranger than fiction was the fact that it was based upon a real life twelve year old child actress Maïwenn who director Luc Besson met and dated when she was 12, the same age as Mathilda in the film. It's very hard to separate the art from the artist in situations like that.
This is one of my top ten favorite analysis/essay videos
Watching the first section & realizing I`ve only ever known Shirley Temple as a child actress who had a non-alcoholic drink named after her, but never anything she acted in. And I guess I know why now. Hate that!! SO Much
one of the best video-essays on yt ❤️ amazing work
incredible video, the sickness you mustve endured to craft such a thoughtful, nuanced and holistic piece of such violence is heartbreaking, but what you created out of that is incredible. thank you for the effort you commit to this and thank you for taking on the burden of educating others on it.
My exboyfriend liked controlling what i did. I was never over 115 pounds from the age of 14 to 18, i was always short like 4'9 or 4'10, i wore short skirts or pants with my underwear showing, he told me he wanted me to look like an anime girl. I didn't mind because I thought we would get married after i graduated. He went to prison right after i turned 18 during my senior year because he molested a little girl. I only found out because my exgirlfriend was one of his friends
Wow wow wow the Brooke shields photographs shocked me. I had a friend whose father did that to her and her sisters when they were children (took “sexy” nude photos) and he is in jail for the rest of his life. I can’t believe this was published in a magazine
Your video essays are all i needed
This was so well done and I'm sure took a ton of time to develop and edit. Thank you for creating this!
THANK YOU FOR BRINGING UP ANIME 💗
I'm so glad I discovered your channel, omw to binge your entire filmography
you’re account is so so good ! You’re so intelligent 💗
Dude this was SUCH a great video. I had just finished a literary analysis for "No Use Escaping Tomie" for an assignment, and the point at 25:05 was so well said and so perfectly encapsulated what I wanted to say about Tomie’s relationship to her teacher in the first chapter that I was so sad I hadn't seen this video first to help me say it better. Wonderful work, just such an efficient and well said analysis 🙌👍
This desperately makes me want to reshoot lolita with its original themes just for the societal reaction. It pains me to think that humbert would still be defended and sympathized with
Imagine a Lolita remake where Dolores herself is never entirely shown, except for odd shots of her eyes, hands, etc. It would be really cool and artsy, and a more accurate adaptation without sexualizing a young actress.
Massively important topic… protect young girls
Amazing piece, incredibly well-made. There is nothing i could say that could make this better.
This is such a well-researched video and you put so much effort into it! Thank you for creating this, I really enjoyed watching it.
It definitely changed how I perceive the exploitation of young girls and women in media
probably the most interesting and important video essay i have ever watched on youtube, helped me develop myself intelectually but also emotionally as a man, thank you so much for it
I was watching this in class and just trying not to cry and feel sick at the thoughts, im just binging your videos and im just also filled with so much rage, in a good way as these videos portray a lot of feelings of many women
One of the best videos I have seen in a while! I’ve subscribed and looking forward to watching all of your other videos. Amazing work!
Thank you so much that is so kind of you to say! Thanks for taking the time to watch and comment 💖☺️
Hi I found your channel and have been loving your essays and your inclusive language ✨ I will watch them all!
I’m going to binge watch your channel while I exercise (I’m a full time artist.. hardly watch anything) I can see you really do your homework. Your channel is very special to young women and also guys that may be trying to make sense of our bizarre world. Thank you so much 😊
Thank you so much that means a lot! I’m glad you’re enjoying the videos ☺️💖