10 Stupid Movie Controversies That Totally Missed The Point

9. Kids Exploits & Sexualises Its Young Cast

Larry Clark's excellent drama about teenage sexuality was controversial from the word "go", because of its extremely frank depictions of sex between youngsters, both with regard to the graphic dialogue, and the unsavoury themes including date rape, drugs, minors being groomed, and hormonal teenagers engaging in sexual activity. The film was rated NC-17 by the MPAA, and some critics went as far as to label it child pornography. Though the film does not especially judge the characters, there is no glorification or implication that what they are doing is in any way desirable, it is simply a natural curiosity about one's sexuality. Any accusation that the film is exploitative and lingers too long on the youngsters' bodies ignores the point that most of the sex in the film is shown to be ugly, emotionless, and in the case of the climactic sex scenes (in which two characters are presumably exposed to HIV), dangerous. It is not titillating in the slightest, but in fact rather nauseating, and bracingly effective.