Thinking of cuteness after Sianne Ngai's article- and still thinking of the innocence/aggression dichotomies of Darger's paintings...

We can thus start to see how cuteness might provoke ugly or aggressive feelings, as well as the expected tender or maternal ones. For in its exaggerated passivity and vulnerability, the cute object is as often intended to excite a consumer's sadistic desires for mastery and control as much as his or her desire to cuddle.

Like an Alicia next door, cute to a casting agent. The same frecklefaced 8-year-old that danced with Hello Kitty in a department store commercial would appear vacantly at my back door almost nightly. One could scarcely look up from a round of Candyland without jumping out of one's skin at the dirt-streaked waif peering in. Her objective was always to borrow my Lost Boys video. Perhaps she grew up to resemble Jamie Gertz as the undead. Last I saw her she was rolling around her front yard squeezing herself to "Like a Virgin."