#CancelNetflix Trends on Twitter as ‘Cuties’ Premieres
The COVID-19 has solidified the status of Netflix as the #1 home entertainment source for Americans. All thanks to hits like The Kissing Booth and Tiger King franchise. But the OTT platform is now experiencing online backlash for its controversial French movie, Cuties. It is a story about 11 years old girl who lives in Paris and joins an all-girl dance group.
Netflix apologized last month after promoting the movie poster that was accused of sexualizing its cast. Since the movie premiered, a #CancelNetflix has been trending on social media platforms. Some users have been equating the movie as a coming of age film to pedophilia.
About the Movie
Cuties was the debut movie of Fresh director/writer Maïmouna Doucouré, born in Paris to immigrants of Senegalese. The movie debuted to great applause at the Sundance Film Festival this year, where it received Directing Jury Award. The filmmaker remarked in an interview featured on the YouTube page of Netflix Film Club stated “The movie is a story of an 11-year-old girl trying to find herself.
The girl is navigating between two models of femininity, where one represents her traditional origin of her mother. While the other represents a group of young girls called Cuties.
Doucouré told she was influenced to write the movie after watching an 11-year-old girl dance group that modeled their sequence after adult music videos. She was surprised by their age, she noticed and added as she met with lots of pre-teen girls regarding growth in the age of social media.
The girls in the movie notice that the more a woman is sexualized on social media, the more successful she is. And the children imitate what they see, and try to achieve the same without its meaning. And, it is dangerous for them.
According to the maker of the movie, Cuties was meant to help teenage girls and their parents navigate the hard transition into adulthood. And, the movie critics have been moved by her vision.
The Cuties are tremendous dancers, but their performance is ridiculous given their age, the maker said. They don’t understand anything about the ways of adults, their immature banter reveals they don’t have any idea about sexuality.
But the #CancelNetflix crowd is not buying the story. The outraged commentators have dragged the movie’s audience score to 5 percent, while the critical consensus has a 90% rating.
Despite the campaign on Twitter, Netflix has no plans to remove the movie from its library and Doucouré hopes something good comes out of the troubled release of the movie in the US.
