"I had to look up where Tyler County is," says Thomas Leatherbury, director of the First Amendment Clinic at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, who calls the legal proceedings a "test case" and "very unusual.". A controversy that might not have happened if Netflix had advertised Cuties in a more sensitive way. Adult men and adult women. He was also never more uncool then when he argued that Bring It On and Coyote Ugly deserved R-ratings and took issue with their alleged vulgarity, but I digress. ", Texas Rangers served Netflix Inc. with legal papers on Oct. 1 for streaming the French coming-of-age film, which centers around an 11-year-old French-Senegalese girl who joins a dance group known as "The Cuties.". It’s little different from the “Hey, she can act!” critical plaudits that Blake Lively received for playing a strung-out (but conventionally sexy) junkie in Ben Affleck’s The Town. So here's the ironic thing surrounding the “Cuties” controversy: The blowback against the... New on Netflix in September: . Netflix has apologized for sexualizing children following backlash over a now-deleted poster for Cuties. The controversy surrounding the release of French coming-of-age drama Cuties (Mignonnes) on Netflix has sparked interest -- and increased viewership.. Cuties controversy sparks #CancelNetflix campaign. "You're basically saying the company is so imbued with this type of behavior that the entire company is responsible," he says. ‘Cuties’ Director Maimouna Doucoure Addresses Controversy Surrounding Netflix Film “We, as adults, have not given children the tools to grow up healthy in our society,” filmmaker says The film’s director was chased off social media and even received death threats. 1 Album In The U.K. With ‘Fearless (Taylor’s Version)’, BTS Tie Blackpink For The Most YouTube Videos With One Billion Views Among Korean Acts, Sharon Van Etten Marks 10 Years Of ‘Epic’ With A Reissue And Documentary/Concert, Taylor Swift Makes History In Australia With Three No. This time it’s the movie ‘Cuties’. "This charge is without merit and we stand by the film.". Shock of shocks, Cuties is about the very thing it was accused of propagating. Now that I’ve seen the movie, the online outcry over Maïmouna Doucouré’s Cuties, which finally debut on Netflix this morning, was as absurd, overblown and inaccurate as you’d probably expect. More essential culture reads The best TV shows we watched in 2020 Members of Congress are actually calling for the film’s removal from the Netflix lineup as well as a Justice Department investigation of child exploitation and endangerment. Netflix On its face, the current controversy over Maïmouna Doucouré’s Cuties is a classic case of a movie being advertised as something it’s (allegedly) not. Let's break down the burning questions around the "Cuties" case: 'Cuties' controversy: Why the Netflix film became a combatant in the culture war, "Cuties" earned strong reviews and a director's award at Sundance Film Festival. Though Netflix co-CEOs Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos are named in the Tyler County indictment for authorizing or "recklessly" tolerating "Cuties" promotion, the DA has filed the charge against the California-based corporation. . A grand jury filed an indictment against Netflix for lewd visual material depicting a child on Sept. 23 in Tyler County, Texas, according to NBC News. "Usually obscenity prosecutions are designed to make a point, they're not usually about the level of punishment," says Rusty Hardin, a former prosecutor and high-profile Houston defense attorney. Netflix is losing subscribers and quickly! "A grand jury in Tyler County found probable cause for this felony, and my job is to uphold the laws of this State and see that justice is done," he wrote. It is a bright, colorful, energetic character play dealing with both the burden of traditional feminine expectations and the hyper sexualization of pre-adolescent girls. 'Cuties' uproar: . Cuties is, at its core, a culture clash flick which argues that young girls are harmed both by regressive, often religiously-specific gender roles and by an allegedly more progressive pop culture that conflates open/performative sexuality with being more mature. If such material is distributed on a grand scale, isn’t the need to prosecute more, not less?". But it's a drop in the bucket for a $200 billion company like Netflix. © 2021 Forbes Media LLC. Not unlike the controversy over Blumhouse’s The Hunt, it fell victim to our pre-release “depiction equals endorsement” era of cultural criticism. Backlash kicked in around the movie in August, when Netflix released promotional material depicting the young cast in suggestive dance poses with bare midriffs and short shorts. Duncan Levin, a former federal prosecutor and now managing partner at New York legal firm Tucker Levin, says charging a corporation is not uncommon and sends a message. 'Cuties' is a social commentary against the sexualization of young children," the company told USA TODAY in a statement after the indictment. This article is more than 4 months old. Netflix will now face criminal charges due to the backlash over “Cuties,” a French film that tells the story of a young girl who joins a dance crew.. What’s going on? But Leatherbury predicts this will move to a court case (no hearings have been set) that won't end on a district level. It’s a French melodrama, directed by Black female filmmaker (Maïmouna Doucouré) concerning a young Black girl (Fathia Youssouf) who is pulled in two contrasting directions. Babin, who was elected to the district attorney's office in 2018, said in his statement that he had heard about "Cuties" and watched the movie, and felt it crossed the line. Its broad skeleton is no different from the likes of Bend it Like Beckham and Whip It. Tyler County District Attorney Lucas Babin announced in a statement on Oct. 6 that the streaming giant had been indicted for "promotion of lewd visual material depicting a child. The popular internet streaming service has seen a …