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Netflix, amid backlash over the sexualized portrayal of boys in the recently released drama “Cuties,” is encouraging critics to watch the film, which it says makes a statement about the pressures girls face to adjust to social models of female sexuality.
The film, rated “TV-MA” for its language, centers on Amy, an 11-year-old Senegalese girl living in Paris who joins a “free-spirited dance clique” (called “the beauties”) to escape the dysfunction family. Following its release on Netflix on September 9, “Cuties” has sparked outrage by showing the girls performing highly sexualized dance routines and portraying the characters in other sexual situations. The backlash has included an online petition asking Netflix customers to unsubscribe from “Cuties” and other “disturbing” content with children on the service.
“‘Cuties’ is a social commentary against the sexualization of young children,” a Netflix spokesperson said in a statement to Variety. “It is an award-winning film and a powerful story about the pressure girls face on social media and from society in general as they grow up, and we encourage anyone who cares about these important issues to watch the film.”
“Cuties” (“Mignonnes”) premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, where screenwriter and director Maïmouna Doucouré won the World Cinema Dramatic Directing Award.
In a six-minute segment that accompanies the film on Netflix, Doucouré says that in conducting research for the film, he met with hundreds of tweens to understand how they perceived their femininity in today’s society.
“Our girls see that the more sexualized a woman is on social media, the more successful she is,” she says in “Why I Made Beauties.” “And yes, it is dangerous.”
Amy, the film’s protagonist, is “navigating between two models of femininity,” says Doucouré, one represented by her mother’s traditional beliefs and the other by the “cuties” dance squad. Amy believes that she can “find her freedom through that group of dancers and their hyper-sexualization. But is that really true freedom? Especially when you are a kid? Of course not. “She adds,” I put my heart in this movie because this is my story. “
According to the conservative US advocacy group Parents Television Council, which claimed to have reviewed the film, “Cuties” is objectionable because of its overt sexualization of child characters. The PTC says that in addition to the girls’ dance routines and sexualized costumes, one scene shows Amy pulling down her underwear to photograph her genitals for posting online. In another scene, she tries to seduce a man, who is a relative, to get out of trouble by stealing her mobile phone.
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