As Netflix continues to face backlash after the platform announced a French movie Cuties, would come to its platform, National File has since reviewed three separate instances of Netflix being accused of sexualizing minor girls in products it either produces or offers to viewers on its platform.
Netflix is currently under fire for Cuties, the film involving a group of preteens who find meaning in a dance troupe that specializes in twerking while inappropriately under dressed, other previous shows have contained content that was deemed to be sexualizing minors. However, Netflix has been in the cross hairs before.
1. Cuties
Dozens of articles surrounding the scandal were published and Netflix trended on social media after their tone deaf, yet critically acclaimed, movie focusing on the struggles of young girls from non-Western backgrounds to be immersed in a hypersexual liberal society.
Of course, scantily-clad preteens performing sexually explicit dance routines–regardless of the deeper, more sophisticated–storyline riled up the wider public who could not reconcile the “sexualizing” nature of the scenes with the plot.
Furthermore, the original Netflix synopsis–that was later changed–and the film’s trailer failed to unmask much of the story’s sociocultural angles, but came across as enabling children to debase themselves out of a you-go-girl phony-empowerment all too commonplace in mainstream pop culture.
2. AJ and the Queen
This particular show is about a ten-year-old drag queen who came from an abusive broken home and paired up with an adult drag queen to tour the country.
One particular scene, although meant to be tongue-in-cheek, joked about the pre-pubescent drag queen’s sexual predilection as a “top.”
Via National File:
In the show, the child, who is the 10-year-old daughter of a drug-addicted prostitute, says she wants to be a boy “because people leave boys alone.”
According to Newsbusters, the young girl does everything in her power to superficially cover any feminine features such as her long hair and tries to act like a boy.
During the show, in which the drag queen co-protagonist and the young girl bond, traveling the country, the child is exposed to several highly sexualized themes throughout.
The scene in question had the following exchange:
Alma Joy: What are you even doing in Pittsburgh? I thought you were opening your own New York club.
Robert: Oh, I am. We’re in the middle of huge renovations and it is going to be major.
Man: Here you go, Edie.
Edie: Oh, Ruby, girl, there are burgers at the bar. Are you hungy?
AJ: I am. Take me. Come on. Let’s go.
Edie: Okay. Follow me. First kid I ever met that’s a top.
3. Chilling Adventures of Sabrina
This particular reboot of Sabrina The Teenage Witch was flayed by many critics as it featured an orgy involving a group of high-schoolers. The show, marketed to teenagers, received a negative backlash as horrified parents complained about the sexual explicit scene with minors.
Fox News reported:
The orgy scene – set to Fiona Apple’s “Criminal” – appears in the seventh episode of the series and features half-a-dozen scantily clad teens in Sabrina’s house. When the 16-year-old namesake character is hesitant to join in, she’s mocked for “killing the mood” and told to either “get in, or get out.”
Taking once-wholesome comic book characters and turning them into sinister and hyper-sexualized TV characters is a troubling trend in itself. The dark, occultish elements in ‘Chilling Adventures of Sabrina’ provide reason enough for parents to keep their children — including teens — far away from this show,” Family Research Council’s senior fellow Peter Sprigg said, speaking with Fox News.
Sprigg added:“The show has gone over the top in depicting an actual orgy on screen, and if they think having the teen participants keep their underwear on makes it all right, the writers and producers need to think again. This content is not appropriate for anyone, but especially not for the teen audience it targets.”
4. Big Mouth
Although Big Mouth is the only animated show out of the previous three, its highly sexual themes to a teenage target audience has been subject of controversy for a long time.
“Teenage friends find their lives upended by the wonders and horrors of puberty in this edgy comedy from real-life pals Nick Kroll and Andrew Goldberg,” the Netflix synopsis reads.
Despite the challenges faced by teenagers going through puberty, some of the animations contain segments involving teenagers “getting familiar with” their genitals, including an anthropomorphized animation of a minor’s vaginal area.
Another scene depicts a teenage boy masturbating furiously under his bed blankets.
Big Mouth has enjoyed the most popularity out of the three aforementioned shows and naysayers’ alarmism has been subject of controversy.
In spite of the brouhaha shrouding these shows, the increasingly sexual content pumped out to younger and younger audiences has been met by staunch resistance by parents and conservative-leaning internet users.
