Netflix Under Fire for Controversial Film ‘Cuties’
Outrage ensued over a provocative poster and description for the French film Cuties on Netflix, which some felt was sexualizing young girls.
The film, originally titled Mignonnes and directed by Maïmouna Doucouré, focuses on an 11-year-old who joins a dance crew to rebel against her parents. The original poster showed four young girls in suggestive poses, and the description stated that the dance group was “to enthusiastically embrace an increasingly sensual dance routine, sparking the girls’ hope to twerk their way to stardom at the local dance contest”. The description also referred to the children as teenagers.
#Cuties from @netflix is a “coming of age” movie about a “teenager” joining a twerking dance troupe . 11 year olds are not teenagers and the only people who are going to watch it are pedophiles. You can do better, #Netflix. What a shame..
— c@ (@neverlandiing) August 19, 2020
There has been debate on social media about the severity of the film’s content, especially the mature rating. Very few thought it was simply a film like other shows about young girls in showbiz like Toddlers and Tiaras or Dance Moms. Some users pointed fingers at the viewers, saying if they felt the girls were being sexualized, viewers should look at themselves and their views. While other users felt this film was a devious way to normalize pedophilia.
would love to hear @netflix explain why they couldn’t use the fairly conventional original french poster for “Cuties” pic.twitter.com/1cP1v93Y24
— FAUST WORKS IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS (@mcmiag) August 20, 2020
Netflix has shared no plans to remove the film, however, the description has been altered and the poster has been changed to a close-up of one of the characters. The streaming service admitted that the picture used was unacceptable but seemed to validate their keeping of the film by referencing that the movie was met with success at the Sundance Film Festival, winning an award for directing.
We’re deeply sorry for the inappropriate artwork that we used for Mignonnes/Cuties. It was not OK, nor was it representative of this French film which won an award at Sundance. We’ve now updated the pictures and description.
— Netflix (@netflix) August 20, 2020
The changes and apology from Netflix seemed to fall short of quelling the rising anger, as a petition been formed and signed by over 45,000 people to have the filmed removed. As of today, the movie is still set to debut globally on Netflix on September 9th.
