Netflix drops controversial ‘Cuties’ poster for ‘sexualising’ children

Netflix has apologised after an “inappropriate” poster for an upcoming film drew heavy backlash online.

Netflix has apologised after an “inappropriate” poster for an upcoming film drew heavy backlash for sexualising children.

The promotional poster for French language film Cuties showed the film’s young stars posing in revealing dance outfits. It quickly drew criticism online and led to thousands signing an online petition calling for the film to be banned from the online streaming platform.

The petition called the film “disgusting” and said the 11-year-old actors were being sexualised “for the viewing pleasure of paedophiles”. It has gathered more than 126,000 signatures.

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Netflix apologised for the poster, calling it ‘inappropriate’.

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“We‘re deeply sorry for the inappropriate artwork that we used for Mignonnes/Cuties,” Netflix said in a statement. “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.”

Cuties, originally called Mignonnes, is a coming of age story from French-Senegalese filmmaker Maïmouna Doucouré about Amy, 11, wants to join a twerk group. From Netflix’s description on YouTube: “Amy, 11, becomes fascinated with a twerking dance crew. Hoping to join them, she starts to explore her femininity, defying her family’s traditions.”

Netflix also altered the description of the film when it changed the poster — updating it to say she’d come from a “conservative family” and removing the reference to twerking.

After Netflix apologised, some critics were still not happy, saying the problem was with the age of the children in the film.

“This is actually disgusting,” one woman wrote on Twitter. “11 year-olds twerking and the show is rated for mature audiences? Whoever came up with this idea needs to be fired and promptly arrested, and this whole thing needs to never see the light of day.”

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Listen up, troops. @Netflix is streaming a French film about 11yo girls who twerk. (Image 1) After the story broke and there was an outcry, they changed the description (Image 2) to soften it.

It's about 11yo girls. And is rated TV-MA. Think about that. pic.twitter.com/ulyWogxIGv

— Genevan General (@GenevanGeneral) August 20, 2020

“This is so gross and wrong,” another said. Why are you promoting the sexualisation or little girls @Netflix?”