The highly controversial Netflix film “Cuties” debuted this week, and concerned parents who were called right wing fearmongers for warning of child sexualization in the film’s promotional material were vindicated by the level of explicit material in the film – which is even more sexualized than the marketing material.
Netflix’s PR department, which reportedly told viewers “we cannot really comment on that” when asked if the company supports pedophilia, later apologized for the film’s promotional artwork, which it claimed was not “representative of this French film which won an award at Sundance.”
Critics of “Cuties” were also accused of racism because the film’s director, Maïmouna Doucouré, is a Senegalese-French woman of color.
When the film debuted this week, however, viewers were quick to take notice of the parents guide on IMDB, which noted several sexually explicit scenes in the film were “lawfully defined as pedophilia and can be extremely distressing.”
Though the IMDB parents guide section is user submitted, all submissions must be approved and judged as accurate by IMDB before appearing on the site. The parents guide section was later updated to omit the references to pedophilia, but even the revised version notes multiple sexual scenes throughout the film.
in case anyone gets it twisted about user submitted parental guidance, remember this: @IMDb has to approve all user submissions before publishing them. https://t.co/UTsbuy5ztL
— Siraj Hashmi (@SirajAHashmi) September 10, 2020
Several scenes involved sexual interactions between children in from the film have since been posted to social media.
WARNING: The following media contains sexualized depictions of very young children and may be disturbing to most normal viewers.
https://twitter.com/GhostJim4/status/1303771909356650496
https://twitter.com/GhostJim4/status/1303778934421680129
https://twitter.com/GhostJim4/status/1303843324344897537
“Cuties” director Doucouré has acted shocked that people are offended by the portrayals of child sexialization in the film, and has claimed to receive death threats.
“I just hope that these people will watch the film, because then they will realize we are actually on the same side of this battle against the hypersexualization of children,” Doucouré said in response to critics.
She has received immense praise for the film because of her background as a Senegalese-French woman.
