Where were you? A Challenge to Christians over their Boycotts

Christians, parents, woke folks, where were you in February when J-Lo and Shakira were shaking what their mama's gave them. You act like hyper-sexualization of dance is something new. It's not. But where was the outrage when other pornographic films were released and influencing people, young people, because you can access porn on just about any streaming service without parental controls. 

I am a huge foreign film fan. I love a good foreign film. I love Science Fiction, I love a good comedy or adventure film, I also like classic films.  

The first thing you need to realize is that 1) Cuties is a foreign film. 2) U.S. courts have ruled that the First Amendment protects "indecent" pornography from regulation, but not "obscene" pornography. People convicted of distributing obscene pornography face long prison terms and asset forfeiture. However, in State v. Henry (1987), the Oregon Supreme Court ruled that obscenity was an unconstitutional restriction of free speech under the free speech provision of the Oregon Constitution and abolished the offense of obscenity in that state, although it remains an offense on the federal level. Child pornography is illegal in the United States. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that it is not protected by the First Amendment, and even if not obscene, it is not considered protected speech, according to New York v. Ferber.

So I have a couple of questions, where was your outcry against the movie Immoral Tales. Immoral Tales (French: Contes immoraux) is a 1973 French anthology film directed by Walerian Borowczyk. The film was Borowczyk's most sexually explicit at the time. The film is split into four erotic-themed stories that involve the loss of virginity, masturbation, bloodlust, and incest. 

The film is separated into four stories:

• The first story involves André (Fabrice Luchini), who takes his 16-year-old cousin (played by Lise Danvers) to the beach to perform fellatio on him in tune to the waves of the incoming tide.
• The second story is titled Thérése the Philosopher, an adaptation of the novel of the same name. It involves a teenage country girl (Charlotte Alexandra) who intermingles sexual desires in her imagination with her dedication to Christ after being locked in her room.
• The third story features Elizabeth Báthory (Paloma Picasso) as a countess who murders young girls in order to gain eternal youth by bathing in their blood and a girl (Marie Forså) putting pearls inside her vagina.
• The final story involves the daughter of Pope Alexander VI, Lucrezia Borgia (Florence Bellamy), having sex with her male relatives. 

Before that there was a film called Blue is the Warmest Color.  Not realizing this film was a lesbian love story I did watch this one, but as soon as the graphic sex scenes came on, I realized that this was a pornographic film. 

The Plot: 

The film follows Adèle, a French teenager who discovers desire and freedom as an aspiring female painter Emma enters her life. The film charts their relationship from Adèle's high school years to her early adult life and career as a school teacher. The premise of Blue Is the Warmest Colour is based on the 2010 graphic novel of the same name by Julie Maroh. The Sex scenes were extremely graphic and even at the Cannes film festival the film shocked some critics with its long and graphic sex scenes (although fake genitalia were used). 

I literally looked for articles against this film from Christians, who decried the film and it's showing on Netflix. I looked for people who boycotted Netflix and there was nothing available. So where were you? And please don't give me the line, "Oh if you are over 18 it's fine for you to star in a pornographic film, but not in a film like Cuties." 

Now a word about Cuties, and yes, I watched the movie. I know what it's about. The film stars Fathia Youssouf, Médina El Aidi-Azouni, Esther Gohourou, Ilanah Cami-Goursolas and Maïmouna Gueye. The plot revolves around a French-Senegalese girl with a traditional Muslim upbringing who is caught between traditional values and Internet culture. According to the filmmakers, the film is intended to criticize the hypersexualisation of pre-adolescent girls.

Cuties: The Plot

Eleven-year-old immigrant girl Amy originally from Senegal, lives with her mother Mariam in one of Paris's poorest neighborhoods. In an apartment along with her two younger brothers, she waits for her father to rejoin the family from Senegal. She helplessly witnesses the suffering of her mother, whose polygamous husband is preparing to return from the country with a second wife. She is also bored during prayer and more generally of the religious values ​​that her aunt seeks to transmit to her.

Things turn swiftly, as Amy is fascinated by her disobedient neighbor Angelica's twerking clique called Cuties, an adult-style dance troupe which has contrasting fortunes and characteristics to Mariam's religious customs, values and traditions. The pre-teens practice for a competition and do not hesitate to adopt revealing outfits in the image of their older competitors. Encouraged by success and the quest for recognition on social networks, Amy decides to incorporate into the choreography gestures of sexually suggestive dance moves that she has seen on videos.

Following a humiliation at school, she sends a compromising photo of her vagina on social networks, which causes her to be rejected by her classmates. Following a quarrel with the rest of the Cuties, they ban her from performing with them at the dance contest. While her father's wedding is on the same day as the final competition at Parc de la Villette, she is determined to dance with them. Sneaking out of the house in her dance outfit, she pushes another member of the Cuties, Yasmine, into a lake, so that the Cuties have no choice but to allow her to dance with them. The highly suggestive dance routine shocks the audience. Suddenly thinking about her mother during the routine, Amy bursts into tears and leaves before their performance ends to join her mother. Upon her return, she runs into her aunt who blames her for her outfit and recent attitude. Amy's mother intervenes by telling her to leave her daughter alone and then hugs her to reassure her. Amy implores her mother to allow Amy to not attend the wedding, in order to demonstrate her disapproval. Amy's mother permits her to not go, but states that she herself must go to fulfill her duty as a wife. Amy then abandons both the traditional wedding dress and her sexy dancer's outfit, and, in jeans and a t-shirt, her hair down, she goes out to play jump rope with a group of girls.

I tend to agree with Common Sense Media, that "Maïmouna Doucouré has created an evocative, compassionate portrait of young girls finding their identity and values". But I also see where the dance moves can be considered sexualization. 

Oh, and it's not just Netflix, Fawsome Films often puts "B-side" cheesy soft porn films in their lists. In 2016 they added Housewives from Another World. As I said when I started writing I love films, so when I see a classic movie poster with something stupid like "Housewives from Another World" written on it, I automatically think, "Oh, 1950-60s sci-fi film." Imagine if you can my horror when I realized it wasn't a cheesy sci-fi film, but rather a porn film, the opening scene was a man having an extramarital affair with full on frontal nudity. When I looked at the plot on Fawesome Films, it read: Karen catches her husband, Max, with his neighbor, Rita. The alien, now inhabiting the body of Karen, works to prevent the secret development of space exploration satellites. 

So Christians, where is your outrage when Netflix and other streaming companies show real pornographic films? Why weren't you protesting then? Why is it okay to show a movie with graphic Lesbian sex or even a cheesy B-side movie starting a "Pet of the Year"? Oh, wait I forget, it's okay as long as the people are over 18. Or isn't sin, sin in the eyes of God? 

1 Corinthians 6:18-20 says Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. 

1 John 2:16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions—is not from the Father but is from the world. 

Psalm 119:37 Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways.

James 1:14-15 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

Mark 7:21-23 For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”

You notice that God doesn't say "Well one of these is less than another." He calls them out as equal, they are all evil. So where were you? Where was your outcry? After all pornography, is pornography and is equally evil. 

Super Bowl LIV: Hyper-sexualization on Display

All I can say is indignation. It’s what I felt and still feel about Super Bowl LIV’s halftime show featuring Shakira and Jennifer Lopez. After NBC posted on Facebook their question about the half time show, I felt the urgent need to remind people that the Super Bowl, as well as other major sporting events are targets for human trafficking.

I made a comment, and I have been judged as a racist bigot, a girl who couldn’t get a man if I wanted one, anti-Latin culture, uneducated. However, let’s get to the heart of the matter. Sunday’s half-time show didn’t reflect Latino culture, unless Latino culture tells us that it’s okay to sexually exploit our children.

I get that in the entertainment business, sex sells. If want to be be relevant or even sell an album, there has to be a level of comfort with selling yourself. According to a USA Today article by Gil Smart “There was nothing about the halftime show that shocked, from a cultural standpoint. Our culture, after all, is marinated in sex, with hardcore porn easily available on those smartphones you all gave your kids.” And as much as I hate to admit it, Gil is correct; except that typically we can block those things which we don't want our children to have access to. 

This being said, we are now teaching that it is okay to objectify women. One of the comments my post on Facebook garnered was from a man who said "Yeah, I love a little pole dancing.” My initial thought was “until it’s your child, your daughter, sister or someone close to you.” So desensitized to sex have we become that we have people on twitter saying "is there a middle ground between the Super Bowl Half Time show is literally sex Trafficking?” and “It's the most empowering women I have ever seen and I am watching with my 10 YO son.” Really? How can we even question this? 

I also realize that every NFL team has cheerleaders. Nothing burns my biscuits more than my hearing a man saying “I love the top cats…they are the only cats we like.” So it shouldn’t be shocking that most men don’t have an issue with the NFL’s half-time show. One of my friend’s friends wrote on Facebook, “The only people complaining are the women, its only because they can’t do this or that and their man liked it.” Well I am a woman, I don’t have a man and I didn't like it and I can do everything Shakira did, and if I wanted to take pole dancing to build my core, I could at my local gym.” 

Dr. Michael Brown wrote an article on Christian Post where he asks “Moms, are these the kind of shows you want your husbands and sons to watch? Or your daughters to emulate? Speaking of mothers, both Jennifer Lopez and Shakira, the featured performers at the last Super Bowl, are moms themselves, probably very devoted moms. And JLo even brought her 11-year-old daughter on stage to perform with her. But that makes the performance all the more outrageous. A 50-year-old mother in the presence of her daughter, performing on a stripper’s pole?”

Among other comments made on the NBC Facebook post were comments on my looks as well as comments that “I would go to the beach and not have an issue with what people are wearing.” Evidently these people have never been to the beach with me. I take it seriously when I read in Proverbs 31:10 A capable wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels. (NRSV) and Proverbs 31:30 Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. (NRSV). I don’t limit that just to myself, but to young girls and young ladies that we are raising to be the next women leaders in the US. 

You see we have become a nation that is so drenched in sex that we can’t even admit when we see something that is wrong and that borders on the porn industry’s exploitation of sex. Kristin Smith writes, “It’s becoming more widely known that the Super Bowl and sex trafficking are notoriously linked. The crowds the event draws, and the distractions it can create, makes the “big game” a horrifically bad issue. In fact, nearly 200 people were arrested last year in connection with 2019’s Super Bowl in Atlanta. But it’s not just the Super Bowl that’s a problem. It’s the world-wide epidemic of sex slavery that the real culprit. And the United States is one of the biggest contributors to this horrific industry. How, you ask? Well, one way is in the connection between viewing pornography and sex slavery. According to Fight The New Drug, “the porn industry fuels real people being sexually abused and exploited at the hands of family members, traffickers, and pimps. The collective billions of clicks to porn content directly fuels the demand for sex traffickers to make money by selling videos of their sex slaves to porn sites.”

According to the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCSE) “Some may be tempted to write off the Super Bowl LIV halftime performance as harmless, but the reality is that stripping and sex trafficking are inextricably linked. Many of the women—minors, in some cases—in strip clubs have been sex trafficked.” 

And while many are saying that people like Franklin Graham, Dr. Brown and myself are over reacting and are hateful and bigoted, I have to wonder why they call themselves Christians? How does bowing down and worshipping at the altar of sexual exploitation in the name of entertainment fit in with their Christian faith? As Christians we must reject the hyper-sexualized content like that of the Super Bowl Half-time Show. 

I agree with Lucas Black, actor in Fast and Furious and NCIS: New Orleans Protecting your daughter and sons from seeing the display of sexual exploitation at the #SuperBowl halftime show is showing love. We have to teach our younger generation that their value and self worth comes from what God says is true about them.

Philippians 4:8 “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”