Last Updated on October 22, 2020
Netflix has reported a dramatic fall in third-quarter subscriptions following the backlash which ensued as a result of the release of the highly controversial ‘Cuties’ movie that was advertised then hosted on the platform.
Even though millions of potential consumers around the globe are in lock down, Netflix’s pallid subscription reports raised many eyebrows. Netflix fell shy by less than two-thirds of its expected new subscribers, dropping from a forecasted 3.57 million to 2.2 million worldwide. Only 177,000 of those new subscribers were amassed in the United States, where Netflix boycotts over ‘Cuties’ raged over the last several months. In the same quarter of 2019, Netflix gained 6.8 million net subscribers.
The ‘Cuties’ movie drew international outrage on social media as the movie depicted scantily-clad preteen female performers in various sexually suggestive dances, poses, and predicaments throughout a film whose metanarrative was to expose the cultural clashes experienced by traditionalist-leaning migrants in a sexually permissive secular-liberal French society when coming of age.
However, the hyper-sexualization of young girls eclipsed any deeper meaning to the movie. As a result, various critics and mainstream media publications balked at the public outcry and steadfastly defended the movie despite its risqué and quasi-pedophilic content. And consequently, the anemic Netflix report was penciled in as a “‘Cuties’-inspired boycott drive.”
“It’s impossible to attribute the lower numbers directly to the ‘Cuties’-inspired boycott drive. But at least two analytics firms said last month their data showed Netflix was suffering higher ‘churn’ rates, which measure subscription cancellations, in the immediate aftermath of a #CancelNetflix movement that began online,” wrote USA Today TV Editor Gary Levin wrote.
According to Christian Headlines, Tim Winter, president of the Parents Television Council, said:
“Netflix is facing significant international scrutiny, including potentially thousands of subscription cancellations, over its sexually exploitative film, Cuties, and rightly so,” Winter said in a statement. “… Netflix cannot simply sweep this matter under the rug. It faces a criminal indictment from a Texas grand jury, and we are also calling for a federal investigation to determine if sexual exploitation laws were broken. Netflix must be held publicly to account for Cuties and the numerous other programs it distributes that sexualize children for the sake of entertainment.”
Since the release of ‘Cuties’ a Texas Grand Jury has indicted the film for its “lewd exhibition of children.”
According to Westphalian Times, Tyler County Grand Jury indicted Netflix for promoting “the lewd exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of a clothed or partially clothed child who was younger than 18 years of age at the time the visual material was created, which appeals to the prurient interest in sex, and has no serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.”
