Streaming Black girlhood: biculturality, nostalgia and hypervisibility in Cuties

Abstract

ABSTRACT The era of streaming services and online distribution of independent films have offered more varied representations of the African Diaspora than were previously available through traditional media. Within this context, Maïmouna Doucouré’s acclaimed 2020 film, Cuties, presents a poignant and nuanced, yet controversial representation of Black immigrant biculturality, girlhood, and puberty. In this essay, we engage with Cuties through the lens of nostalgia as an escape from uncomfortable realities. Set in France, the film centres the immigrant experience. The protagonist Aminata (Amy), a French-Senegalese preteen, witnesses her mother’s sadness at her husband’s impending wedding. Amy embarks on a journey of body agency and rage that demonstrates her navigation between cultures. We critically engage with how Amy disrupts her mother’s and community’s immigrant nostalgia: a longing and idealizing for the culture of their homeland in opposition to the dominant culture of their adopted country. We also examine how the U.S. release of Cuties on Netflix got caught, perhaps unintentionally, in the crosshairs of a U.S. culture war. The marketing for Cuties presented a sexualized, feel-good depiction of the girls in the film which distracted from Doucouré’s true aim of depicting the rage of girlhood and the negative influences of sexualized popular culture, hypervisibility, and imagery on adolescent girls. We consider this backlash from the perspective of nostalgia as well: We unpack how this controversy reflects some Black viewers’ desire for a ‘return’ to polite and tame filmic representations of Black girls. Despite Doucouré’s efforts to explain herself and sympathetic critics’ campaign to defend the film, there was some preoccupation with the young girls’ display of sexuality. We perceive Doucouré as challenging audiences to stay present in the challenges facing young Black girls, particularly as they are increasingly exposed to online models of sexuality and femininity.