You’re right. When I made the video I misinterpreted the definition and I’m sorry for that. The correct definition is bonding with the person that traumatized or abused you. Thanks for pointing that out.
@@CheyenneLin - The term used most often is “stockholm syndrome” which is when a captive or abuse victim forms an emotional attachment to their abuser. I’ve suffered trauma personally, and I don’t wish it upon anyone. The PTSD, severe depression, and stress induced seizures aren’t fun so I don’t see why anyone would think of trauma as an attractive quality. I just got put on antidepressants last year and life looks a lot better now (no need to worry i’m in a good place now, mentally and emotionally).
The fact women’s maturity is never used in positive social ways like how we can cope better possibly in work situations, but is an excuse for pedophillia shows a lot
I wish women didn't have to either be a functioning, perfect office worker or business owner, or used aesthetically or sexually. Girl boss crap is insidiously regressive.
@@ravenrose5712 Yeah, as much as I can be. I've done a lot of healing over the years. Some wounds will never go away completely but I've learned to live with them. Thanx you for asking 💜
Aparently if they didn't go through hell, they dont deserve the power they have. Even when male protagonists often win and gets rewarded doing the minimum effort or still acting inmature, no one complains about them.
@@kiriki4558 Indeed this is crazy! There have been thousands of movies/books of male power fantasy but nobody calls them Gary Stu's and these male characters haven't even gone through trauma and stuff... But when a female character does have the same formula, she's immediately a mary sue or a feminist/sjw propaganda. Like, why can't just let women enjoy female characters in a fantasy world where she can also be powerful? I get it when it's genuinely bad character writing, but it almost gets to the point where men will call any female character a mary sue because she didn't go through trauma and abuse and is living her best life, even though they won't ever call a male character a gary stu with the same exact formula... You can even look at anime for example, tons of harem male protagonists with women falling in love with them left and right and these protags are powerful to boot, but I guess no one bats an eye. xD
That's because some characters comes off one dimensional or just arrogant attitude with no charm. Luckily there are plenty of examples strong female characters with no trauma and universaly loved by fans.
My favourite quote I've heard ( that I unfortunately forgot where I heard it) was: "It doesn't matter if your childhood trauma made you strong. You weren't supposed to be strong, you were supposed to be safe."
Oh, wow. WOW. Okay, hold on, let me organize my thoughts. That hit hard. Strength and safety are concepts that get confused often, I think. Many believe to be safe, one needs to be strong. I think this belief has helped raise this toxic masculinity/fake it til you make it/don't show weakness/grow up already culture. Strength-- or what we consider strength-- is much more sought out than safety. Why? I couldn't tell you exactly, but I think it's because it's something we can see easier. Strength looks a little different to everyone, but it usually takes the form of something. Whether it's bulging muscles, or an aloof persona when it comes to horrifying experiences, we tend to gravitate towards those considered strong. We idolize & praise them for it. Because strong people seem safe. Perhaps the whole business of hitmen comes from the idea we need to search for strength to find safety. Strength is spoken of so often we sometimes forget the idea of safety. When we are hurting, we often say, "I need to be strong," not "I need to find a safe space." I think safety is confused with happiness, which makes sense, but is still incorrect. When we're happy, we're usually safe. When we're safe, we allow ourselves to find reasons to be happy. When we look at happy endings in movies, the characters are usually smiling/laughing and surrounded by the things they love/like, and we think, "they can finally be happy," instead of "they're finally safe." This is most likely because happiness is something one can see easier, and the term 'happy' has a more uplifting connotation while the word 'safe' can imply one was previously unsafe, and that can put a damper on things. Perhaps the subject of safety scares people. As I said before, it implies a lack of safety, and living unsafe and recognizing you're not safe are two different bags to unpack. It can spark anger, fear, deep sadness, guilt, shame, the feelings people don't like. Maybe that's why people look to strength instead. Strength is seen as rising above all that. Strength is untouchable. Strength is safe. Sorry, I didn't mean to write an essay. I had a lot to say!
@@katarinacarrico7887 I really like that essay as "Strength is untouchable. Strength is safe.". That describes perfectly the odd paradox about safe being such an odd subject to talk about because it makes one feel unsafe. When I was a kid, I was always afraid I'd be kidnapped because my parents laid out some rules and protocols to prevent that from even being much of a risk. I was safe all my childhood, but since there were (by necessity) instances where I was responsible for my own safety I often didn't feel that way. Safety is such a interest concept because the coveted feeling of safety also mental, emotional and spiritual. A person might be physically safe in a dangerous location because of streetsmarts, but never at ease. The best kind of safety, the safety I wish every child could have, is where a kid doesn't even have to think about their own safety because it's such a constant, unchanging reality.
@@duskflower8825 I'm happy you liked what I said, especially enough to reply! (I greatly enjoy discussing these kinds of topics.) Maybe we need to adjust lessons on safety; instead of putting it as a way to avoid danger, we should look at it as just another way to be healthy. I think the way we talk about safety now has shone more of a spotlight on the fact there is danger. And while it is important to let kids know about these things, I fear they can grow so afraid of being unsafe they forget the main lesson on what to do to be safe. I understand the idea of scaring kids into submission, and while I admit that can work, they still don't fully take home the lesson. I know I can't speak for everyone, but from my and other classmate's experiences, when we had guests come over to teach us to be safe with, let's say crossing the street, conversation afterward wasn't, "it makes sense why we should wait for the crosswalk light to turn white before crossing the street," it was, "that story about the kid getting hit by the car was so scary." Remembering the fear but not really retaining the lesson. I agree with you. Every child should not have to worry about being unsafe, and it's unfortunate that, in this day and age, not only do they have to worry about things like natural disasters or strep throat, but also the people they're close to and trust.
Lolita could honestly never work as anything other than the original novel. The second you cast a child as Dolores you've become just like Humbert Humbert and have sexualized a real child and have her kiss her 40yo costar. This isn't an issue in the book since obviously, no real little girl had to act out those scenes if its a novel. Also an unreliable narrator is so hard to do in a movie format and just leads to most of the audience not understanding that Humbert is fudging the narrative. Honestly I've only seen good unreliable narrators in books.
The only way I could see it done is if you made Dolores the main character. Where she is just being a kid but that would still be a problem because you're still watching a girl being victimized and you have to take a lot of care to still not sexualize Dolores.
Yeah I read the book and thought it was pretty clear that Humbert was a creep and all the scenes where Lolita was "teasing" him were just him reading things into her that weren't really there. It's hard to get that across in film though.
@@princesseuphemia1007 The book is brilliant in the way Lo is so ambiguous and really doesn't even say or do much through out the novel. Like she has barely any dialogue and what she does say is rather vague. While I thought the 1996 movie was a good take on the movie, it definitely romanticized it. Imo Lo should have been this morose, suffering child. After all, her mom was a emotionally unavailable, her real father was dead, and then she gets kidnapped, abused, and finds out her mom dies. Yet they show her all bubbly and flirty all the time under the guise of it's HH's perspective, like who would know that. Most of my friends who watched it who didn't read the book had no idea what was happening.
@@princesseuphemia1007 I feel like they could have done it with him doing voiceovers about how she's teasing him and stuff whilst showing the reality on screen of her doing nothing sexual at all. This would also resolve the issue of sexualising a child on screen too imo
I think that's just the easiest way in terms of storytelling. That's not only specific for female characters. Look no further than almost every comic book or anime character ever.
That reminds me of the way Sansa was written in S8 of Game of Thrones. She was a character who was repeatedly deceived, taken advantage of and abused physically and sexually and when she finally supposedly became empowered the male screenwriters wrote her to credit her abusers for it, saying that "without them she would have stayed a little bird all her life”; implying a woman needs to be abused to become strong (so hey, abuse isn’t that bad) and if she overcomes her circumstances and becomes empowered she owes her success to her abusers UUHGGGGH
@@asaredeye2298 I agree. Trauma is a pretty easy way to push character development. The only issue I have personally is how the trauma for female characters is so often of a sexual nature. In Queen's Gambit for instance, some audience members were really expecting Beth to get raped or molested(especially when she started getting close to the janitor). It's to the point where people were honestly surprised that her plethora of issues did not include rape or molestation.
@@no.6377 The first choice for trauma is the death of a loved one, but it is true for female characters a sexual trauma is a close second. About the Queen's Gambit, I didn't get that vibe you mentioned. I'm actually surprised that people considered that. I thought her mother's death was traumatic enough, but maybe I was just optimistic.
@Leptune Cannet you may laugh because you havent experienced that shit before. Its not okay to mock and act like shit doesnt exist when its so obvious and prevalent everywhere that it does. Your ignorance is showing.
People misunderstand Lolita so often...Nabokov himself said that you were never supposed to sympathize with Humbert, that he’s just a charismatic villain. And none of the film adaptations have portrayed it correctly
Nabokov had many affairs with students in the university where he was teaching, and he was married. Those were not mature girls, so I'm not really sure if Humpert was not a some kind of self insert
@@ChodePolice That's spot on, actually! Unfortunately, many people, especially if they only watched the more recent movie adaptation with a 17-year-old actress, misunderstand the dynamic. I agree that any film adaptation is going to have a lot more challenges because it's more difficult to portray HH as the unreliable narrator that he is. To some extent American Beauty does that aspect well. Even as a teenager, I understood how pathetic Spacey's character is. I think an older movie that portrayed a teenager's sexual relationship with a married adult man as entirely her fault was Poison Ivy. Though, this even still happens in real life. Just last week, I watched D'Angelo Wallace's video about Courtney Stodden, a teenager (who seems to now use they/them pronouns) who married a 51-year-old man in 2011 because their mother gave permission. Doug Hutchison was a D-list actor that had groomed them, as he has since done to other teenage girls. This story was covered in the media, with everyone treating this girl terribly. Anderson Cooper should apologize to her, frankly. Hutchinson was ridiculed, with good reason, for wanting to be with someone so young, but it was done at *their* expense. Chrissy Teigen was a monster towards them on Twitter, actually encouraging suicide many times. The footage from the news stories at the time, which portrayed this relationship as some kind of edgy romance, shows a very over sexualized teenage girl. They were dressed very provocatively, and interacted with their *husband* very sexually. The media attacked Courtney viciously. As if it were somehow their fault that they had a worthless mother that didn't protect them, or their own fault that they'd been groomed by a fully middle aged man. They somehow ended up on a daytime TV show getting a breast exam under a sheet *on stage* to prove they hadn't had implants. Which, apparently, they had not, but how is that anyone's business? How did we as a society allow a physical examination of a teenage girl's body to occur in 2011? In this extra creepy way, as an evaluation of their worth. Based on breast tissue! In front of a live audience and TV cameras. The look on that poor little girl's face while it happened was physically uncomfortable to watch. We as a society have come a long way, but we have so much farther to go!
thank u for posting this, seeing natalie portman talk about how she was immediately sexualized after she starred in leon the professional and how her first fan letter was an assault fantasy written about her, was so disgusting that i could not stop thinking about it. these tropes have real life consequences
The same with Jodi Foster! After watching Taxi Driver, John Hinckley became obsessed with her and moved to where she was so he could stalk her and when all the stalking didn't amount to anything, he tried to assassinate the damn president in order to get her attention! Real life consequences for sure.
Luc Besson, the director of "Leon- The Professional", groomed a teenage girl into a "relationship" when he was in his thirties - she was 15 when they met and pregnant with his child at 16. Seems like important context...
@@GhGh-ci8ld Exactly. She played the blue opera singer in "The Fifth Element". When filming that movie, he dumped her for Milla Jovowich. Real prince of a man...
@@rsfilmdiscussionchannel4168 I doubt that law is for older people to take advantage of younger kids. I think it's one of those where it's only legal for their age range (say the 15 year old dating a 17 year old) not a goddamn 30 year old.
"It's an exploration of sexuality" is such a popular phrase when it comes to creepy 'examinations' of childhood and girlhood sexuality for the viewing pleasure of men. It's not intellectual, it's voyeuristic. A lot of modern teen dramas display the same weird obsession with teenager's sexuality that I feel goes far beyond normal age-typical exploration.
Right? Sexuality and discovering it as an adolescent is messy, awkward, and not sexy. It’s always ends up looking much more “clean” and “cute” in a way that suits a male or (as discussed in this video) pedophilic gaze when movies are made about it staring girls.
*cough, cough* CUTIES *cough ahem* Edit: just remembered that the movie was created and directed by a woman BUT that doesn't excuse anything-- no children of any gender should "explore their sexuality" until they're 18 sex education is the exception of course-- but anything else will fuck them up
I've seen hundreds and hundreds of predator stings, and one thing that's evident in 99% of every chatlog has to do with them 'teaching' the girl how to masturbate. And they could care less about her learning this naturally, without someone telling her to, on her own, for her own benefit. As you said, it's all about the man's viewing pleasure. Lots of these seemingly normal-looking men apparently saw it as "banter". It's so normalized it's frightening.
@@candicefrost4561 That's why I loved and hated the sex scene in Jennifer's Body between Needy and Chip. It was so awkard that me and my friend physically cringed throughout the whole scene and wanted it to be over. That is kinda how teenage sex is, cringe and awkard
In my opinion trauma doesn’t make you strong, trauma breaks you, that’s the opposite. Recovering from trauma is an act of strength, buts it’s not the source of it. This is something most (male) writers depicting rape and female trauma or even any woman or child with the semblance of a back bone can’t seem to get through their heads. And with the previously mentioned frequency of this trope it’s not like they haven’t given themselves the opportunity
I get that different people react to trauma differently, but there's a huge imbalance in representing people who react to trauma in any way but becoming "stoic" and "tough." We need to normalize trauma causing breakdowns (because, like, it does) so when it happens to someone they can find representation in the media too. I think it's so toxic to present this idea that the "right" way to respond to trauma is by toughing it out, and I've seen discourse in fandoms about characters who do have breakdowns from trauma are "weaker" and pitted against the "trauma, what? I'm a tough girl now!" character, putting the one who broke down in a worse light. I can't imagine how damaging that is to someone who went through trauma and, you know, was traumatized.
@@toriwork8891 I’m a trauma survivor, and didn’t think I was traumatized for years because of depictions of trauma in media, and how it’s presented online. I thought I was a depressed attention seeker because I’d have frequent emotional and physical breakdowns from the sheer stress of my unprocessed experiences. It took finding you tubers that have done a lot of trauma research in the past few years to start to make sense of everything. I really hate the idea of having the ‘right kind’ of trauma that gets perpetuated in media, and a supposed ‘right reaction.’ There are so many pretty, cute memes that say if your trauma didn’t make you a better person, you’re not a good person. Total wtf moments.
I hate the idea that my rape made me stronger. I'm strong despite my trauma, I'm strong because I was strong enough to overcome my trauma, not because of my trauma-
Yes, thank you for this! I went through traumatic events at a young age and I don't see in myself that power that people are expecting yet. I definitely felt the pressure to see those results, and I tried to force myself to become that 'successful' case that the world seemed to expect, but that only led me to deny what I was experiencing and feeling and that didn't help at all.
I loved the video but one thing- Lolita (the book at least) was meant to show the audience how easy it is to manipulate people into sympathizing with predators. It's harder to interpret this through film so I think the movie is a little suspect, but it's important to remember that the author himself was trying to critique this pedophilic culture we have. He's been openly disgusted by people thinking it's a romance story, as it's more of a psychological horror
Yeah I was so confused when I first read Lolita because I had read online that it was a classic "erotic romance" novel and when I actually read it it seemed obvious to me this was not at all what it was supposed to be. I couldn't understand how it got lumped in with "romance" at all.
nabokov himself had pedophilic tendencies, i don't know how much of a critique of society it was supposed to be. reading that book made me so deeply uncomfortable, and it's not his only one starring an underage sexualised/sexual girl
Carina What paedophilic tendencies out of interest? A scene in the book is based on his own history of being abused as a child and he was critical of the romanticisation of Lolita throughout his life
@@carinah1236 Can u bring in the source as well if thats the case, I may need to edit the wikipedia page to accommodate such a fact lol Or at least where u heard that notion, it may still be worth mentioning
tbh as a black girl, I prefer to having an older actor play Precious mainly because the role would've been traumatic for an actual 16 yr old. The book, Push, and the movie, Precious, hits too close to home for many black girls and watching an actual child experience it would've been traumatic for our own community too. Hell, my mom got upset when she caught me watching it. I was 19.
The movie still traumatized me since either accidentally walked in on my cousin watching it during a very explicit scene. I still haven't healed from it
it's not uncommon for abused/traumatised kids to both grow up quick and/or become hypersexual, but that doesnt make it any less wrong for adults to take advantage of that
Hell yea. I am living proof of that. When I was 13, I got into a relationship with an older man and he severely emotionally and mentally abused me. I only broke up with him last year after years of sleep deprivation and manipulations. For a while in 2020, I was seeking of the sexual attention of guys that were older than me, I even went after my abusers best friend. They would give me the attention I wanted and afterwards I would feel horrible. I stopped giving in to that part of my trauma only this year. My trauma still affects me but I know when to stop. I know my boundaries and my friend really help me out. I'm now 16 and healing :)
@@Qabimyou're doing some wonderful work on yourself! You must be very proud of how far you've come ☺️ it's grueling work! If you can afford it, I'd recommend getting a therapist to help you through your trauma. It can be so incredibly hard working through these things all alone. In any case, I wish you the best of luck and strength 😊
It's true. I was never involved in anything physical, but having no formal education on safe sex and consent + unrestricted access to the internet at age 11 saw me get involved with a /lot/ of inappropriate things. It took me years to correlate the abuse I'd faced (and sought) with nearly /all/ of my sexual preferences, but I've realized that seeking out that kind of content will never help me heal. Part of what took me so long, though, was how my parents reacted whenever they caught me writing or watching things a child never should. Instead of sitting me down and telling me what was wrong, I was punished and my access to the content was taken away. At one point, my mother got so angry with me that I asked her (through screams and tears) not to call the police on me. I thought I was in that much trouble. I was even taken to confession, which didn't make me feel any better at all. I was /beyond/ embarrassed to admit what I'd done. After everything cleared up, all that happened was I developed severe anxiety about being 'caught' for things, pornographic or not (as she also would take my phone at random times and find issue with any and everything I was watching or reading). I cleared browser histories constantly for fear of being yelled at, a habit I only broke a year or two ago. I'm almost 24. A lack of education and a lack of respect for my privacy did a lot of damage that could have been avoided. I wish I'd known better, and I wish the many older people I engaged with online would have known better, too. I hate carrying this with me, and I get terrible intrusive thoughts even now. I wish it had never happened. I wish I was better.
Absolutely. Also, I feel like 'grow up' is a subjective term. I grew up fast in the sense that I became very good at telling what people were thinking and how to act accordingly, how to please. Adults thought it made me very smart and mature for my age but it stemmed from navigating abusive situations and I feel like in a way it left me emotionally stunted. I'm 23, finally out of such an abusive situation and in truama therapy. Unpacking my past, why I do things and unhealthy coping mechanisms is making me feel like I'm trying to grow up properly this time but I feel more like a child than ever. Even though I didn't feel or act like 'a child', I still very much was one psychologically
I would be an example of this sadly :( I've been molested and groomed and I'm hypersexual and I feel like damaged goods. I feel like I have no worth. I feel like everyone else is better than me because they're ok and I'm not and it sucks.
@@maebloome I was just making an observation. I think she was 15 when cast. If you watch interviews with DS, she actually understands and embodies the character of Lolita very well. She even read the book and was desperate for the part. She said everyone on set made her feel comfortable and respected her.
the fact that Tumblr glamorized lolita and American Beauty when I was a teenager... I am so disgusted right now, I actually thought it looked so cool, and acting like them would make me feel desirable. I loved this analysis!
I think this goes on to show the gap between children and adults. Children can’t perceive the danger of it all as easily which is why us as adults gotta talk about these things and take action as often as we can.
@@talarsan Why is it so disturbing? I am 27 and still enjoy it.. It's just a movie. Movies often depict bad people/situations. I really don't understand why people are making it such a big deal..
It's very unsettling how male directors, writers, etc make it seem like a woman or girl will ONLY ever gain strength through enduring the utmost traumatic experiences of her life. It's as if men think these girls and women should be thankful these awful things happened to them because they'd be "weak" without them otherwise.
The strongest women I’ve met are ones with strong family and friend bonds and they didn’t experience trauma. I personally don’t feel strong because of my trauma. It’s in spite of it
Exactly. Too often I’ve seen trauma romanticized. The narrative paints traumatized people as ‘superior’ to people who haven’t been through some terrible traumatic thing in their life. Except this isn’t how it works. Trauma doesn’t make you stronger. It breaks you inside and tears you apart. IMO one of the best examples of the ‘tortured artist’ trope deconstruction is Diane Nguyen’s arc in Bojack Horseman. Diane wants to believe her trauma would give her purpose, and that it would help her write an award winning memoir to inspire other women. Ultimately however, she is unable to do so. She only begins to better herself as a writer and a person when she accepts that her trauma is not helping her become a good writer. Plus she is only able to create a successful book series for kids when she’s gotten treatment for her issues.
It definitely feels like there’s some ‘only the strong survive mentality’ going on, like having to grow up quicker, act as if you’re more mature and be dependent on no one (except for one random adult man apparently) is the ‘strong’ way and every other reaction a girl could have is the weak way.
I remember seeing a tweet from some guy that was like “M all of hearing women talk about the trauma they endured and how damaged they were by it, I want to hear about how it made you strong, what lessons it taught you, something inspiring I can tell my daughters!” Like, buddy, how fucking dare you…
As the daughter of a mother who experienced sexual assault, but also as a normal human being, I deeply appreciate the work you put on this video. The topics you cover are so important, yet often ignored by society and deemed too uncomfortable to be discussed. I specially applaud how you talk about adultification bias against black girls. In my country, Perú, we’ve recently had a supreme court judge said about a childhood prostitution case that the responsibility is to put on the minor (who is indigenous) because she looked “physically too mature”.
Black girls do face maturity at an way to early age. We must be watching our siblings, be the behaved one, know how to provide for a future husband. Hell once my dad told me I was going to face a high divorce rate because I complain too much. I was 13. I wasn’t even complaining that much. I simply said I didn’t like the type of apple juice my mom bought. Way to many times have I seen my cousin get yelled at by my aunt for crying and getting emotional because her brother would be really mean to her. She was told to be the mature one. Mature? She was 9 years old and he was 16, why doesn’t he have to be the mature one? It’s annoying how we must act like adults before we were even kids.
That's the norm for girls as far as being belittled for speaking up or having your own opinions and parents forcing us to learn how to be good wives. The fucked up part is i did learn how to be a good wife but i never found a man that works for a livinf so on top of doing everything else i also have to have 2 jobs to support my family. I am a white woman though.
It seems more like a lower-class issue than representing all black women. I never had to deal with that. Fact is, I'm still not that mature (21 years old). My sister is more mature, but she still acts like a teen (17)
@@sirenia1241 Yeah. On the romanticization part, it seems white girls get more of it, but in this particular case, it seems to be more of a class issue/toxic household issue instead of a race one since other races in the lower class can also experience this. This is true for a lot of black girls though.
It's sad because I am 13 and I have already experienced such stuff. It gets on my nerves every single time my mom and dad and family mention how I have to do this, this, and that for my future husband. Have you forgotten I am 13? Have you forgotten I am not interested in relationships right now? My mom is now slowly trying to somewhat push me into relationships by always asking and saying that it's okay if I am in one, I have repeatedly said I am not in a relationship and I don't care to be in one right now. It's so frustrating because this has been so normalized to the point that we are now being pushed to get into relationships at a young age. I understand that my family doesn't mean to do any wrong but they are hurting me by trying to do the right thing but ending up doing the wrong thing and saying the wrong thing. I just wish they wouldn't laugh at my face whenever I tried to bring these conversations up and put my opinion out. I'm the angry one and the stressed one when I put out my opinions and crying but I suddenly become a comedian when I am trying to bring up these tough conversations right? .. IMO I think in my situation it has to do with both me being Angolan (Southern African country, Im black) and also because my parents grew up in the '60s-'70s which is when this kind of behaviour was a thing sadly.
Great video!! I really love how you contrast the way black and white girls are treated in this sort of media. With white girls, it really feels like the "desirability" hinges on their perceived purity/vulnerability, despite the trauma they may have faced. Black girls are not really given this nuance, rather being presented as inherently sexual beings independent of their life experiences.
Very true. It's also how boy children of all ethnicities are perceived: as inherently perverted and hypersexual. Usually they're not seen as capable of being sexually abused by the opposite sex at all, because it's assumed it's what all young boys want anyway and he's "lucky" to get it. It's so common in films to make jokes about young boys being exposed to porn, and films like "The Reader" depict relationships between boys and older women as romantic or erotic
Yup. Even worse is all the memes about 14 yr old girls "faking depression". There are quite alot of adult men on the internet mocking these girls & believing they're for some reason "too privileged" to have depression, whatever that means.
@@LoveLove-fp2rn Some idiots seem to think that you can only be depressed if you´re dying of hunger on the streets, otherwise you´re just an overdramatic brat. Funily enough, those are the same people who go on and on about how much men suffer, yet they´re unable to empathise with anyone else.
the way I genuinely feel for this bc I don't even remember the feeling of childhood because my little traumas experienced young I stopped being a child when I was 6 but I think it was mostly because of me skipping a grade and always being with older kids and being bullied and abused, for context I am 14
@@vinslungur Yes, culture does fluctuate, but unfortunately these beliefs are yet to change. For example, right now, many young- mainly preteen- girls are being pressured by social media into growing up faster. We're seeing girls skip their "awkward phases" and wear full faces of makeup, dress in more grown-up clothes, and act older than they are just so they can feel like they "fit in". And the similar belief that trauma makes young girls "more mature" is totally still around today, and present in more than just movies. There are real people- mainly older men- that use this way of thinking to groom younger girls. I've seen it happen to a friend of a friend of mine who was manipulated into thinking that her trauma made her as mature as an adult and was hurt because of it. The glorification and exploitation of young girl's trauma is totally still relevant in today's culture.
For real. I will immediately turn off any like 'cop show' or thriller or what have you that is weird with or has almost exclusively, female victims. I see yall. Not doing it. Grossness.
As a girl who has experienced trauma from a young age I had to grow up fast. However, I never had the maturity to be in an adult relationship. I was in survival mode. At almost 22 years old I’m working on leaving survival mode. The amount of older people (men more so than women) who took interest in me was absolutely disgusting. Luckily my experiences had me running from the hills in situations like that but not everyone is lucky. Seeing how these situations are portrayed in media is sad for me because there is some truth in it however it shouldn’t be glamorized. They should not be trying to condone what is essentially grooming based on the fact these girls are traumatized.
in high school every repressed boy wanted me to be their manic pixie dream girl, it was like yes I have bipolar disorder and no thats not sexy Allen piss off and to think I brought a pie to class for extra credit and they still thought I was Wild and FrEe-SpIRiteD and ALiVe. I was none of the above
You know what's gut wrenching about growing up in survival mode? Your coping mechanisms can't pass in the real world anymore, so the older you get, the more you feel lost and frustrated because you're mechanisms aren't working anymore, and it'll keep getting worse the more you fail to create newer and healthier ones. Fuck childhood trauma
Not to mention, when you do finally start reaching stability, you get a period where all that innocent young child in you comes out because it can finally be expressed and it confuses the hell out of the people around you because they don't get that you finally reached a safe enough spot to let it out. Good luck and lots of love to those with childhood traumas.
@@maheenm.k1015 at least a couple years. But even then, its not so much that its stopped, so much as its been gradually maturing (which isn't to say I in and of myself are not mature, but that part of me, being able to express in such a way and the way it comes out, is). Im sure an aspect of this has to do with the fact I've been working out the traumatic memories with EMDR, so that feeling of looping back to that time is gradually fading/distancing.
I remember reading in a community for traumatized children a ironic post that said " *Wow you're so mature for your age* _Thank you it was the trauma_ " And literally couldn't stop thinking about it when watched it. I now look back and think of all the men that were over 25 that took interest in me with the excuse "you're just so mature", when I was just 14. Back at that time, I did think it was creepy, but never gave it that analysis until I watched your video. A traumatized kid deserves love, affection and normal relationships like any kid, with people their age, far away from power dynamics. Plus, now that I'm 22, I can't even think of date someone who is younger than 19, just thinking how differente life styles are, and how naive you are to certain aspects of life. Great reflexion! You got a new suscriber.
Preach! I think men who go after minor girls use that line to frame their interest in a way that makes their victims feel complimented, and not as victims. It preys on teen girls’s desire to look grown up and be taken seriously. I remember thinking that I was so mature when I was 15... but as you said, looking back you see how inexperienced you were, and it’s more apparent how creepy it is for an adult to be interested in a teenager
Right!! Especially when you think about the fact that having the level of maturity of an adult shouldn't have to be in a younger package in order to be appealing to adult men. Men don't exactly go around to women their own age telling them how smart and mature they are
Agreed, though on the euphoria note, I don't really think it's glamorizing drugs. At first glance it does, but I think the bright colors and trippy scenes are showing rues perspective of what it is like for her personally. They feel good for a short amount of time, but then comes the come down. Her drug addiction us portrayed as nothing but a destructive force that tears her family apart. For Euphoria's case, I don't think glamorization is the right word, though one could say that it is unrealistic. Glamorization implies that it makes the drugs look cool and desirable, which is not the case. But that's just my take on that.
@@elanadavis8491 It does glamorize drugs tho. They make it look very glittery and cool. They even say in the series “You know what, drugs are kinda cool” while LED lights change colours in the background.
There is a really interesting one about boy victims, it’s called “the reader” it’s about a German boy in the 50’s who is abused/“in a relationship” with a 30 year old woman. Their relationship ends because it is made public that she was involved with the nazis. The rest of the book shows the boy as an adult and how he never got over it, still somehow infatuated with the woman.
It's refreshing to see someone talk about this. A very frustrating pattern I've noticed through my experience going to therapy and seeking help to deal with my own traumas was that some adults, even when they were trained professionals, had a tendency to point to my trauma as a child and say "you act so mature! you had to grow up fast!" This attitude is highly damaging to someone who is still a kid. It sets up this bizarre expectation that instead of healing and reconstructing a young girl's previous sense of childhood, we just praise their pseudo-maturity and encourage them to repress their adolescent senses simply because they are harder to deal with. A loss of innocence seems convenient for everyone except the actual child.
For me, luckily I wasn't abused, I was just really observant to what adults did and their thought process. But I feel so bad for the girls who were, they shouldn't have had to suffer from that. :(
@@jjba3571 You hit the nail right on the head. I usually as a point of principle watch Asian dramas with older women- younger men relationships because female leads are usually infantilize the female leads if she is younger than the male lead
I saw a post recently talking about Anne with an E and how that's one of the only shows where pre-teens and teens are just that, y'know? Not children exactly, but not adults in the slightest. They're growing and learning and playing and just having a good time, and it's super refreshing seeing characters of those ages just be chill. I know it's set in a different time period, but still, it's nice to see teenagers not drinking and having sex and doing drugs, because not all teens do that. Like it's fine if some do, it's their life, but the media portrays it as if every single teenager who "has a life" does those things, when it's just not true. Anne with an E is a treasure ugh
yes it’s so good!!! And it talks about important issues in a way that even pre teens can comprehend. And unlike most teen shows the romantic relationships aren’t sexualised in the slightest. And even at the end when they’re both legal I think, the small kiss they share is still innocent and simply romantic. Unlike most on screen kisses which always somehow end up being super sexual and focused on weird movements.
i know this is one year old but i love this comment, i've never seen someone put it in words somehow and i relate to this a lot bc as a teen i felt pressure to do unsafe/unnecessary things to fit in and that i had to somehow become like the characters of skins or something(?) to like myself or not be lame, in reality i rarely did anything like that and felt bad for a while without realizing i was just a kid and its a really good thing that i didnt anything unsafe at that age lol (sorry for the oversharing i just haven't seen someone talk about this before lol)
@@elsapayo4864 i totally get that! It's perfectly normal for teens to want to explore new territory, but they're still growing and it shouldn't be as normalized as it is - this portrayal of teenagers acting the way they do in Riverdale, Euphoria, Skins. Hell, i didn't feel that I was old enough to watch Skins until I turned 19, when the main characters start out at what? 16 years old? Life is weird.
@@eggo9543 Tbf afair skins is set in england, where the age of consent is 16 I'm english and i remember a lot of people talking about participating in sex and drugs before they were even 16 (my younger sister started participating the same things before she was even 14 and it was the same for her same-age friend group)
Born sexy yesterday is such a creepy thing. Having to look amazing yet be so naive. Reminds me of how Planet of the Apes was written when the main male sees Nova (a naively primitive, yet strikingly beautiful female) and it’s clear to be an important visual for the enjoyment of who the author was expecting his readers to be. It’s not just in recent or old movies but I suspect it’s been going on since patriarchal systems became “the norm.” Quite disturbing to think over tbh. Lovely video by the way, very correct about childhood prostitution, it’s definitely elite perpetuated and it’s frustrating to know the world we live in sometimes! So many other points I would LOVE to comment on but you’ve done well to cover my thoughts. I’m subscribed and looking forward to more videos.👏
C K thank you so much for watching the video and for your input! It means a lot to me as i put a lot of work into this one. Hope you enjoy the rest of my channel
Child prostitution is not exclusively elite-perpetuated, it's just a one more myth. It was historically a creepy reality, a daily routine of working class people in the 19th C when age of consent was as low as 12, even if there was not so mach estrogens in food and water like today. Which causes early awakening of sexual instinct and what's much more creepy: maternity instincts in young girls who are then easy victims of abuse by unscrupulous adult men, as the adolescent hormonal storm distort their feeling of reality, frequently making them look at their abusers through rose-colored glasses. Those poor girls have as a rule zero social experience, they are children psychologically near totally unprepared, and often physically too weak to face an adult role of a lover, wife, mother or whatever else involving social responsibility. Nobody wants to go back to the situation of the 19th C which can be described cautiously as a cabinet of curiosities: an Old Man of the Mountain's Paradise for hedonistic men and a Hell for young women.
@@zkme2734 I haven't seen the movie in long while, but I do remember the scene while Charlie is having a mental breakdown near the end we see a brief clip of his aunt touching his thigh and saying "this is our little secret". We see throughout the movie how this trauma affects him (his views and thoughts on the relationships around him, his referenced mental health issues from before the movie starts, him allowing himself to be kind of taken advantage of by his friends because he thinks it's the right thing to do, etc), but we don't know exactly what that trauma is until this moment at the end that puts everything into place for us to understand. The book goes into it more after the reveal of what happened, if I remember correctly. But the entire story revolves around how his csa affected him and his perception of life, the audience just doesn't know this until the end. Re-watching or reading this story again with the context of what happened to him by his aunt and his conflicting emotions surrounding that and her death really makes you understand why he acts the way he does.
i would personally even argue that in a sense it does have some of the adultification. Not necessarily in that he is acting super mature (which he is, imo, but not in the same way this video is talking about), but in that his friends see him as perhaps older than he is. I think because the role was played by an adult Logan Lerman, people often forget that Charlie was a freshman in highschool, while all of his friends were seniors. That would make him around 14/15 years old, while his friends were around 18. Both Sam and Patrick have some sort of relationship with Charlie (Sam's is very evident in the movie, but Patrick's is much more intense in the book than the movie). Obviously they both have their own trauma and issues affecting their perception, but nonetheless these two legal adults (or roughly, not sure the exact age) feel that Charlie, a 14 or 15 year old kid, is mature enough for them to do these things shows that they view him as being older or more mature than his actual age. I know some people see it as only a few years difference, but the amount of maturing and growing you do from 14 to 18 is enormous, and the relationships in the book personally make me highly uncomfortable. Maybe that's the point, though. His perception of his childhood abuse is so skewed that he doesn't see anything wrong with these new relationships. I'm glad you brought up Perks, it's a very good example in my opinion.
It’s interesting how you’re considered strong, edgy, or cool when you look beautiful throughout your trauma, but you’re considered “damaged goods” or broken if you actually express your psychological struggles resulting from that trauma. People like to see this trope for its subversive nature. But they don’t like feeling socially responsible for it’s consequences, nor do they feel obligated to understand traumatized adult women and their emotional needs. You’re only strong or impressive when you’re a child trauma survivor. Adult women survivors are just crazy and damaged burdens that nobody wants to deal with. s/ They’re not as admirable or respectable anymore. It’s just something I’ve noticed.
@@MilaBelen Like…when you’re young and pretty, you’re a “bad-ass”. When you’re an adult with PTSD, a missing tooth, or a scar on your face, then you’re just depressing. We only romanticize things that are aesthetically pleasing. It’s messed up. 😒
@@adventurous1019 I mean,its just a five year difference and you both are adults and I think the op's talking about those greasy old men who prey on teen girls
@@adventurous1019 same thing, its a creepy thing to do in general, aslo he has an adult brain and you dont (you still need five years of development) id stay away of age gaps bigger than three years until youre in your late twenties, and had time to establish yourself as an adult
@@priya8855 I know it's a joke but ALSOOOO stop giving these men the image of "old, fat and greasy" bc a lot of people don't realize predators can also be a fit, 20s handsome man but bc he's handsome it's ok.
they always write the women who went through that trauma to come out stronger and be able to live as if nothing happened, they treat r//pe and such things as a growing experience that ultimately helps them. they try to make the men (and sometime women!) who did it feel better about what theyve done, as if it what they did was helping the person.
It makes me feel SUPER WEIRD that all of these were made by men... Especially "Lost Girls". I think if a woman had written it as an exploration of women's sexuality, or even if he had done it as a celebration of women in general, it would have been lovely! *But because it these are all written by men to further male interests and sexualization of LITTLE GIRLS* (pulling shit like 'they're essentially women/mature/alone so it's fine') *makes me more than uncomfortable.*
Keep in mind, though, that Cuties was directed by a woman, so it’s not enough to just “be a woman director”. This stuff is so deeply ingrained and allowed as part of the fandom for classic movies, you have to actively try to avoid these tropes and consider the ethical implications of child actors being used at all for certain movies/scenes.
This is a complete mischaracterization of Lost Girls and I'm really not comfortable lumping it in with movies like Lolita and American Beauty. The co-writer and illustrator of Lost Girls, Melinda Gebbie (Moore is her husband) is a legendary feminist comics author. Lost Girls is an exploration of finding your sexual agency in the aftermath of abuse.
He and his wife made it together, she did all the illustrations I would say it's also different from the rest in the fact it's explicitly for gratification
He and his wife made it together, she did all the illustrations I would say it's also different from the rest in the fact it's explicitly for gratification
He and his wife made it together, she did all the illustrations I would say it's also different from the rest in the fact it's explicitly for gratification
@@user-mb9nm7bq5e I'm a guy I felt that cuz in my whole life everything was traumatic and mess up...but I made my own world ,I don't care about the opinions of society or the opinions of people I know irl of how should I act or what should or shouldn't do..I made my own circle and my own world , we all should create our own world and circle to be ourselves :)
this was such an amazing video!! it's frankly disgusting to see Hollywood exploit the trauma that many, many children (including myself) had to go through in order to handle the weight of the horrible things that happened to them. this video perfectly explained the trope itself and why it's so problematic!!! great job
I think the even sadder thing is that that doesn't even cover half the shit Holywood perpetrates and exploitation it does, and I'm just talking about the really bad stuff... It's a cesspool and I'm starting to wonder if it's even any good at all given all the shit....
This is a kind of off topic but everyones comments was reminding me of how black minors will be pushed to be charged as adults as compared to white children or teens such as 18 will be pushed to be charged as minors
damn mate, how i forgot about that imbalance, truly shows how its been normalised. As a black boy, i can say that we are already used to the systematic oppression that "it is what it is". That common line itself is hella disappointing.
Don’t ever look up the original screenplay for Léon, it’s bad. Jean and Natalie’s parents wouldn’t take part in it until they applied HEAVY editing to the original story and script. I mean, the director dated/married a minor so it shouldn’t really come as a surprise.
The pedophilia and rape culture in movie industry is appalling. As an exemple, Roman Polanski confessed he abused a 13 yo girl, and was considered guilty by a court in US. But he flew justice and was protected in France. He even received awards...
@@Catlily5 I can only imagine the pain of being sexually abused, and it is deeply disturbing that this happened (and is still happening to other children!). I think you're brave for writing about that. I don't think they did anything, but both my biological "dad" and step-douche were pedophiles (guess who their eyes caught). It's nauseating to think about the implications of that, and the pain is so hard to live with. There are days where any touch can leave me wanting to run away. Any mention of sexual intimacy leaves me feeling gross and uncomfortable. Sometimes, I cover myself up in as many layers of clothing as I can so no one can touch me. It's awful to think about how some film directors are fetishizing reactions to trauma. It tells people that it's okay to treat traumatized people like that. I hope you're doing better now. Stay safe!
PTSD is a really hard topic, for even psychologists to some degree outside of veterans, to attribute and accurately diagnose. In fact, CPTSD which is often attributed to multiple traumatic events, especially those resulting from an early age, and it is not recognized as an explicit diagnosis in the DSM V. I think much of this perpetuates this stereotype outside of the reasons for the film industry to downplay this type of abuse.
@@anawiseman ohh okay thank you. You seem like you know a lot about psychology. So are PTSD and CPTSD two different disorders or is one of them an extentsion of the other. Also why is PTSD not in DSM V? I would think it is since PTSD is a mental disorder thats known a lot more than others however theres a lot of sterotypes about it.
@@slee2167 Although I am by no means a clinician, I believe that the criteria that separates the two is the amount of trauma. PTSD is usually attributed to a singular event. Whereas CPTSD is attibuted to multiple events like instances of repeated abuse in childhood. Although PTSD is commonly talked about, I'm sure there's more to learn. Like in the instance of Avoidant Personality Disorder (AVPD) and Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD). Although they have similarities, there is much more known about SAD.
@@slee2167 PTSD is in the DSM V. It is my understanding that the British use CPTSD and PTSD but we just call everything PTSD in the USA.(But I could be wrong.)
I was forced into grow up when I was little, my mom has disabilities and I was her care taker and I was made to babysit since I was 7 and I wasn’t able to have a normal childhood and now I get called childish because I want to do things I never got too
I feel you on that! Have the fun that you missed out on, just last week I was in a fire engine! I didn't get to ride around but still the guys were really cool about it and I'm a grown ass woman.
I feel you. My mother got diagnosed with postpartum depression after my brother's birth when I was 14 and I had to be a mother to them both. Years off my childhood was shaven off and so I had to grow up and now at 19 I'm considered babyish or childish. It's like I'm trying to reclaim what was taken from me
@@meihuangha EXACTLY!!! I did have a childhood because I had to take care of everyone else’s kids and my mom, which she has health issues which she can’t do a lot. So I never got to do fun stuff because I was stuck watching kids
I immediately thought of this too, that line was such a disappointment, and looking back perhaps a testament of the show runners' terrible writing skiils
@@vinslungur sorry but that’s such bullshit, the writers aren’t from medieval times are they? and the show has a huge cultural relevance and impact on current society, so that line is still horrible
It's not just the industry! I was talking about age gaps with someone the other day and the dude straight out told me that maturity comes from experience and age doesn't matter. And said that a 17 year old dating a 35+ man is fine because the 17 year old is almost an adult.........a 17 year old........almost adult.......WHAT??? The two things shouldn't even be put into the same sentence! I'm sorry I'm just so mad and disturbed people who think like this exist.
@@nikolettaschwarcz8238 My ex friend said something similar to that about a 16 yr old dating a 27 yr old. It was an anime. And he(my ex friend) turned out to be a f**king creep and very gross. And would ask inappropriate questions about me, over share and cross boundaries.
The truth is that most girls do not get to have a childhood at all anymore. I appreciate the perspective that you have on the ideology that all girls need to be mature and responsible. Children should be allowed to be. These ridiculous ideals need to be replaced by living life without these dramatic traumas and an emphasis on rehabilitation. We need to stop destroying our girls!
Can we also talk about how serial killers of men are caught much sooner and kill less than serial killers of women? People just don’t care about girls and women. It’s expected that we’re abused. It’s sick. Everyone has just accepted it as part of life.
You want to know what is pretty f****** up, many girls and women (only White girls and White women) romanticize White serial killers and criminals such as Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and John Wayne Garcy. I kept seeing edits of Dahmer in the show “My Friend is Dahmer”, “Dahmer My Story”, and the show “Dahmer”. It was all over Instagram and TikTok, it makes me so sick and so infuriated. This is so ridiculous to see that these true crime fans are absolutely insane in the mind. You guys know it is real bad, when there is romanticization of serial killers among Generation Z and mostly Millennials.
I loved Leon the Professional. My interpretation must be very different. I thought since Matilda had been raised in such an abusive household with a father who didn't care for her and was constantly inappropriate with women in front of her and things like that, she didn't understand love in a fatherly or platonic way. If she cared for someone, like she did Leon because he saved her, she tried to express it the only way she'd ever seen, which was how his father was with women.. Leon never reciprocated in that way but still tried to show he cared in other ways and by the end I think she was able to learn what a parent's love is like.
I COMPLETELY AGREE WITH YOU. The Professional is a gritty crime thriller where just about every character is a pretty terrible person. Leon... who is a professional killer (thus, a bad person if not a bad guy) was going to... or at least considered killing Mathilda... Ultimately, he did engage in a grooming process to a degree... he groomed her to be a killer too... or at least taught her how to do it... but he also set things up so that she had some options... some economic means of fending for herself... I feel that he did care for her in the most magnanimous way he thought he could.
The first time I watched the movie my interpretation were very similar. However once I made a fast research about Luc Besson, the film director, I realized "Leon" was made to represent the romantic relationship of Besson and a 15 years old girl who gave birth to his child at 16. This movie is disgusting just like its criminal director and everyone who funded it.
Really well made video. As a black woman, I was happy to hear someone touch on the unique experience of being so prematurely perceived as an adult or as just older in general than white peers without making it seem like black people are things to observed and talked about, and not actual people. I also really appreciate all of the nuance you included about how this happens to girls in general. Great video. I‘ll be subscribing
As a child of color who had had her childhood cut short with a bad mother and a horrible teacher who cut her innocence at 10, I can absolutely say, this needs to be talked about way more than it is. This is speaking for all the young woman who have suffered similar trauma and mental illnesses. I thank you so much for talking about this ❤️🥰
I think what was worse about Dolores' pregnancy at the end was that it didn't mean anything else to H.H other than shattering the visage of Dolores as a "nymphette" or barely pubescent "girl-child." Lolita is one of the best examples of an unreliable narrator in literature. I'd even argue that her "death in childbirth" was unlikely literal, and that the death of his "Lolita" was merely the death of his fantasy of reliving his lost childhood love thru Dolores, and her becoming a woman through pregnancy and childbirth.
I just recently had the discussion with my mom that I don't like to be praised on my "maturity", and she was really confused. It just.. it's supposed to be a compliment and I used to actually really like it, but now it's a reminder of all the time i've lost. I spent over a year *micromanaging* myself so that nobody would find out what happened to me, and I would have done it for longer had a doctor not figured me out and intervened. "You're so mature" was like a success back then, a, "thank god they're falling for it". Now it's just painful.
There's such a huge fight to show black women as vulnerable, feminine, to be protected, specifically dark skinned black women and Hollywood putting lights and mix women as representation is just putting dark black skin women farther from a place of protection (the hate you give was supposed to be for a dark skin black woman, and there's the case of casting Zoe Saldana and making her darker with makeup). I have to say I like most ofthis actress but they are closer to what is comfortable to see on screen and telling the black "experience " only with them continue the stereotypes that if you are darker you are not soft, delicate, need protection or a simple a kid. You are tough you can handle it
This is an awesome analysis. I’m Mexican, and in Latin/Hispanic culture, girls are taught to be quiet about abuse (it’s the Catholicism). So they grow up into submissive adults and learn to deal with it.
when I was 16 I got into a relationship with a 21 year old because I thought I was 'mature' partially because of my trauma as I child making me grow up quicker. I'm 18 now and even though it's only two years later I can see how messed up I was to think there wasn't a massive power imbalance there. It was just wrong.
trauma never made me stronger, i always felt like i got weaker and weaker with time, thankfully im recovering and hopefully i won't let people hurt me again
Thank you Susu! This is so unexpected but I’m so grateful and happy you enjoyed it. My videos are a lot better now in my opinion but glad this one got some traction bc I still like the script even though the execution/production is very rudimentary - I hate that I’m using a headset ugh 🤦♀️
As someone with some bad experiences, the "compliment" "Wow you're so mature for your age!" (which I have been told many times) at this point makes me sick to my stomach, especially when it comes from men trying to win me over. Thank you for this.
Im not quite sure why Im saying this, but I am a kid dealing with a lot, and I found comfort in movies like these during a time where I got groomed a few times. This video gave me some tools to criticise these films and more new stuff to learn about, when it comes to both movies and myself, oh and about internalised patriarchy. It just hits different to hear from a fellow woman (please correct me if Im misgendering you) of color. Youve earned a new sub ! Cant wait to see more of your stuff !
barely half way through but this is a fantastic video ! ive always been super uncomfortable with leon the professional bc from the bits and pieces i saw, i thought mathilda was an edgy teenager who just looked young at best bc she was so Mature. it wasnt until i watched the movie in full that i found out she was actually a literal Child. the idea that i had been given for so long about Leon the professional based on pop culture made me believe mathilda was an older sexy young woman actually made me confused when i turned the movie on, because i kept waiting for Mathilda the edgy and alluring girl to show up and all i saw that sorta "fit" was a child. and i thought, "well that Can't be the female co star, shes a kid"
These types of films need at least a warning at the beginning. The tactics used in the film are often used as grooming techniques for the young and vulnerable. Being a victim myself and acknowledging what happened made me realize how much the media around us can influence us. I believe that literature and film should be available to freedom of artistic expression, but just like they have warnings for pregnant people at bars, there will always be a naive person that needed that warning when no one was there to give it.
There is a newer movie "Lamb," based on a book, that also sort of portrays this Trope without the predator actually sexually assaulting the victim, only kidnapping and mentally abusing her while she falls in love with him. She is only like 11, too
just watched it after seeing your comment and WOW. that movie was so creepy and messed up. Just because you groom and kidnap the kid without actually raping her doesn't make it okay! You still confused, frightened, and manipulated the hell out of her.
Precious was such a good movie in my opinion, she was able to rise above and become better than her abusive mother. She did what a lot of us abuse victims wish we could. Move past the low expectations of our abuser. (I mentioned Precious because it was in the thumbnail)
Didn't her character get HIV off her dad? I recall the scene where her mother scoffed about it and said something like "I don't have it since you can't get HIV from having butt sex." So the dad was being with both the mother and Precious.
@@rosiesummer2711 I always found it so strange that the mother thought that. The mother was around in the 80's, she should have been aware of the homophobia regarding AIDS and that you can get it from anal.
@@inferiorinferno8859 You would think so but I think the mother was in denial about getting it through via anal and golating that Precious had it. Since she was jealous of Precious. No idea why she didn't try to protect Precious.
I always got told I either looked older or acted older at such a young age and that seriously got to my head. As a 12-13-year-old, I experienced trauma from an older man who took interest in me and essentially groomed me. I never saw anything wrong with it because I always had the mindset that I was more mature and capable of handling it and no one around me really knew the extent of what was going on and I feel like oftentimes they would forget I was still a child. I'm 17 now and only recently have I been able to come out and go to therapy for it. So many things in my life have been affected by it and It's horrible to say but at this point, I still find comfort in older men. There are things I'm actively aware of that are wrong and messed up but it's like I can't escape it and I wished I had talked about it earlier because it got so bad to the point where I would disassociate and it's horrifying. What's even worse is that all young girls have been so indoctrinated into a society where they are hypersexualized that things like grooming are so common in adolescent girls. I know so many of my friends just at the age of 17 have experienced some form of SA. As a 12-year-old you're not able to process that what you are going through is trauma. It follows you for the rest of your life in romantic relationships and it's scary to come forward about because you don't want to be victim-blamed. A lot of the time I will have to remind myself that it's not my fault I did certain things because I was being actively groomed. Thank you for bringing awareness to this topic because honestly, It makes me feel so much more validated. I know it must also feel so validating to so many other women and young girls who have been victim-blamed for things that were completely out of their control.
wait I thought Leon loved her as a sort of.. fatherly figure despite her feelings toward him. It was an uncomfortable film, obviously but was that last scene with them not platonic?? jeesh that’s weird man
As far as I know, the director of Leon the Professional actually groomed a teenage girl and got her pregnant at 16 while he was twice her age. I used to think the same thing as you, but given this extra context I unfortunately think that it’s much worse.
it was long ago, but i remember reading somewhere that in the original script, they were supposed to hook up and leon cries while they do the nasty. it was of course rejected
People looking at the actions of one person involved in the making of it and acting like that changes how the movie should be seen. I disagree, at least how I remember it, the story had him turning down her advances and emphasizing how wrong it'd be if things went there. I don't know about whatever alternate script might have existed, but that's not the story that was used.
I’m guessing that with all this context I just learned five minutes ago that that projection of the relationship was essentially a ruse, so I’m sad now
I like to think that way, even though the intentions of the director might have been different. Leon is one of my favourite movies, not so much for the story but because of the main cast's acting, Jean Reno, Natalie Portman, and Gary Oldman are fantastic! But in regards of the story, they way I liked to interpret it was that Leon lost his youth when he moved to USA and became hitman, so when he saw Matilda in the same position he was, he sympathized with her and tried to keep her safe from whatever fate she would've had if she was left to fend for herself
Yeah, and really, younger women with older men is still the standard to this day. At least they're women, not girls but I suspect it's this latent desire (of men) for females as close to that nascent stage as possible. Just part of a very long history and practice. I think of early film where practically all the leading ladies where in their mid & late teens to their early 20's while men would be in their mid to late 20's and up at the time of reaching stardom. Think Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish, who, at 19 was lying to directors telling them that she was actually 16 yrs old to increase her chances of being cast. Charlie Chaplin met his 2nd wife when she was 8yrs old, cast her as a "flirting" angel at 12, married and impregnated her when she was 15. His first wife, Mildred Harris, was 16. He was emotionally abusive to her and did not regard her as his intellectual equal 😂 He'd later marry Paulette Goddard when she was 25 (a considerable improvement from 15 year olds) and he, 47. Chaplin was her 2nd husband. Her first was 37 years old, she was 16 at the time (15 when they met). Lauren Becall regularly starred along side her husband Huphrey Bogart, 25 years her senior. Or how about just Mia Farrow with literally anyone of her partners - Sinatra, Previn, and of course, Woody Allen. I'm not old enough but don't recall Manhattan being esp. controversial. Buuuut I digress. I could go on for-f**king-ever about this 😅 Anyway, thanks for your great vid, I really enjoyed it. And sorry about my long ramble 😆
@@CrankyB1tsch whatabouttism isn't a good look Also lets be real, women get that treatment much more than men. Doesn't mean mens issues aren't important but that if you really cared you'd try to change something about it yourself instead of only bringing it up when women talk about *their* problem. Go make your own video or find one that talks about mens issues and support that instead.
@@cody_638 when someone tries to talk about men issues everyone jsut laugh or shouts "you're a mysogynist", but that's not the point. the point is that women love "young meat" too, it just doesn't catch too much attention because no one relly care. also, it's not necessarily a bad thing if someone is much older than their partner, as long as anyone is adult. yes, charlie chaplin but that was 80+ years ago, totally different society. if that happened today, it would cause many many problems (fortunately!)
@@cody_638 btw you shouldn't assume someone's gender. you didn't specifically called me a man but i'm quite positive you think i'm a man lol. also, again, i tell you that if you try to talk about men issues people simply do not care enough and most of the men themselves don't even know that society fux them pretty badly too cause the public opinion is monopolized by "women issues". which, btw, are just the other face of the same coin and imo we will never be able to resolve one gender's issues without thinking about the other gender's too (yes, there aren't only 2 genders bla bla, you understood what i meant here), cause they're intersected tightly
It's truly crazy how easy it is to have your girlhood disappear so quickly. At the age of 11 I was already being groomed and being emotionally abused, while being praised for being more mature than my age. I turn 17 soon and all I can think about is how much I missed out on my younger years. I still struggle with being hyper-sexual and seeking male approval but at least know I can try to enjoy my teenage years and act my age. I just want everyone to know that you are loved and accepted
14:29 omg SHE SAID IT that’s so true and honesty it’s one of those things that’s so ingrained in society that we see it as totally normal and don’t even know it’s there. I love this video!!! 🙌
I wonder if this has something to do with the fact that the Internet was so outraged about Cuties, but doesn't bat an eye at Dance Mom. In Cuties, black girls dancing was seen as overly sexualizing children, while in Dance Moms it's just seen as innocent dancing.
I didn't think the dancing in the show was provocative, but I haven't seen it in a long time. But looking at some of the stuff they wore, yikes, and the concept of the show at all is a dumpster fire.
I couldn't finish the video because of the subject matter but I really appreciate this video. I was repeatedly traumatized at a very young age and have always been disgusted when older men sexualize me. It felt triggering to my ptsd up until I was 21-20. Even now it makes me want to gag when a man with the same age as my parents creeps after me, and I'm in my mid-twenties.
thank you for doing this video. that professional movie always creeped me out. also thank you for speaking specifically about the erasure of black girls. its so true. its like people are offended by the idea black girls and woman are actually regular human beings. a poll shows that people honestly believe black woman are physically stronger than a white woman too. like they are light weight calling us man-woman hybrids.
Yes, this masculinization of black women is ever present. The adultification of black girls is a constant theme. Feminine women such as Miss America (Nia Franklin) and many others are never given any kind of promotion.
i feel like one of the nastiest parts of this trope is how it bleeds into people's perception of real life people. i was a victim of domestic abuse as a kid and had to act like an adult much younger than i should have. people treated me like an adult in most ways. they expected me to behave like those girls, and in turn, i gave them what they wanted.
I remember hearing the term "Lolita" from childhood to describe "fast" girls. Then in my teen years, reading the book and becoming absolutely disgusted. And then in my adult years, reading about Florence's tragic story and how the media treated her and just having my heart absolutely break for her smh It's crazy how things are twisted over the course of time to be normalized and absolutely dismissive of young girls trauma.
the worst part is that this kind of content, when allowed to be seen by children, serves as its own form of trauma and grooming. Even people who have not actually had any physical violence against them witnessing really dangerous and unhealthy relationships as portrayed through such a romanticized lens is super damaging. And with the internet helping disseminate this kind of content more and more easily to younger and younger people this phenomenon is only getting worse. Kids think it's edgy and cool to watch shit like this like you said, and worse shit still, and it results in some truly traumatized adults who don't even have the satisfaction of understanding who did this to them. There isn't one specific person, and it's more often just other kids who are also traumatized and doing the same things to themselves. They'll end up blaming themselves or not even realizing there is an issue and stumbling their way towards perpetuating their own trauma experiences to other people. Like, it's just disgusting to think back on the things I saw at ages as young as 12 because I thought I was grown enough or whatever. I'm glad I wasn't given the actual opportunity to escalate things past where they got to because I'm sure the trauma would have ended up cutting way deeper. I just really think we should actually try find a way to regulate what kids are allowed to/able to see more while still allowing them to have a space. It's a weird fine line to toe but it needs to be looked into more. I would have hated it if my parents kept the blocker on the internet and if they actually paid more attention to what I was watching and regulated that, but in retrospect I can't fucking believe it.
yeah, I saw the movies when I was twelve also. even though I was disgusted by it, there were times where I thought it was supposed to portray actual romance, and when one of my friends said she was kissing an older highschooler (18years) when I was 13 I didn't report it.
I grew up too fast as a kid because of trauma and was "so mature", leading me as an adult to actually be immature because I never properly emotionally matured. I don't think that movies that try to show this generally do it right, and as you've said it often ends up victimizing the young actors involved. The movies never show the characters being tough and mature around others, only to hide in their rooms crying because of emotional flashbacks. They forget to show that the characters really are just kids who are traumatized and dissociating to cope, or how it leads to adults who aren't able to function because they weren't able to mature at a natural rate and avoided processing emotions so they have no ability to as adults.
This was so well made, thank you so much for this video. It’s so disgusting to see how society and media just lets children be seen as anything but children. You said everything that I wanna rant about in this world. Great video
Wow, I did not expect to be this emotional. You're right...why do we have to go through trauma just to be considered strong? We shouldn't have to be strong, we should be safe. Very well done video.
i had a conversation with my sister this morning talking about how the film and tv industrie always cast teen male roles to men in their 20s or 30s but when it comes to female teen roles they often cast women and girls of the actual age that theyre playing
Just a note about Leon, the book that the movie was based on has Portman’s character become pregnant with Leon’s baby, and it’s supposed to be a reminder of their “romance”. I feel that with so many of these films the plot was based on critical literature which instead of offering thought experiments and critical analysis like in the books, the films glorify and gloss over the true intention of calling these things out.
@@maffieduran hmm, I’m not sure then, I forget what the book name was called I’m sorry 😅 it was based in part or inspired by a book, but I’m blanking now
The algorithm brought you to me when I needed the most after a painful toxic breakup. The guy was with me because of my trauma and pain, fetishing my sorrow. Gross.
That I saw these films in my teens and early twenties and identified with them, and with the adult understanding I have now...it's chilling. Older men have always found me attractive, and have damaged my foundational years terribly. This is a very empathetic, critical and important look at how warped and wrongly tolerant sexualizing children is in a still somehow weirdly puritanical society.
(10:50) a movie with a teenager (15) and an older woman (36) is "the reader" its been a while since I read it and maybe even longer since I watched the film
The worst part is that, as a child, I experienced multiple traumas and had to ‘grow up’ quickly, which was celebrated/treated as a positive thing when it came to adults congratulating me on ‘how mature I am for my age’ or ‘you’re much more sensible’ etc. I didn’t want to be mature. I just wanted to be a kid and as an adult now, all I wish for my past self is that I could have had a ‘normal’ childhood and not have to live up to these expectations or be forced into the reality of the world years before I was ready to even begin to think about it. The way we address maturity in children to children needs to be changed- it’s good in some situations to reward responsibility etc however when it comes to a child with trauma, I personally feel that congratulating them on growing up or being ‘a big girl’ is the worst thing you can do because ultimately it feels like they were validating the trauma and constantly made me doubt whether I was in the wrong etc. I knew the only reason I was ‘more mature’ than the other kids was because of what I’ve experienced and every time I was congratulated on it, it whittled down my self confidence and ability to feel safe among my peers because ultimately I was worried that they may have been encouraging the kinds of things I experienced to other kids- which sounds ridiculous now however at the time I was a scared child who, despite ‘being mature’, did not have the capability or functioning to fully process the things being done or said to me and felt like it was normal to be treated that way etc. I know it’s not now but I’m an adult. 9 year old me was very different.
Great video. I loved the book Lolita and I was so disgusted by the 1997 adaptation 🤮! It really feels like someone found a book where an adult fucks a kid and used it as an excuse to do a not safe for work movie. Absolute insult to the original that's in my opinion one of the best written psychological horrors out there.
It definitely felt and was an exploitative movie. I honestly don’t think a movie adaptation is warranted and am horrified it exists but not surprised as it’s such a big pattern in a lot of movies and pop culture 😓😑
I actually plan on adapting the book into a movie one day. I would want to return with it back to the horror origins. And one important thing I want to do is to never actually show the child. Sure. It will be implied that there is a child. But for one I don't want a kid to ever play in something like this and for two EVEN if the child would strip infront of you, nothing means you can do anything to it. I'm sorry I'm getting a little emotional but in the country I live in the age of consent is 15 and I can't imagine how many people are getting away with ruining children's lives.
Honestly I thought the movie was quite similar to the book it was just hard to portray what was actually going on with the whole unreliable narrator thing on film. For example my friends who watched it who didn't read the book had no idea what the hell was happening throughout most of the movie
@@stitches318 it's somewhat like the book... but also somehow less tragic? I think Jeremy Irons was too attractive & composed to play that role... when I read the book I imagined Humburt as creepy & obsessed. He wasn't someone you'd ever find attractive personality-wise; you're left feeling Lolita toyed with him because of his naivete, & that he fell in love (obsession) because he had never experienced being so strongly pursued. Honestly, if I had to imagine him, it'd be like the character Robin Williams played in Insomnia.
@@GamerBunny2025 well, if only real life pedos were ugly ogres too. They're not, they're charismatic and manipulative. They are beloved in their communities and families.
As a " child " who as lost her "innocence" at 12 i can tell that it's not true. I mean, it didn't grew stronger because of that. On the contrary I can't look at a man whitout having flashbacks and panic attacks so I don't really think being r*aped or sexually abused make you stronger, it's more likely to give you PTSD and nightmares :/ ( Sorry for my bad english Imma french )
Yes spot on I was 7 and then 9 when it ended 21 now big girl waking up screaming or crying or both to nightmares of memories.replayed ain't a god damn person can tell me this has made me strong when in reality it's broke me
another example of this trope i thought of with boys was the character Billy from Stranger Things. especially in season 3, Mike’s mom and a bunch of other moms would sit by the pool Billy worked at as a lifeguard and would try to get his attention very blatantly. him and Mike’s mom even almost went out on a date. Billy was still a kid and had endured abuse from his dad and i think this really represents the pseudo maturity trope as well. Very well done analysis, by the end, i had such a great understanding i started thinking about examples in more recent works i had seen!!
Trauma survivors are young; We are in “fight or flight” mode; We die 30 years earlier. Trauma isn’t positive. Stress is toxic. I like to say I have c-ptsd. I’m not strong because if my trauma. Im strong in spite of my trauma. I’m amazing in spite of my parental abuse. They’re not the cause of my development. In spite of…
This stuff is why even today, at 23, being called "mature" or "an old soul" is a trigger to me. I wasn't mature as a child, i was too beaten down from trauma to act like the typical child and i acted like a grown up because my childhood was taken away.
Thank you for this. Brown and Latina girls go through the same process of ageing up, adulting, and sexualization. I don't understand why waipipo do this. I read once a man saying that non-white girls grow faster because they come from exotic countries... the colonization... Just one note: it's said dissociates, not disassociates. It's two different words and the difference is important.
Trauma bond is actually something completely different lol
You’re right. When I made the video I misinterpreted the definition and I’m sorry for that. The correct definition is bonding with the person that traumatized or abused you. Thanks for pointing that out.
@@CheyenneLin - The term used most often is “stockholm syndrome” which is when a captive or abuse victim forms an emotional attachment to their abuser.
I’ve suffered trauma personally, and I don’t wish it upon anyone. The PTSD, severe depression, and stress induced seizures aren’t fun so I don’t see why anyone would think of trauma as an attractive quality.
I just got put on antidepressants last year and life looks a lot better now (no need to worry i’m in a good place now, mentally and emotionally).
@@cinderheartmeow6032 I'm proud and happy for you
@@CheyenneLin thank you for opening my eyes !
@@CheyenneLin you left out the movie, "Pretty Baby" starring Brooke Shields. Your analysis of this movie would be interesting.
The fact women’s maturity is never used in positive social ways like how we can cope better possibly in work situations, but is an excuse for pedophillia shows a lot
Yeah that's fucking gross
I wish women didn't have to either be a functioning, perfect office worker or business owner, or used aesthetically or sexually. Girl boss crap is insidiously regressive.
When your right your right 👆
TRUE
9-5 is a good movie about that.
As a black woman who had her childhood cut extremely short and lost her innocence at a young age, thank you for this.
+
#metoogirl
I'm so sorry to hear that. Are you okay?
@@ravenrose5712 Yeah, as much as I can be. I've done a lot of healing over the years. Some wounds will never go away completely but I've learned to live with them. Thanx you for asking 💜
@@selenesilverwolfe9392 I'm so glad to hear that.
Guess thats why men and some women get mad when a strong female appears on screen without trauma
wow, so true, mary sue explained
Too many crazies in the country
Aparently if they didn't go through hell, they dont deserve the power they have.
Even when male protagonists often win and gets rewarded doing the minimum effort or still acting inmature, no one complains about them.
@@kiriki4558 Indeed this is crazy! There have been thousands of movies/books of male power fantasy but nobody calls them Gary Stu's and these male characters haven't even gone through trauma and stuff... But when a female character does have the same formula, she's immediately a mary sue or a feminist/sjw propaganda. Like, why can't just let women enjoy female characters in a fantasy world where she can also be powerful? I get it when it's genuinely bad character writing, but it almost gets to the point where men will call any female character a mary sue because she didn't go through trauma and abuse and is living her best life, even though they won't ever call a male character a gary stu with the same exact formula... You can even look at anime for example, tons of harem male protagonists with women falling in love with them left and right and these protags are powerful to boot, but I guess no one bats an eye. xD
That's because some characters comes off one dimensional or just arrogant attitude with no charm. Luckily there are plenty of examples strong female characters with no trauma and universaly loved by fans.
My favourite quote I've heard ( that I unfortunately forgot where I heard it) was: "It doesn't matter if your childhood trauma made you strong. You weren't supposed to be strong, you were supposed to be safe."
Oh, wow. WOW. Okay, hold on, let me organize my thoughts. That hit hard.
Strength and safety are concepts that get confused often, I think. Many believe to be safe, one needs to be strong. I think this belief has helped raise this toxic masculinity/fake it til you make it/don't show weakness/grow up already culture.
Strength-- or what we consider strength-- is much more sought out than safety. Why? I couldn't tell you exactly, but I think it's because it's something we can see easier.
Strength looks a little different to everyone, but it usually takes the form of something. Whether it's bulging muscles, or an aloof persona when it comes to horrifying experiences, we tend to gravitate towards those considered strong. We idolize & praise them for it. Because strong people seem safe. Perhaps the whole business of hitmen comes from the idea we need to search for strength to find safety.
Strength is spoken of so often we sometimes forget the idea of safety. When we are hurting, we often say, "I need to be strong," not "I need to find a safe space."
I think safety is confused with happiness, which makes sense, but is still incorrect. When we're happy, we're usually safe. When we're safe, we allow ourselves to find reasons to be happy.
When we look at happy endings in movies, the characters are usually smiling/laughing and surrounded by the things they love/like, and we think, "they can finally be happy," instead of "they're finally safe." This is most likely because happiness is something one can see easier, and the term 'happy' has a more uplifting connotation while the word 'safe' can imply one was previously unsafe, and that can put a damper on things.
Perhaps the subject of safety scares people. As I said before, it implies a lack of safety, and living unsafe and recognizing you're not safe are two different bags to unpack. It can spark anger, fear, deep sadness, guilt, shame, the feelings people don't like.
Maybe that's why people look to strength instead. Strength is seen as rising above all that. Strength is untouchable. Strength is safe.
Sorry, I didn't mean to write an essay. I had a lot to say!
@@katarinacarrico7887 I really like that essay as "Strength is untouchable. Strength is safe.". That describes perfectly the odd paradox about safe being such an odd subject to talk about because it makes one feel unsafe. When I was a kid, I was always afraid I'd be kidnapped because my parents laid out some rules and protocols to prevent that from even being much of a risk. I was safe all my childhood, but since there were (by necessity) instances where I was responsible for my own safety I often didn't feel that way. Safety is such a interest concept because the coveted feeling of safety also mental, emotional and spiritual. A person might be physically safe in a dangerous location because of streetsmarts, but never at ease. The best kind of safety, the safety I wish every child could have, is where a kid doesn't even have to think about their own safety because it's such a constant, unchanging reality.
@@duskflower8825 I'm happy you liked what I said, especially enough to reply! (I greatly enjoy discussing these kinds of topics.)
Maybe we need to adjust lessons on safety; instead of putting it as a way to avoid danger, we should look at it as just another way to be healthy. I think the way we talk about safety now has shone more of a spotlight on the fact there is danger. And while it is important to let kids know about these things, I fear they can grow so afraid of being unsafe they forget the main lesson on what to do to be safe.
I understand the idea of scaring kids into submission, and while I admit that can work, they still don't fully take home the lesson. I know I can't speak for everyone, but from my and other classmate's experiences, when we had guests come over to teach us to be safe with, let's say crossing the street, conversation afterward wasn't, "it makes sense why we should wait for the crosswalk light to turn white before crossing the street," it was, "that story about the kid getting hit by the car was so scary." Remembering the fear but not really retaining the lesson.
I agree with you. Every child should not have to worry about being unsafe, and it's unfortunate that, in this day and age, not only do they have to worry about things like natural disasters or strep throat, but also the people they're close to and trust.
Where the quote from !!! Someone pls find it I will use it as n affirmation 😘😍💓🥰 thank you so much
The original quote is:
"but it made you stronger” I was a child. I didn't need to be stronger. I needed to be safe.
If anyone was wondering.
Lolita could honestly never work as anything other than the original novel. The second you cast a child as Dolores you've become just like Humbert Humbert and have sexualized a real child and have her kiss her 40yo costar. This isn't an issue in the book since obviously, no real little girl had to act out those scenes if its a novel. Also an unreliable narrator is so hard to do in a movie format and just leads to most of the audience not understanding that Humbert is fudging the narrative. Honestly I've only seen good unreliable narrators in books.
The only way I could see it done is if you made Dolores the main character. Where she is just being a kid but that would still be a problem because you're still watching a girl being victimized and you have to take a lot of care to still not sexualize Dolores.
Yeah I read the book and thought it was pretty clear that Humbert was a creep and all the scenes where Lolita was "teasing" him were just him reading things into her that weren't really there. It's hard to get that across in film though.
@@princesseuphemia1007 The book is brilliant in the way Lo is so ambiguous and really doesn't even say or do much through out the novel. Like she has barely any dialogue and what she does say is rather vague. While I thought the 1996 movie was a good take on the movie, it definitely romanticized it. Imo Lo should have been this morose, suffering child. After all, her mom was a emotionally unavailable, her real father was dead, and then she gets kidnapped, abused, and finds out her mom dies. Yet they show her all bubbly and flirty all the time under the guise of it's HH's perspective, like who would know that. Most of my friends who watched it who didn't read the book had no idea what was happening.
Yes, this!
@@princesseuphemia1007 I feel like they could have done it with him doing voiceovers about how she's teasing him and stuff whilst showing the reality on screen of her doing nothing sexual at all. This would also resolve the issue of sexualising a child on screen too imo
"why must women go through trauma in order to be strong?" Wow thank you for sharing your ideas!!
Diavionne Rampersant thank you so much!
I think that's just the easiest way in terms of storytelling. That's not only specific for female characters. Look no further than almost every comic book or anime character ever.
That reminds me of the way Sansa was written in S8 of Game of Thrones. She was a character who was repeatedly deceived, taken advantage of and abused physically and sexually and when she finally supposedly became empowered the male screenwriters wrote her to credit her abusers for it, saying that "without them she would have stayed a little bird all her life”; implying a woman needs to be abused to become strong (so hey, abuse isn’t that bad) and if she overcomes her circumstances and becomes empowered she owes her success to her abusers UUHGGGGH
@@asaredeye2298 I agree. Trauma is a pretty easy way to push character development. The only issue I have personally is how the trauma for female characters is so often of a sexual nature. In Queen's Gambit for instance, some audience members were really expecting Beth to get raped or molested(especially when she started getting close to the janitor). It's to the point where people were honestly surprised that her plethora of issues did not include rape or molestation.
@@no.6377 The first choice for trauma is the death of a loved one, but it is true for female characters a sexual trauma is a close second.
About the Queen's Gambit, I didn't get that vibe you mentioned. I'm actually surprised that people considered that. I thought her mother's death was traumatic enough, but maybe I was just optimistic.
" black girls who because of systemic racism get even less of a childhood than their white peers. " almost had me crying
+
It's true
@Leptune Cannet you may laugh because you havent experienced that shit before. Its not okay to mock and act like shit doesnt exist when its so obvious and prevalent everywhere that it does. Your ignorance is showing.
@@micro8611 exactly
@Leptune Cannet you're soooo edgy!!! congrats!
People misunderstand Lolita so often...Nabokov himself said that you were never supposed to sympathize with Humbert, that he’s just a charismatic villain. And none of the film adaptations have portrayed it correctly
Nabokov had many affairs with students in the university where he was teaching, and he was married. Those were not mature girls, so I'm not really sure if Humpert was not a some kind of self insert
That's the problem though, nobody looks at it that way. They just glorify the relationship
I always got the sense that he was trying to make Humbert look pathetic and minuscule. Just a creepy lonely freak.
@@emptycinema They weren't mature, but there's an enormous difference between college students and the *12* that Lolita is in the book.
@@ChodePolice That's spot on, actually! Unfortunately, many people, especially if they only watched the more recent movie adaptation with a 17-year-old actress, misunderstand the dynamic. I agree that any film adaptation is going to have a lot more challenges because it's more difficult to portray HH as the unreliable narrator that he is. To some extent American Beauty does that aspect well. Even as a teenager, I understood how pathetic Spacey's character is. I think an older movie that portrayed a teenager's sexual relationship with a married adult man as entirely her fault was Poison Ivy. Though, this even still happens in real life.
Just last week, I watched D'Angelo Wallace's video about Courtney Stodden, a teenager (who seems to now use they/them pronouns) who married a 51-year-old man in 2011 because their mother gave permission. Doug Hutchison was a D-list actor that had groomed them, as he has since done to other teenage girls.
This story was covered in the media, with everyone treating this girl terribly. Anderson Cooper should apologize to her, frankly. Hutchinson was ridiculed, with good reason, for wanting to be with someone so young, but it was done at *their* expense. Chrissy Teigen was a monster towards them on Twitter, actually encouraging suicide many times.
The footage from the news stories at the time, which portrayed this relationship as some kind of edgy romance, shows a very over sexualized teenage girl. They were dressed very provocatively, and interacted with their *husband* very sexually. The media attacked Courtney viciously. As if it were somehow their fault that they had a worthless mother that didn't protect them, or their own fault that they'd been groomed by a fully middle aged man.
They somehow ended up on a daytime TV show getting a breast exam under a sheet *on stage* to prove they hadn't had implants. Which, apparently, they had not, but how is that anyone's business? How did we as a society allow a physical examination of a teenage girl's body to occur in 2011? In this extra creepy way, as an evaluation of their worth. Based on breast tissue! In front of a live audience and TV cameras. The look on that poor little girl's face while it happened was physically uncomfortable to watch.
We as a society have come a long way, but we have so much farther to go!
thank u for posting this, seeing natalie portman talk about how she was immediately sexualized after she starred in leon the professional and how her first fan letter was an assault fantasy written about her, was so disgusting that i could not stop thinking about it. these tropes have real life consequences
i hope whoever wrote the letter went to fucking jail or something because wtf 😐
I never knew that 😞
The same with Jodi Foster! After watching Taxi Driver, John Hinckley became obsessed with her and moved to where she was so he could stalk her and when all the stalking didn't amount to anything, he tried to assassinate the damn president in order to get her attention! Real life consequences for sure.
Omg ew
omg I didn't know that about Natalie or Jodie ugh I feel so bad 😭
Luc Besson, the director of "Leon- The Professional", groomed a teenage girl into a "relationship" when he was in his thirties - she was 15 when they met and pregnant with his child at 16. Seems like important context...
jesus holy christ
@@GhGh-ci8ld Exactly. She played the blue opera singer in "The Fifth Element". When filming that movie, he dumped her for Milla Jovowich. Real prince of a man...
Oh yes and I think he groomed the princess in fifth element too and was seeing a 19 year old Milla from the same movie.
Yeah no wonder he had those other accusations. France's age of consent is 15, so technically it was legal, but obviously it was still immoral.
@@rsfilmdiscussionchannel4168 I doubt that law is for older people to take advantage of younger kids. I think it's one of those where it's only legal for their age range (say the 15 year old dating a 17 year old) not a goddamn 30 year old.
"It's an exploration of sexuality" is such a popular phrase when it comes to creepy 'examinations' of childhood and girlhood sexuality for the viewing pleasure of men. It's not intellectual, it's voyeuristic. A lot of modern teen dramas display the same weird obsession with teenager's sexuality that I feel goes far beyond normal age-typical exploration.
You put it SO well into words.
Right? Sexuality and discovering it as an adolescent is messy, awkward, and not sexy. It’s always ends up looking much more “clean” and “cute” in a way that suits a male or (as discussed in this video) pedophilic gaze when movies are made about it staring girls.
*cough, cough* CUTIES *cough ahem*
Edit: just remembered that the movie was created and directed by a woman BUT that doesn't excuse anything--
no children of any gender should "explore their sexuality" until they're 18
sex education is the exception of course-- but anything else will fuck them up
I've seen hundreds and hundreds of predator stings, and one thing that's evident in 99% of every chatlog has to do with them 'teaching' the girl how to masturbate. And they could care less about her learning this naturally, without someone telling her to, on her own, for her own benefit. As you said, it's all about the man's viewing pleasure.
Lots of these seemingly normal-looking men apparently saw it as "banter". It's so normalized it's frightening.
@@candicefrost4561 That's why I loved and hated the sex scene in Jennifer's Body between Needy and Chip. It was so awkard that me and my friend physically cringed throughout the whole scene and wanted it to be over. That is kinda how teenage sex is, cringe and awkard
In my opinion trauma doesn’t make you strong, trauma breaks you, that’s the opposite. Recovering from trauma is an act of strength, buts it’s not the source of it.
This is something most (male) writers depicting rape and female trauma or even any woman or child with the semblance of a back bone can’t seem to get through their heads.
And with the previously mentioned frequency of this trope it’s not like they haven’t given themselves the opportunity
This is fully dependente when u experienced truama
I get that different people react to trauma differently, but there's a huge imbalance in representing people who react to trauma in any way but becoming "stoic" and "tough." We need to normalize trauma causing breakdowns (because, like, it does) so when it happens to someone they can find representation in the media too. I think it's so toxic to present this idea that the "right" way to respond to trauma is by toughing it out, and I've seen discourse in fandoms about characters who do have breakdowns from trauma are "weaker" and pitted against the "trauma, what? I'm a tough girl now!" character, putting the one who broke down in a worse light. I can't imagine how damaging that is to someone who went through trauma and, you know, was traumatized.
@@toriwork8891 I’m a trauma survivor, and didn’t think I was traumatized for years because of depictions of trauma in media, and how it’s presented online. I thought I was a depressed attention seeker because I’d have frequent emotional and physical breakdowns from the sheer stress of my unprocessed experiences. It took finding you tubers that have done a lot of trauma research in the past few years to start to make sense of everything. I really hate the idea of having the ‘right kind’ of trauma that gets perpetuated in media, and a supposed ‘right reaction.’ There are so many pretty, cute memes that say if your trauma didn’t make you a better person, you’re not a good person. Total wtf moments.
I hate the idea that my rape made me stronger. I'm strong despite my trauma, I'm strong because I was strong enough to overcome my trauma, not because of my trauma-
Yes, thank you for this! I went through traumatic events at a young age and I don't see in myself that power that people are expecting yet. I definitely felt the pressure to see those results, and I tried to force myself to become that 'successful' case that the world seemed to expect, but that only led me to deny what I was experiencing and feeling and that didn't help at all.
I loved the video but one thing- Lolita (the book at least) was meant to show the audience how easy it is to manipulate people into sympathizing with predators. It's harder to interpret this through film so I think the movie is a little suspect, but it's important to remember that the author himself was trying to critique this pedophilic culture we have. He's been openly disgusted by people thinking it's a romance story, as it's more of a psychological horror
Yeah I was so confused when I first read Lolita because I had read online that it was a classic "erotic romance" novel and when I actually read it it seemed obvious to me this was not at all what it was supposed to be. I couldn't understand how it got lumped in with "romance" at all.
nabokov himself had pedophilic tendencies, i don't know how much of a critique of society it was supposed to be. reading that book made me so deeply uncomfortable, and it's not his only one starring an underage sexualised/sexual girl
Agree ! It never glorifies it in a positive way. The film however ..
Carina What paedophilic tendencies out of interest? A scene in the book is based on his own history of being abused as a child and he was critical of the romanticisation of Lolita throughout his life
@@carinah1236 Can u bring in the source as well if thats the case, I may need to edit the wikipedia page to accommodate such a fact lol
Or at least where u heard that notion, it may still be worth mentioning
tbh as a black girl, I prefer to having an older actor play Precious mainly because the role would've been traumatic for an actual 16 yr old. The book, Push, and the movie, Precious, hits too close to home for many black girls and watching an actual child experience it would've been traumatic for our own community too. Hell, my mom got upset when she caught me watching it. I was 19.
The movie still traumatized me since either accidentally walked in on my cousin watching it during a very explicit scene. I still haven't healed from it
And I can’t believe right now that viral audio being used on TikTok from precious! It makes me so angry
I read the book and still to this day, I can't watch the movie. Too close to home.
it's not uncommon for abused/traumatised kids to both grow up quick and/or become hypersexual, but that doesnt make it any less wrong for adults to take advantage of that
Hell yea.
I am living proof of that.
When I was 13, I got into a relationship with an older man and he severely emotionally and mentally abused me. I only broke up with him last year after years of sleep deprivation and manipulations. For a while in 2020, I was seeking of the sexual attention of guys that were older than me, I even went after my abusers best friend. They would give me the attention I wanted and afterwards I would feel horrible. I stopped giving in to that part of my trauma only this year. My trauma still affects me but I know when to stop. I know my boundaries and my friend really help me out.
I'm now 16 and healing :)
@@Qabimyou're doing some wonderful work on yourself! You must be very proud of how far you've come ☺️ it's grueling work! If you can afford it, I'd recommend getting a therapist to help you through your trauma. It can be so incredibly hard working through these things all alone. In any case, I wish you the best of luck and strength 😊
It's true. I was never involved in anything physical, but having no formal education on safe sex and consent + unrestricted access to the internet at age 11 saw me get involved with a /lot/ of inappropriate things. It took me years to correlate the abuse I'd faced (and sought) with nearly /all/ of my sexual preferences, but I've realized that seeking out that kind of content will never help me heal.
Part of what took me so long, though, was how my parents reacted whenever they caught me writing or watching things a child never should. Instead of sitting me down and telling me what was wrong, I was punished and my access to the content was taken away. At one point, my mother got so angry with me that I asked her (through screams and tears) not to call the police on me. I thought I was in that much trouble. I was even taken to confession, which didn't make me feel any better at all. I was /beyond/ embarrassed to admit what I'd done. After everything cleared up, all that happened was I developed severe anxiety about being 'caught' for things, pornographic or not (as she also would take my phone at random times and find issue with any and everything I was watching or reading). I cleared browser histories constantly for fear of being yelled at, a habit I only broke a year or two ago. I'm almost 24.
A lack of education and a lack of respect for my privacy did a lot of damage that could have been avoided. I wish I'd known better, and I wish the many older people I engaged with online would have known better, too. I hate carrying this with me, and I get terrible intrusive thoughts even now. I wish it had never happened. I wish I was better.
Absolutely. Also, I feel like 'grow up' is a subjective term. I grew up fast in the sense that I became very good at telling what people were thinking and how to act accordingly, how to please. Adults thought it made me very smart and mature for my age but it stemmed from navigating abusive situations and I feel like in a way it left me emotionally stunted. I'm 23, finally out of such an abusive situation and in truama therapy. Unpacking my past, why I do things and unhealthy coping mechanisms is making me feel like I'm trying to grow up properly this time but I feel more like a child than ever. Even though I didn't feel or act like 'a child', I still very much was one psychologically
I would be an example of this sadly :( I've been molested and groomed and I'm hypersexual and I feel like damaged goods. I feel like I have no worth. I feel like everyone else is better than me because they're ok and I'm not and it sucks.
Dominique Swain wasn't 17 in the production of Lolita, she was 15. She turned 17 when the movie was finally released.
Fuck!!! That's awful. I do hope they didn't make her kiss Jeremy Irons.
The movie came out in 1997 and DS was born in 1980, so she was 16 during filming the year prior
ah, "sweet sixteen" or "legal" as it's known amongst certain groups. Lovely. 😔
@@maebloome I was just making an observation. I think she was 15 when cast. If you watch interviews with DS, she actually understands and embodies the character of Lolita very well. She even read the book and was desperate for the part. She said everyone on set made her feel comfortable and respected her.
@@stitches318 no. She was actually 14 when the filming began, and turned 15. DS herself said that, in the hollywood chicago interview.
I'm so tired of people who think abuse is okay because a child "acts/looks mature", I'm so freaking tired.
"why must women be brutalized and traumatized in order to be seen as strong" WOW thats incredible
the fact that Tumblr glamorized lolita and American Beauty when I was a teenager... I am so disgusted right now, I actually thought it looked so cool, and acting like them would make me feel desirable. I loved this analysis!
Thanks Maria!! I loved American beauty so much as a kid 🤦♀️ lol
@@CheyenneLin the fact that it was my favorite movie when I was younger really disturbs me now...
I think this goes on to show the gap between children and adults. Children can’t perceive the danger of it all as easily which is why us as adults gotta talk about these things and take action as often as we can.
I always thought it was a movie for men and kinda skipped over it. I wasn't interested in Kevin Spacey at 13.
@@talarsan Why is it so disturbing? I am 27 and still enjoy it.. It's just a movie. Movies often depict bad people/situations. I really don't understand why people are making it such a big deal..
It's very unsettling how male directors, writers, etc make it seem like a woman or girl will ONLY ever gain strength through enduring the utmost traumatic experiences of her life. It's as if men think these girls and women should be thankful these awful things happened to them because they'd be "weak" without them otherwise.
agreed, trauma doesn't make people stronger, it breaks them. Being proud of the trauma you endured is a coping mechanism
The strongest women I’ve met are ones with strong family and friend bonds and they didn’t experience trauma. I personally don’t feel strong because of my trauma. It’s in spite of it
Exactly. Too often I’ve seen trauma romanticized. The narrative paints traumatized people as ‘superior’ to people who haven’t been through some terrible traumatic thing in their life. Except this isn’t how it works. Trauma doesn’t make you stronger. It breaks you inside and tears you apart.
IMO one of the best examples of the ‘tortured artist’ trope deconstruction is Diane Nguyen’s arc in Bojack Horseman. Diane wants to believe her trauma would give her purpose, and that it would help her write an award winning memoir to inspire other women. Ultimately however, she is unable to do so. She only begins to better herself as a writer and a person when she accepts that her trauma is not helping her become a good writer. Plus she is only able to create a successful book series for kids when she’s gotten treatment for her issues.
It definitely feels like there’s some ‘only the strong survive mentality’ going on, like having to grow up quicker, act as if you’re more mature and be dependent on no one (except for one random adult man apparently) is the ‘strong’ way and every other reaction a girl could have is the weak way.
I remember seeing a tweet from some guy that was like
“M all of hearing women talk about the trauma they endured and how damaged they were by it, I want to hear about how it made you strong, what lessons it taught you, something inspiring I can tell my daughters!”
Like, buddy, how fucking dare you…
As the daughter of a mother who experienced sexual assault, but also as a normal human being, I deeply appreciate the work you put on this video. The topics you cover are so important, yet often ignored by society and deemed too uncomfortable to be discussed. I specially applaud how you talk about adultification bias against black girls. In my country, Perú, we’ve recently had a supreme court judge said about a childhood prostitution case that the responsibility is to put on the minor (who is indigenous) because she looked “physically too mature”.
Wow que pena lo que está pasando en Perú...
Big hugs✨✨
Que horrible.... 😥 ojalá las cosas cambien con el tiempo. Saludos 👋🏼
Black girls do face maturity at an way to early age. We must be watching our siblings, be the behaved one, know how to provide for a future husband. Hell once my dad told me I was going to face a high divorce rate because I complain too much. I was 13. I wasn’t even complaining that much. I simply said I didn’t like the type of apple juice my mom bought. Way to many times have I seen my cousin get yelled at by my aunt for crying and getting emotional because her brother would be really mean to her. She was told to be the mature one. Mature? She was 9 years old and he was 16, why doesn’t he have to be the mature one? It’s annoying how we must act like adults before we were even kids.
That's the norm for girls as far as being belittled for speaking up or having your own opinions and parents forcing us to learn how to be good wives. The fucked up part is i did learn how to be a good wife but i never found a man that works for a livinf so on top of doing everything else i also have to have 2 jobs to support my family. I am a white woman though.
It seems more like a lower-class issue than representing all black women. I never had to deal with that. Fact is, I'm still not that mature (21 years old). My sister is more mature, but she still acts like a teen (17)
@@sirenia1241 Yeah. On the romanticization part, it seems white girls get more of it, but in this particular case, it seems to be more of a class issue/toxic household issue instead of a race one since other races in the lower class can also experience this. This is true for a lot of black girls though.
It's very similar in certain latino backgrounds
It's sad because I am 13 and I have already experienced such stuff. It gets on my nerves every single time my mom and dad and family mention how I have to do this, this, and that for my future husband. Have you forgotten I am 13? Have you forgotten I am not interested in relationships right now? My mom is now slowly trying to somewhat push me into relationships by always asking and saying that it's okay if I am in one, I have repeatedly said I am not in a relationship and I don't care to be in one right now. It's so frustrating because this has been so normalized to the point that we are now being pushed to get into relationships at a young age. I understand that my family doesn't mean to do any wrong but they are hurting me by trying to do the right thing but ending up doing the wrong thing and saying the wrong thing. I just wish they wouldn't laugh at my face whenever I tried to bring these conversations up and put my opinion out. I'm the angry one and the stressed one when I put out my opinions and crying but I suddenly become a comedian when I am trying to bring up these tough conversations right? .. IMO I think in my situation it has to do with both me being Angolan (Southern African country, Im black) and also because my parents grew up in the '60s-'70s which is when this kind of behaviour was a thing sadly.
Great video!! I really love how you contrast the way black and white girls are treated in this sort of media. With white girls, it really feels like the "desirability" hinges on their perceived purity/vulnerability, despite the trauma they may have faced. Black girls are not really given this nuance, rather being presented as inherently sexual beings independent of their life experiences.
Thank you Anne!
Perfectly said!
Exactly !
+++
Very true. It's also how boy children of all ethnicities are perceived: as inherently perverted and hypersexual. Usually they're not seen as capable of being sexually abused by the opposite sex at all, because it's assumed it's what all young boys want anyway and he's "lucky" to get it. It's so common in films to make jokes about young boys being exposed to porn, and films like "The Reader" depict relationships between boys and older women as romantic or erotic
why are girls ridiculed for acting their age. all the memes about 14-year-old girls being overdramatic. LET KIDS BE KIDS
cuz a girl can never exist in peace without ridicule
Yup. Even worse is all the memes about 14 yr old girls "faking depression". There are quite alot of adult men on the internet mocking these girls & believing they're for some reason "too privileged" to have depression, whatever that means.
@@LoveLove-fp2rn Some idiots seem to think that you can only be depressed if you´re dying of hunger on the streets, otherwise you´re just an overdramatic brat. Funily enough, those are the same people who go on and on about how much men suffer, yet they´re unable to empathise with anyone else.
Whats weird is that there's ACTUAL adults (mostly men) making fun of teen girls which is so fucking creepy.
the way I genuinely feel for this bc I don't even remember the feeling of childhood because my little traumas experienced young I stopped being a child when I was 6 but I think it was mostly because of me skipping a grade and always being with older kids and being bullied and abused, for context I am 14
I'm so tired of the brutalization of women being romanticized, or shown as beneficial to men.
It's getting weird to say the least.
@@vinslungur Did you even watch the video this comment is on? Because those examples in the video are precisely what I’m talking about right now.
@@vinslungur Yes, culture does fluctuate, but unfortunately these beliefs are yet to change. For example, right now, many young- mainly preteen- girls are being pressured by social media into growing up faster. We're seeing girls skip their "awkward phases" and wear full faces of makeup, dress in more grown-up clothes, and act older than they are just so they can feel like they "fit in".
And the similar belief that trauma makes young girls "more mature" is totally still around today, and present in more than just movies. There are real people- mainly older men- that use this way of thinking to groom younger girls. I've seen it happen to a friend of a friend of mine who was manipulated into thinking that her trauma made her as mature as an adult and was hurt because of it.
The glorification and exploitation of young girl's trauma is totally still relevant in today's culture.
Metamorphosis manga 🤢
For real. I will immediately turn off any like 'cop show' or thriller or what have you that is weird with or has almost exclusively, female victims. I see yall. Not doing it. Grossness.
As a girl who has experienced trauma from a young age I had to grow up fast. However, I never had the maturity to be in an adult relationship. I was in survival mode. At almost 22 years old I’m working on leaving survival mode. The amount of older people (men more so than women) who took interest in me was absolutely disgusting. Luckily my experiences had me running from the hills in situations like that but not everyone is lucky. Seeing how these situations are portrayed in media is sad for me because there is some truth in it however it shouldn’t be glamorized. They should not be trying to condone what is essentially grooming based on the fact these girls are traumatized.
in high school every repressed boy wanted me to be their manic pixie dream girl, it was like yes I have bipolar disorder and no thats not sexy Allen piss off
and to think I brought a pie to class for extra credit and they still thought I was Wild and FrEe-SpIRiteD and ALiVe. I was none of the above
You know what's gut wrenching about growing up in survival mode? Your coping mechanisms can't pass in the real world anymore, so the older you get, the more you feel lost and frustrated because you're mechanisms aren't working anymore, and it'll keep getting worse the more you fail to create newer and healthier ones. Fuck childhood trauma
Not to mention, when you do finally start reaching stability, you get a period where all that innocent young child in you comes out because it can finally be expressed and it confuses the hell out of the people around you because they don't get that you finally reached a safe enough spot to let it out.
Good luck and lots of love to those with childhood traumas.
@@zethcrownett2946 so, how long does the innocent child keep coming out of you?
@@maheenm.k1015 at least a couple years. But even then, its not so much that its stopped, so much as its been gradually maturing (which isn't to say I in and of myself are not mature, but that part of me, being able to express in such a way and the way it comes out, is). Im sure an aspect of this has to do with the fact I've been working out the traumatic memories with EMDR, so that feeling of looping back to that time is gradually fading/distancing.
I remember reading in a community for traumatized children a ironic post that said " *Wow you're so mature for your age* _Thank you it was the trauma_ " And literally couldn't stop thinking about it when watched it. I now look back and think of all the men that were over 25 that took interest in me with the excuse "you're just so mature", when I was just 14. Back at that time, I did think it was creepy, but never gave it that analysis until I watched your video. A traumatized kid deserves love, affection and normal relationships like any kid, with people their age, far away from power dynamics. Plus, now that I'm 22, I can't even think of date someone who is younger than 19, just thinking how differente life styles are, and how naive you are to certain aspects of life.
Great reflexion! You got a new suscriber.
Same. I subscribed today. So much intellectual value here.❤
Preach!
I think men who go after minor girls use that line to frame their interest in a way that makes their victims feel complimented, and not as victims. It preys on teen girls’s desire to look grown up and be taken seriously. I remember thinking that I was so mature when I was 15... but as you said, looking back you see how inexperienced you were, and it’s more apparent how creepy it is for an adult to be interested in a teenager
Right!! Especially when you think about the fact that having the level of maturity of an adult shouldn't have to be in a younger package in order to be appealing to adult men. Men don't exactly go around to women their own age telling them how smart and mature they are
You should also do a video on the glamorization of drugs with teenagers (i.e. skins (UK), thirteen, euphoria..
Agreed, though on the euphoria note, I don't really think it's glamorizing drugs. At first glance it does, but I think the bright colors and trippy scenes are showing rues perspective of what it is like for her personally. They feel good for a short amount of time, but then comes the come down. Her drug addiction us portrayed as nothing but a destructive force that tears her family apart. For Euphoria's case, I don't think glamorization is the right word, though one could say that it is unrealistic. Glamorization implies that it makes the drugs look cool and desirable, which is not the case. But that's just my take on that.
Euphoria doesn't glamorize drugs. It does, however, sexualize teenagers.
@@elanadavis8491 that's another super important topic with every "teen" show like Riverdale, The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, etc.
YES
@@elanadavis8491 It does glamorize drugs tho. They make it look very glittery and cool. They even say in the series “You know what, drugs are kinda cool” while LED lights change colours in the background.
There is a really interesting one about boy victims, it’s called “the reader” it’s about a German boy in the 50’s who is abused/“in a relationship” with a 30 year old woman. Their relationship ends because it is made public that she was involved with the nazis. The rest of the book shows the boy as an adult and how he never got over it, still somehow infatuated with the woman.
I forgot about this movie! I definitely want to watch it again and see what I think, now that I’m older!
omg this sounds like A Teacher on Hulu!
just thought of that too but i didn’t know the english title, thank you for mentioning it i was rlly excited to find this comment!
I remember it too. Kate winslet was the woman who couldn't read, right?
@@sasharama5485 yes exactly
It's refreshing to see someone talk about this. A very frustrating pattern I've noticed through my experience going to therapy and seeking help to deal with my own traumas was that some adults, even when they were trained professionals, had a tendency to point to my trauma as a child and say "you act so mature! you had to grow up fast!" This attitude is highly damaging to someone who is still a kid. It sets up this bizarre expectation that instead of healing and reconstructing a young girl's previous sense of childhood, we just praise their pseudo-maturity and encourage them to repress their adolescent senses simply because they are harder to deal with. A loss of innocence seems convenient for everyone except the actual child.
^^^
Yes yes yes. When a girl is told she is "wise beyond her years" let that be a red flag that she has experienced/is experiencing trauma.
For me, luckily I wasn't abused, I was just really observant to what adults did and their thought process. But I feel so bad for the girls who were, they shouldn't have had to suffer from that. :(
Nah, thats just groomers specially useful phrase , they love it, is to manipualte their victims
@@jjba3571 You hit the nail right on the head.
I usually as a point of principle watch Asian dramas with older women- younger men relationships because female leads are usually infantilize the female leads if she is younger than the male lead
Or is about to from whoever is saying it lol
Or maybe she’s just Autistic. You don’t know.
I saw a post recently talking about Anne with an E and how that's one of the only shows where pre-teens and teens are just that, y'know? Not children exactly, but not adults in the slightest. They're growing and learning and playing and just having a good time, and it's super refreshing seeing characters of those ages just be chill. I know it's set in a different time period, but still, it's nice to see teenagers not drinking and having sex and doing drugs, because not all teens do that. Like it's fine if some do, it's their life, but the media portrays it as if every single teenager who "has a life" does those things, when it's just not true. Anne with an E is a treasure ugh
yes it’s so good!!! And it talks about important issues in a way that even pre teens can comprehend. And unlike most teen shows the romantic relationships aren’t sexualised in the slightest. And even at the end when they’re both legal I think, the small kiss they share is still innocent and simply romantic. Unlike most on screen kisses which always somehow end up being super sexual and focused on weird movements.
@@user-te9ex5gf1l exactly!! It's such a great show
i know this is one year old but i love this comment, i've never seen someone put it in words somehow and i relate to this a lot bc as a teen i felt pressure to do unsafe/unnecessary things to fit in and that i had to somehow become like the characters of skins or something(?) to like myself or not be lame, in reality i rarely did anything like that and felt bad for a while without realizing i was just a kid and its a really good thing that i didnt anything unsafe at that age lol (sorry for the oversharing i just haven't seen someone talk about this before lol)
@@elsapayo4864 i totally get that! It's perfectly normal for teens to want to explore new territory, but they're still growing and it shouldn't be as normalized as it is - this portrayal of teenagers acting the way they do in Riverdale, Euphoria, Skins. Hell, i didn't feel that I was old enough to watch Skins until I turned 19, when the main characters start out at what? 16 years old?
Life is weird.
@@eggo9543 Tbf afair skins is set in england, where the age of consent is 16
I'm english and i remember a lot of people talking about participating in sex and drugs before they were even 16 (my younger sister started participating the same things before she was even 14 and it was the same for her same-age friend group)
Born sexy yesterday is such a creepy thing. Having to look amazing yet be so naive. Reminds me of how Planet of the Apes was written when the main male sees Nova (a naively primitive, yet strikingly beautiful female) and it’s clear to be an important visual for the enjoyment of who the author was expecting his readers to be. It’s not just in recent or old movies but I suspect it’s been going on since patriarchal systems became “the norm.” Quite disturbing to think over tbh.
Lovely video by the way, very correct about childhood prostitution, it’s definitely elite perpetuated and it’s frustrating to know the world we live in sometimes! So many other points I would LOVE to comment on but you’ve done well to cover my thoughts. I’m subscribed and looking forward to more videos.👏
C K thank you so much for watching the video and for your input! It means a lot to me as i put a lot of work into this one. Hope you enjoy the rest of my channel
Child prostitution is not exclusively elite-perpetuated, it's just a one more myth. It was historically a creepy reality, a daily routine of working class people in the 19th C when age of consent was as low as 12, even if there was not so mach estrogens in food and water like today. Which causes early awakening of sexual instinct and what's much more creepy: maternity instincts in young girls who are then easy victims of abuse by unscrupulous adult men, as the adolescent hormonal storm distort their feeling of reality, frequently making them look at their abusers through rose-colored glasses. Those poor girls have as a rule zero social experience, they are children psychologically near totally unprepared, and often physically too weak to face an adult role of a lover, wife, mother or whatever else involving social responsibility. Nobody wants to go back to the situation of the 19th C which can be described cautiously as a cabinet of curiosities: an Old Man of the Mountain's Paradise for hedonistic men and a Hell for young women.
the perks of being a wallflower is another example of a movie showing csa in boys but yeah again doesn't have that adultification aspect.
what? I don't understand
I've only read the novel, so I was wondering what part of the film did that??
@@zkme2734 I haven't seen the movie in long while, but I do remember the scene while Charlie is having a mental breakdown near the end we see a brief clip of his aunt touching his thigh and saying "this is our little secret". We see throughout the movie how this trauma affects him (his views and thoughts on the relationships around him, his referenced mental health issues from before the movie starts, him allowing himself to be kind of taken advantage of by his friends because he thinks it's the right thing to do, etc), but we don't know exactly what that trauma is until this moment at the end that puts everything into place for us to understand. The book goes into it more after the reveal of what happened, if I remember correctly. But the entire story revolves around how his csa affected him and his perception of life, the audience just doesn't know this until the end. Re-watching or reading this story again with the context of what happened to him by his aunt and his conflicting emotions surrounding that and her death really makes you understand why he acts the way he does.
@@ahhh4117 my above reply should hopefully answer!
i would personally even argue that in a sense it does have some of the adultification. Not necessarily in that he is acting super mature (which he is, imo, but not in the same way this video is talking about), but in that his friends see him as perhaps older than he is. I think because the role was played by an adult Logan Lerman, people often forget that Charlie was a freshman in highschool, while all of his friends were seniors. That would make him around 14/15 years old, while his friends were around 18. Both Sam and Patrick have some sort of relationship with Charlie (Sam's is very evident in the movie, but Patrick's is much more intense in the book than the movie). Obviously they both have their own trauma and issues affecting their perception, but nonetheless these two legal adults (or roughly, not sure the exact age) feel that Charlie, a 14 or 15 year old kid, is mature enough for them to do these things shows that they view him as being older or more mature than his actual age.
I know some people see it as only a few years difference, but the amount of maturing and growing you do from 14 to 18 is enormous, and the relationships in the book personally make me highly uncomfortable. Maybe that's the point, though. His perception of his childhood abuse is so skewed that he doesn't see anything wrong with these new relationships. I'm glad you brought up Perks, it's a very good example in my opinion.
It’s interesting how you’re considered strong, edgy, or cool when you look beautiful throughout your trauma, but you’re considered “damaged goods” or broken if you actually express your psychological struggles resulting from that trauma. People like to see this trope for its subversive nature. But they don’t like feeling socially responsible for it’s consequences, nor do they feel obligated to understand traumatized adult women and their emotional needs. You’re only strong or impressive when you’re a child trauma survivor. Adult women survivors are just crazy and damaged burdens that nobody wants to deal with. s/ They’re not as admirable or respectable anymore. It’s just something I’ve noticed.
THIS, this comment. So true
@@MilaBelen Like…when you’re young and pretty, you’re a “bad-ass”. When you’re an adult with PTSD, a missing tooth, or a scar on your face, then you’re just depressing. We only romanticize things that are aesthetically pleasing. It’s messed up. 😒
stay the heck away from the stranger that wants to tell you you are so mature for your age.
What if he is 25 and im 20? Sorry I’m just stupid
@@adventurous1019 I mean,its just a five year difference and you both are adults and I think the op's talking about those greasy old men who prey on teen girls
@@adventurous1019 same thing, its a creepy thing to do in general, aslo he has an adult brain and you dont (you still need five years of development) id stay away of age gaps bigger than three years until youre in your late twenties, and had time to establish yourself as an adult
@@priya8855 I know it's a joke but ALSOOOO stop giving these men the image of "old, fat and greasy" bc a lot of people don't realize predators can also be a fit, 20s handsome man but bc he's handsome it's ok.
they always write the women who went through that trauma to come out stronger and be able to live as if nothing happened, they treat r//pe and such things as a growing experience that ultimately helps them. they try to make the men (and sometime women!) who did it feel better about what theyve done, as if it what they did was helping the person.
It makes me feel SUPER WEIRD that all of these were made by men...
Especially "Lost Girls". I think if a woman had written it as an exploration of women's sexuality, or even if he had done it as a celebration of women in general, it would have been lovely! *But because it these are all written by men to further male interests and sexualization of LITTLE GIRLS* (pulling shit like 'they're essentially women/mature/alone so it's fine') *makes me more than uncomfortable.*
Keep in mind, though, that Cuties was directed by a woman, so it’s not enough to just “be a woman director”. This stuff is so deeply ingrained and allowed as part of the fandom for classic movies, you have to actively try to avoid these tropes and consider the ethical implications of child actors being used at all for certain movies/scenes.
This is a complete mischaracterization of Lost Girls and I'm really not comfortable lumping it in with movies like Lolita and American Beauty. The co-writer and illustrator of Lost Girls, Melinda Gebbie (Moore is her husband) is a legendary feminist comics author. Lost Girls is an exploration of finding your sexual agency in the aftermath of abuse.
He and his wife made it together, she did all the illustrations
I would say it's also different from the rest in the fact it's explicitly for gratification
He and his wife made it together, she did all the illustrations
I would say it's also different from the rest in the fact it's explicitly for gratification
He and his wife made it together, she did all the illustrations
I would say it's also different from the rest in the fact it's explicitly for gratification
Bring girlhood back
Unfortunately, I’d have to argue it never existed :( girls have been experiencing this since the beginning of time. Boys too.
@@user-mb9nm7bq5e I'm a guy I felt that cuz in my whole life everything was traumatic and mess up...but I made my own world ,I don't care about the opinions of society or the opinions of people I know irl of how should I act or what should or shouldn't do..I made my own circle and my own world , we all should create our own world and circle to be ourselves :)
this was such an amazing video!! it's frankly disgusting to see Hollywood exploit the trauma that many, many children (including myself) had to go through in order to handle the weight of the horrible things that happened to them. this video perfectly explained the trope itself and why it's so problematic!!! great job
Thank you so much!
I think the even sadder thing is that that doesn't even cover half the shit Holywood perpetrates and exploitation it does, and I'm just talking about the really bad stuff... It's a cesspool and I'm starting to wonder if it's even any good at all given all the shit....
This is a kind of off topic but everyones comments was reminding me of how black minors will be pushed to be charged as adults as compared to white children or teens such as 18 will be pushed to be charged as minors
damn mate, how i forgot about that imbalance, truly shows how its been normalised. As a black boy, i can say that
we are already used to the systematic oppression that "it is what it is". That common line itself is hella disappointing.
Don’t ever look up the original screenplay for Léon, it’s bad. Jean and Natalie’s parents wouldn’t take part in it until they applied HEAVY editing to the original story and script. I mean, the director dated/married a minor so it shouldn’t really come as a surprise.
The pedophilia and rape culture in movie industry is appalling. As an exemple, Roman Polanski confessed he abused a 13 yo girl, and was considered guilty by a court in US. But he flew justice and was protected in France. He even received awards...
@@mariondumont7634 I was sexually abused as a child and so many movies upset me. I have to be really careful what I watch.
@@Catlily5 I can only imagine the pain of being sexually abused, and it is deeply disturbing that this happened (and is still happening to other children!). I think you're brave for writing about that.
I don't think they did anything, but both my biological "dad" and step-douche were pedophiles (guess who their eyes caught). It's nauseating to think about the implications of that, and the pain is so hard to live with. There are days where any touch can leave me wanting to run away. Any mention of sexual intimacy leaves me feeling gross and uncomfortable. Sometimes, I cover myself up in as many layers of clothing as I can so no one can touch me.
It's awful to think about how some film directors are fetishizing reactions to trauma. It tells people that it's okay to treat traumatized people like that.
I hope you're doing better now. Stay safe!
@@katarinacarrico7887 My father was a pedophile too. It is hard. I hope you are doing better also.
PTSD is a really hard topic, for even psychologists to some degree outside of veterans, to attribute and accurately diagnose. In fact, CPTSD which is often attributed to multiple traumatic events, especially those resulting from an early age, and it is not recognized as an explicit diagnosis in the DSM V. I think much of this perpetuates this stereotype outside of the reasons for the film industry to downplay this type of abuse.
What does CPTSD stand for and DMS V?
@@slee2167 CPTSD is Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder & DSM V is Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th ed. (the newest).
@@anawiseman ohh okay thank you. You seem like you know a lot about psychology. So are PTSD and CPTSD two different disorders or is one of them an extentsion of the other. Also why is PTSD not in DSM V? I would think it is since PTSD is a mental disorder thats known a lot more than others however theres a lot of sterotypes about it.
@@slee2167 Although I am by no means a clinician, I believe that the criteria that separates the two is the amount of trauma. PTSD is usually attributed to a singular event. Whereas CPTSD is attibuted to multiple events like instances of repeated abuse in childhood. Although PTSD is commonly talked about, I'm sure there's more to learn. Like in the instance of Avoidant Personality Disorder (AVPD) and Social Anxiety Disorder (SAD). Although they have similarities, there is much more known about SAD.
@@slee2167 PTSD is in the DSM V. It is my understanding that the British use CPTSD and PTSD but we just call everything PTSD in the USA.(But I could be wrong.)
I was forced into grow up when I was little, my mom has disabilities and I was her care taker and I was made to babysit since I was 7 and I wasn’t able to have a normal childhood and now I get called childish because I want to do things I never got too
you shouldn't have had to experience that :(
I feel you on that! Have the fun that you missed out on, just last week I was in a fire engine! I didn't get to ride around but still the guys were really cool about it and I'm a grown ass woman.
I feel you. My mother got diagnosed with postpartum depression after my brother's birth when I was 14 and I had to be a mother to them both. Years off my childhood was shaven off and so I had to grow up and now at 19 I'm considered babyish or childish. It's like I'm trying to reclaim what was taken from me
@@meihuangha EXACTLY!!! I did have a childhood because I had to take care of everyone else’s kids and my mom, which she has health issues which she can’t do a lot. So I never got to do fun stuff because I was stuck watching kids
This remind me of the discussion when GoT‘s Sansa said “Without (her abusers) I would've stayed a little bird all my life“
I immediately thought of this too, that line was such a disappointment, and looking back perhaps a testament of the show runners' terrible writing skiils
It's so frustrating too because her arc in the books is learning to stay kind while navigating a dangerous environment...
yeah, terrible line
@@vinslungur sorry but that’s such bullshit, the writers aren’t from medieval times are they? and the show has a huge cultural relevance and impact on current society, so that line is still horrible
Ok so as a victim of sexual abuse as a child, I feel highly identified with a lot of these arguments. You even answered questions I had about myself.
well said, let kids be kids. let girls be girls. The film industry is messed up
It's not just the industry! I was talking about age gaps with someone the other day and the dude straight out told me that maturity comes from experience and age doesn't matter. And said that a 17 year old dating a 35+ man is fine because the 17 year old is almost an adult.........a 17 year old........almost adult.......WHAT??? The two things shouldn't even be put into the same sentence! I'm sorry I'm just so mad and disturbed people who think like this exist.
Let the art be art. Not your moral code.
@@nikolettaschwarcz8238 My ex friend said something similar to that about a 16 yr old dating a 27 yr old. It was an anime. And he(my ex friend) turned out to be a f**king creep and very gross. And would ask inappropriate questions about me, over share and cross boundaries.
The truth is that most girls do not get to have a childhood at all anymore. I appreciate the perspective that you have on the ideology that all girls need to be mature and responsible. Children should be allowed to be. These ridiculous ideals need to be replaced by living life without these dramatic traumas and an emphasis on rehabilitation. We need to stop destroying our girls!
This showed up on my recommended page, this video is really well put together and deserves many more views
Thank you so much!
Can we also talk about how serial killers of men are caught much sooner and kill less than serial killers of women? People just don’t care about girls and women. It’s expected that we’re abused. It’s sick. Everyone has just accepted it as part of life.
Especially female sex workers. People are taught to literally see them as disposable.
You want to know what is pretty f****** up, many girls and women (only White girls and White women) romanticize White serial killers and criminals such as Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, and John Wayne Garcy. I kept seeing edits of Dahmer in the show “My Friend is Dahmer”, “Dahmer My Story”, and the show “Dahmer”. It was all over Instagram and TikTok, it makes me so sick and so infuriated. This is so ridiculous to see that these true crime fans are absolutely insane in the mind.
You guys know it is real bad, when there is romanticization of serial killers among Generation Z and mostly Millennials.
America is a sick fucking country with sick corporate media. Gee thanks Coporate America, because this country is so unsafe. 🙄
dominique swain was actually 14-15 while filming Lolita so it’s actually way worse...
🚨🚨🚨🚨🚔📞📞🚓 999
Im literally 16 and i still feel like a kid lmaoo, this is so bloody horrible
I loved Leon the Professional. My interpretation must be very different. I thought since Matilda had been raised in such an abusive household with a father who didn't care for her and was constantly inappropriate with women in front of her and things like that, she didn't understand love in a fatherly or platonic way. If she cared for someone, like she did Leon because he saved her, she tried to express it the only way she'd ever seen, which was how his father was with women.. Leon never reciprocated in that way but still tried to show he cared in other ways and by the end I think she was able to learn what a parent's love is like.
I COMPLETELY AGREE WITH YOU. The Professional is a gritty crime thriller where just about every character is a pretty terrible person. Leon... who is a professional killer (thus, a bad person if not a bad guy) was going to... or at least considered killing Mathilda... Ultimately, he did engage in a grooming process to a degree... he groomed her to be a killer too... or at least taught her how to do it... but he also set things up so that she had some options... some economic means of fending for herself... I feel that he did care for her in the most magnanimous way he thought he could.
He sexualizes her…lmfao
The first time I watched the movie my interpretation were very similar. However once I made a fast research about Luc Besson, the film director, I realized "Leon" was made to represent the romantic relationship of Besson and a 15 years old girl who gave birth to his child at 16. This movie is disgusting just like its criminal director and everyone who funded it.
Really well made video. As a black woman, I was happy to hear someone touch on the unique experience of being so prematurely perceived as an adult or as just older in general than white peers without making it seem like black people are things to observed and talked about, and not actual people.
I also really appreciate all of the nuance you included about how this happens to girls in general. Great video. I‘ll be subscribing
Thank you so much!
As a child of color who had had her childhood cut short with a bad mother and a horrible teacher who cut her innocence at 10, I can absolutely say, this needs to be talked about way more than it is. This is speaking for all the young woman who have suffered similar trauma and mental illnesses. I thank you so much for talking about this ❤️🥰
I think what was worse about Dolores' pregnancy at the end was that it didn't mean anything else to H.H other than shattering the visage of Dolores as a "nymphette" or barely pubescent "girl-child." Lolita is one of the best examples of an unreliable narrator in literature. I'd even argue that her "death in childbirth" was unlikely literal, and that the death of his "Lolita" was merely the death of his fantasy of reliving his lost childhood love thru Dolores, and her becoming a woman through pregnancy and childbirth.
I just recently had the discussion with my mom that I don't like to be praised on my "maturity", and she was really confused. It just.. it's supposed to be a compliment and I used to actually really like it, but now it's a reminder of all the time i've lost. I spent over a year *micromanaging* myself so that nobody would find out what happened to me, and I would have done it for longer had a doctor not figured me out and intervened. "You're so mature" was like a success back then, a, "thank god they're falling for it". Now it's just painful.
There's such a huge fight to show black women as vulnerable, feminine, to be protected, specifically dark skinned black women and Hollywood putting lights and mix women as representation is just putting dark black skin women farther from a place of protection (the hate you give was supposed to be for a dark skin black woman, and there's the case of casting Zoe Saldana and making her darker with makeup).
I have to say I like most ofthis actress but they are closer to what is comfortable to see on screen and telling the black "experience " only with them continue the stereotypes that if you are darker you are not soft, delicate, need protection or a simple a kid. You are tough you can handle it
This is an awesome analysis. I’m Mexican, and in Latin/Hispanic culture, girls are taught to be quiet about abuse (it’s the Catholicism). So they grow up into submissive adults and learn to deal with it.
This is so great - so much of girlhood portrayed in cinema is so fetishistic of the pain children go to :( hope you make more media analysis soon!!
It's because people love to be grossly disturbed, that's why. Humans crave suffering in this weird animalistic, almost primal way.
when I was 16 I got into a relationship with a 21 year old because I thought I was 'mature' partially because of my trauma as I child making me grow up quicker. I'm 18 now and even though it's only two years later I can see how messed up I was to think there wasn't a massive power imbalance there. It was just wrong.
Yes as a woman the realities of life reveal themselves to you every year
You can't "trauma bond" over shared experiences. Trauma bonding refers to someone having a infatuation with their abuser, or seeking out their love.
Yeah I caught that too. I feel like “trauma bonding” is used in the wrong way most of the time I’ve seen it online.
I'm sure it's a good video besides this but I'm so sick of hearing it misused 😭
It’s that Stockholm Syndrome? I’m pretty the definition for Trauma Bonding has been updated.
Yeah I’ve noticed people people do that and it’s very annoying
trauma never made me stronger, i always felt like i got weaker and weaker with time, thankfully im recovering and hopefully i won't let people hurt me again
So happy this got recommended to me! Saddly a year after upload but better later than never!
Thank you Susu! This is so unexpected but I’m so grateful and happy you enjoyed it. My videos are a lot better now in my opinion but glad this one got some traction bc I still like the script even though the execution/production is very rudimentary - I hate that I’m using a headset ugh 🤦♀️
@@CheyenneLin Randomly recommend to me today too. You have a new subscriber!
As someone with some bad experiences, the "compliment" "Wow you're so mature for your age!" (which I have been told many times) at this point makes me sick to my stomach, especially when it comes from men trying to win me over. Thank you for this.
Im not quite sure why Im saying this, but I am a kid dealing with a lot, and I found comfort in movies like these during a time where I got groomed a few times. This video gave me some tools to criticise these films and more new stuff to learn about, when it comes to both movies and myself, oh and about internalised patriarchy. It just hits different to hear from a fellow woman (please correct me if Im misgendering you) of color. Youve earned a new sub ! Cant wait to see more of your stuff !
pfp?
barely half way through but this is a fantastic video ! ive always been super uncomfortable with leon the professional bc from the bits and pieces i saw, i thought mathilda was an edgy teenager who just looked young at best bc she was so Mature. it wasnt until i watched the movie in full that i found out she was actually a literal Child. the idea that i had been given for so long about Leon the professional based on pop culture made me believe mathilda was an older sexy young woman actually made me confused when i turned the movie on, because i kept waiting for Mathilda the edgy and alluring girl to show up and all i saw that sorta "fit" was a child. and i thought, "well that Can't be the female co star, shes a kid"
Exactly!! It’s such a weird trope and overall movie? 😪
These types of films need at least a warning at the beginning. The tactics used in the film are often used as grooming techniques for the young and vulnerable. Being a victim myself and acknowledging what happened made me realize how much the media around us can influence us. I believe that literature and film should be available to freedom of artistic expression, but just like they have warnings for pregnant people at bars, there will always be a naive person that needed that warning when no one was there to give it.
There is a newer movie "Lamb," based on a book, that also sort of portrays this Trope without the predator actually sexually assaulting the victim, only kidnapping and mentally abusing her while she falls in love with him. She is only like 11, too
just watched it after seeing your comment and WOW. that movie was so creepy and messed up. Just because you groom and kidnap the kid without actually raping her doesn't make it okay! You still confused, frightened, and manipulated the hell out of her.
Precious was such a good movie in my opinion, she was able to rise above and become better than her abusive mother. She did what a lot of us abuse victims wish we could. Move past the low expectations of our abuser. (I mentioned Precious because it was in the thumbnail)
Didn't her character get HIV off her dad? I recall the scene where her mother scoffed about it and said something like "I don't have it since you can't get HIV from having butt sex." So the dad was being with both the mother and Precious.
@@rosiesummer2711 I always found it so strange that the mother thought that. The mother was around in the 80's, she should have been aware of the homophobia regarding AIDS and that you can get it from anal.
@@inferiorinferno8859 You would think so but I think the mother was in denial about getting it through via anal and golating that Precious had it. Since she was jealous of Precious. No idea why she didn't try to protect Precious.
I always got told I either looked older or acted older at such a young age and that seriously got to my head. As a 12-13-year-old, I experienced trauma from an older man who took interest in me and essentially groomed me. I never saw anything wrong with it because I always had the mindset that I was more mature and capable of handling it and no one around me really knew the extent of what was going on and I feel like oftentimes they would forget I was still a child. I'm 17 now and only recently have I been able to come out and go to therapy for it. So many things in my life have been affected by it and It's horrible to say but at this point, I still find comfort in older men. There are things I'm actively aware of that are wrong and messed up but it's like I can't escape it and I wished I had talked about it earlier because it got so bad to the point where I would disassociate and it's horrifying. What's even worse is that all young girls have been so indoctrinated into a society where they are hypersexualized that things like grooming are so common in adolescent girls. I know so many of my friends just at the age of 17 have experienced some form of SA. As a 12-year-old you're not able to process that what you are going through is trauma. It follows you for the rest of your life in romantic relationships and it's scary to come forward about because you don't want to be victim-blamed. A lot of the time I will have to remind myself that it's not my fault I did certain things because I was being actively groomed. Thank you for bringing awareness to this topic because honestly, It makes me feel so much more validated. I know it must also feel so validating to so many other women and young girls who have been victim-blamed for things that were completely out of their control.
wait I thought Leon loved her as a sort of.. fatherly figure despite her feelings toward him. It was an uncomfortable film, obviously but was that last scene with them not platonic?? jeesh that’s weird man
As far as I know, the director of Leon the Professional actually groomed a teenage girl and got her pregnant at 16 while he was twice her age.
I used to think the same thing as you, but given this extra context I unfortunately think that it’s much worse.
it was long ago, but i remember reading somewhere that in the original script, they were supposed to hook up and leon cries while they do the nasty. it was of course rejected
People looking at the actions of one person involved in the making of it and acting like that changes how the movie should be seen.
I disagree, at least how I remember it, the story had him turning down her advances and emphasizing how wrong it'd be if things went there.
I don't know about whatever alternate script might have existed, but that's not the story that was used.
I’m guessing that with all this context I just learned five minutes ago that that projection of the relationship was essentially a ruse, so I’m sad now
I like to think that way, even though the intentions of the director might have been different. Leon is one of my favourite movies, not so much for the story but because of the main cast's acting, Jean Reno, Natalie Portman, and Gary Oldman are fantastic! But in regards of the story, they way I liked to interpret it was that Leon lost his youth when he moved to USA and became hitman, so when he saw Matilda in the same position he was, he sympathized with her and tried to keep her safe from whatever fate she would've had if she was left to fend for herself
Yeah, and really, younger women with older men is still the standard to this day. At least they're women, not girls but I suspect it's this latent desire (of men) for females as close to that nascent stage as possible. Just part of a very long history and practice. I think of early film where practically all the leading ladies where in their mid & late teens to their early 20's while men would be in their mid to late 20's and up at the time of reaching stardom. Think Mary Pickford and Lillian Gish, who, at 19 was lying to directors telling them that she was actually 16 yrs old to increase her chances of being cast.
Charlie Chaplin met his 2nd wife when she was 8yrs old, cast her as a "flirting" angel at 12, married and impregnated her when she was 15. His first wife, Mildred Harris, was 16. He was emotionally abusive to her and did not regard her as his intellectual equal 😂 He'd later marry Paulette Goddard when she was 25 (a considerable improvement from 15 year olds) and he, 47. Chaplin was her 2nd husband. Her first was 37 years old, she was 16 at the time (15 when they met). Lauren Becall regularly starred along side her husband Huphrey Bogart, 25 years her senior. Or how about just Mia Farrow with literally anyone of her partners - Sinatra, Previn, and of course, Woody Allen. I'm not old enough but don't recall Manhattan being esp. controversial. Buuuut I digress. I could go on for-f**king-ever about this 😅
Anyway, thanks for your great vid, I really enjoyed it. And sorry about my long ramble 😆
you know right that rich old women love sexual turism too? they're just more quite about it.
@@CrankyB1tsch whatabouttism isn't a good look
Also lets be real, women get that treatment much more than men. Doesn't mean mens issues aren't important but that if you really cared you'd try to change something about it yourself instead of only bringing it up when women talk about *their* problem. Go make your own video or find one that talks about mens issues and support that instead.
I’m impressed on your age memorization skills! 👌🏽
@@cody_638 when someone tries to talk about men issues everyone jsut laugh or shouts "you're a mysogynist", but that's not the point. the point is that women love "young meat" too, it just doesn't catch too much attention because no one relly care. also, it's not necessarily a bad thing if someone is much older than their partner, as long as anyone is adult. yes, charlie chaplin but that was 80+ years ago, totally different society. if that happened today, it would cause many many problems (fortunately!)
@@cody_638 btw you shouldn't assume someone's gender. you didn't specifically called me a man but i'm quite positive you think i'm a man lol. also, again, i tell you that if you try to talk about men issues people simply do not care enough and most of the men themselves don't even know that society fux them pretty badly too cause the public opinion is monopolized by "women issues". which, btw, are just the other face of the same coin and imo we will never be able to resolve one gender's issues without thinking about the other gender's too (yes, there aren't only 2 genders bla bla, you understood what i meant here), cause they're intersected tightly
It's truly crazy how easy it is to have your girlhood disappear so quickly. At the age of 11 I was already being groomed and being emotionally abused, while being praised for being more mature than my age. I turn 17 soon and all I can think about is how much I missed out on my younger years. I still struggle with being hyper-sexual and seeking male approval but at least know I can try to enjoy my teenage years and act my age.
I just want everyone to know that you are loved and accepted
14:29 omg SHE SAID IT that’s so true and honesty it’s one of those things that’s so ingrained in society that we see it as totally normal and don’t even know it’s there. I love this video!!! 🙌
I wonder if this has something to do with the fact that the Internet was so outraged about Cuties, but doesn't bat an eye at Dance Mom. In Cuties, black girls dancing was seen as overly sexualizing children, while in Dance Moms it's just seen as innocent dancing.
I didn't think the dancing in the show was provocative, but I haven't seen it in a long time. But looking at some of the stuff they wore, yikes, and the concept of the show at all is a dumpster fire.
the dancing in Dance Mom wasn't sexual though, it was more of a reality show
I couldn't finish the video because of the subject matter but I really appreciate this video. I was repeatedly traumatized at a very young age and have always been disgusted when older men sexualize me. It felt triggering to my ptsd up until I was 21-20. Even now it makes me want to gag when a man with the same age as my parents creeps after me, and I'm in my mid-twenties.
thank you for doing this video. that professional movie always creeped me out. also thank you for speaking specifically about the erasure of black girls. its so true. its like people are offended by the idea black girls and woman are actually regular human beings. a poll shows that people honestly believe black woman are physically stronger than a white woman too. like they are light weight calling us man-woman hybrids.
Yes, this masculinization of black women is ever present. The adultification of black girls is a constant theme. Feminine women such as Miss America (Nia Franklin) and many others are never given any kind of promotion.
i feel like one of the nastiest parts of this trope is how it bleeds into people's perception of real life people. i was a victim of domestic abuse as a kid and had to act like an adult much younger than i should have. people treated me like an adult in most ways. they expected me to behave like those girls, and in turn, i gave them what they wanted.
I remember hearing the term "Lolita" from childhood to describe "fast" girls. Then in my teen years, reading the book and becoming absolutely disgusted. And then in my adult years, reading about Florence's tragic story and how the media treated her and just having my heart absolutely break for her smh
It's crazy how things are twisted over the course of time to be normalized and absolutely dismissive of young girls trauma.
the worst part is that this kind of content, when allowed to be seen by children, serves as its own form of trauma and grooming. Even people who have not actually had any physical violence against them witnessing really dangerous and unhealthy relationships as portrayed through such a romanticized lens is super damaging. And with the internet helping disseminate this kind of content more and more easily to younger and younger people this phenomenon is only getting worse. Kids think it's edgy and cool to watch shit like this like you said, and worse shit still, and it results in some truly traumatized adults who don't even have the satisfaction of understanding who did this to them. There isn't one specific person, and it's more often just other kids who are also traumatized and doing the same things to themselves. They'll end up blaming themselves or not even realizing there is an issue and stumbling their way towards perpetuating their own trauma experiences to other people.
Like, it's just disgusting to think back on the things I saw at ages as young as 12 because I thought I was grown enough or whatever. I'm glad I wasn't given the actual opportunity to escalate things past where they got to because I'm sure the trauma would have ended up cutting way deeper. I just really think we should actually try find a way to regulate what kids are allowed to/able to see more while still allowing them to have a space. It's a weird fine line to toe but it needs to be looked into more. I would have hated it if my parents kept the blocker on the internet and if they actually paid more attention to what I was watching and regulated that, but in retrospect I can't fucking believe it.
yeah, I saw the movies when I was twelve also. even though I was disgusted by it, there were times where I thought it was supposed to portray actual romance, and when one of my friends said she was kissing an older highschooler (18years) when I was 13 I didn't report it.
I grew up too fast as a kid because of trauma and was "so mature", leading me as an adult to actually be immature because I never properly emotionally matured. I don't think that movies that try to show this generally do it right, and as you've said it often ends up victimizing the young actors involved.
The movies never show the characters being tough and mature around others, only to hide in their rooms crying because of emotional flashbacks. They forget to show that the characters really are just kids who are traumatized and dissociating to cope, or how it leads to adults who aren't able to function because they weren't able to mature at a natural rate and avoided processing emotions so they have no ability to as adults.
This was so well made, thank you so much for this video. It’s so disgusting to see how society and media just lets children be seen as anything but children. You said everything that I wanna rant about in this world. Great video
Wow, I did not expect to be this emotional. You're right...why do we have to go through trauma just to be considered strong? We shouldn't have to be strong, we should be safe. Very well done video.
i had a conversation with my sister this morning talking about how the film and tv industrie always cast teen male roles to men in their 20s or 30s but when it comes to female teen roles they often cast women and girls of the actual age that theyre playing
Just a note about Leon, the book that the movie was based on has Portman’s character become pregnant with Leon’s baby, and it’s supposed to be a reminder of their “romance”. I feel that with so many of these films the plot was based on critical literature which instead of offering thought experiments and critical analysis like in the books, the films glorify and gloss over the true intention of calling these things out.
I thought it was based on Besson and Le Besco's relationship. I looked up said book and nothing came up tho...
@@maffieduran hmm, I’m not sure then, I forget what the book name was called I’m sorry 😅 it was based in part or inspired by a book, but I’m blanking now
The algorithm brought you to me when I needed the most after a painful toxic breakup. The guy was with me because of my trauma and pain, fetishing my sorrow. Gross.
I’m glad you are no longer in such a toxic relationship💕 You deserve better
That I saw these films in my teens and early twenties and identified with them, and with the adult understanding I have now...it's chilling. Older men have always found me attractive, and have damaged my foundational years terribly. This is a very empathetic, critical and important look at how warped and wrongly tolerant sexualizing children is in a still somehow weirdly puritanical society.
(10:50) a movie with a teenager (15) and an older woman (36) is "the reader" its been a while since I read it and maybe even longer since I watched the film
The worst part is that, as a child, I experienced multiple traumas and had to ‘grow up’ quickly, which was celebrated/treated as a positive thing when it came to adults congratulating me on ‘how mature I am for my age’ or ‘you’re much more sensible’ etc.
I didn’t want to be mature. I just wanted to be a kid and as an adult now, all I wish for my past self is that I could have had a ‘normal’ childhood and not have to live up to these expectations or be forced into the reality of the world years before I was ready to even begin to think about it.
The way we address maturity in children to children needs to be changed- it’s good in some situations to reward responsibility etc however when it comes to a child with trauma, I personally feel that congratulating them on growing up or being ‘a big girl’ is the worst thing you can do because ultimately it feels like they were validating the trauma and constantly made me doubt whether I was in the wrong etc.
I knew the only reason I was ‘more mature’ than the other kids was because of what I’ve experienced and every time I was congratulated on it, it whittled down my self confidence and ability to feel safe among my peers because ultimately I was worried that they may have been encouraging the kinds of things I experienced to other kids- which sounds ridiculous now however at the time I was a scared child who, despite ‘being mature’, did not have the capability or functioning to fully process the things being done or said to me and felt like it was normal to be treated that way etc.
I know it’s not now but I’m an adult. 9 year old me was very different.
I am so glad to have found your channel. Thank you for an objective non biased analysis
Thank you Rozzey!
Great video. I loved the book Lolita and I was so disgusted by the 1997 adaptation 🤮! It really feels like someone found a book where an adult fucks a kid and used it as an excuse to do a not safe for work movie. Absolute insult to the original that's in my opinion one of the best written psychological horrors out there.
It definitely felt and was an exploitative movie. I honestly don’t think a movie adaptation is warranted and am horrified it exists but not surprised as it’s such a big pattern in a lot of movies and pop culture 😓😑
I actually plan on adapting the book into a movie one day. I would want to return with it back to the horror origins. And one important thing I want to do is to never actually show the child. Sure. It will be implied that there is a child. But for one I don't want a kid to ever play in something like this and for two EVEN if the child would strip infront of you, nothing means you can do anything to it. I'm sorry I'm getting a little emotional but in the country I live in the age of consent is 15 and I can't imagine how many people are getting away with ruining children's lives.
Honestly I thought the movie was quite similar to the book it was just hard to portray what was actually going on with the whole unreliable narrator thing on film. For example my friends who watched it who didn't read the book had no idea what the hell was happening throughout most of the movie
@@stitches318 it's somewhat like the book... but also somehow less tragic? I think Jeremy Irons was too attractive & composed to play that role... when I read the book I imagined Humburt as creepy & obsessed. He wasn't someone you'd ever find attractive personality-wise; you're left feeling Lolita toyed with him because of his naivete, & that he fell in love (obsession) because he had never experienced being so strongly pursued. Honestly, if I had to imagine him, it'd be like the character Robin Williams played in Insomnia.
@@GamerBunny2025 well, if only real life pedos were ugly ogres too. They're not, they're charismatic and manipulative. They are beloved in their communities and families.
Groomers would call me an "old soul". If you hear a man call a little girl an "old soul", that's a red flag.
THE ALGORITHM HAD BLESSED ME!
As a " child " who as lost her "innocence" at 12 i can tell that it's not true. I mean, it didn't grew stronger because of that. On the contrary I can't look at a man whitout having flashbacks and panic attacks so I don't really think being r*aped or sexually abused make you stronger, it's more likely to give you PTSD and nightmares :/
( Sorry for my bad english Imma french )
Yes spot on I was 7 and then 9 when it ended 21 now big girl waking up screaming or crying or both to nightmares of memories.replayed ain't a god damn person can tell me this has made me strong when in reality it's broke me
another example of this trope i thought of with boys was the character Billy from Stranger Things. especially in season 3, Mike’s mom and a bunch of other moms would sit by the pool Billy worked at as a lifeguard and would try to get his attention very blatantly. him and Mike’s mom even almost went out on a date. Billy was still a kid and had endured abuse from his dad and i think this really represents the pseudo maturity trope as well. Very well done analysis, by the end, i had such a great understanding i started thinking about examples in more recent works i had seen!!
Shout out to the RUclips algorithm for recommending me quality content. BRB binging your entire channel
Thank you Karina!!
Trauma survivors are young;
We are in “fight or flight” mode;
We die 30 years earlier.
Trauma isn’t positive.
Stress is toxic.
I like to say I have c-ptsd.
I’m not strong because if my trauma.
Im strong in spite of my trauma.
I’m amazing in spite of my parental abuse.
They’re not the cause of my development.
In spite of…
you have no likes in five days no one really cares❤
This stuff is why even today, at 23, being called "mature" or "an old soul" is a trigger to me. I wasn't mature as a child, i was too beaten down from trauma to act like the typical child and i acted like a grown up because my childhood was taken away.
Thank you for this.
Brown and Latina girls go through the same process of ageing up, adulting, and sexualization. I don't understand why waipipo do this. I read once a man saying that non-white girls grow faster because they come from exotic countries... the colonization...
Just one note: it's said dissociates, not disassociates. It's two different words and the difference is important.