Netflix issued an apology on Thursday after facing criticism for promoting artwork that sexualized young children.
The promotional material was for the upcoming French film “Cuties,” which first premiered at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, and depicted several young girls posing on stage while dressed in tight outfits with exposed midriffs.
Ok so the Netflix Cuties movie.
I did some research and the director is a French Senegalese Black woman who is pulls from her own experiences as an immigrant and comments on the hyper-sexualization of preadolescent girls.
But look at the original poster vs the Netflix one pic.twitter.com/JVbaa5iueG
— ?•°{Miggs…?} (@miggsboson) August 20, 2020
Ironically, the message behind the film is supposed to be a critique of the hyper-sexualization of women and girls in culture, according to Yahoo Entertainment.
Netflix admitted that the artwork was “inappropriate” and changed the poster and description after facing pushback from both leftist activists and conservatives.
Already, more than 65,000 people have signed a petition demanding that Netflix remove the movie entirely.
A spokesperson for Netflix would not comment on the petition, according to The Hill, but did confirm that the film will begin streaming on Sept. 9.
We’re deeply sorry for the inappropriate artwork that we used for Mignonnes/Cuties. It was not OK, nor was it representative of this French film which won an award at Sundance. We’ve now updated the pictures and description.
— Netflix (@netflix) August 20, 2020
This attempt to hyper sexualize young women is nothing new, as Fox News host Tucker Carlson pointed out during a segment this week.
“Why this constant impulse to sexualize young girls, from the people who tell us they are protecting girls,” Carlson asked.
“This is so much worse than handing our Marlboros, because it corrodes people inside, it helps shape the course of their lives in a really bad direction, and yet we don’t even know the names of the people who are pushing this crap,” Carlson continued. “Why don’t the rest of us say something about it?”
