Cuties was originally titled Mignonnes
Netflix has apologised after they released a movie poster that many said sexualised young girls.
On Thursday, several tweets drew attention to the artwork for a film entitled Cuties, that features several young girls dancing. It was widely criticised for sexualising the young girls depicted, with it being called “disgusting”, “upsetting” and “sick”.
https://twitter.com/BloodMoonbeam/status/1296512408664584194
The description for the film read: “Amy, 11, becomes fascinated with a twerking dance crew. Hoping to join them, she starts to explore her femininity, defying her family’s traditions.”
Cuties is actually a French drama originally titled Mignonnes, which debuted at the Sundance film festival. Reviewers at the festival called the film a criticism of the sexualisation of young girls, with The Hollywood Reporter saying it has a “critical view of a culture that steers impressionable young girls toward the hypersexualisation of their bodies”. It also won the World Cinema Dramatic Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.
The French poster for the film was significantly different to the new one used by Netflix, featuring the young female cast in a much less sexualised situation.
Imagine if Netflix had given cuties a description like Lincoln center did pic.twitter.com/FlF3bHPPnV
— Bri’anna🍿 (@LaNoireDe) August 21, 2020
Following the outcry, Netflix released an apology for the artwork and description.
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
“We’re deeply sorry for the inappropriate artwork that we used for Mignonnes/Cuties,” the company said in a tweet. “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 has now changed the artwork and the blurb for the film. The new description reads: “Eleven-year-old Amy starts to rebel against her conservative family’s traditions when she becomes fascinated with a free-spirited dance crew.”
Speaking about the themes of the film before the controversy, director Maïmouna Doucouré told Cineuropa: “This is most of all an uncompromising portrait of an 11-year-old girl plunged in a world that imposes a series of dictates on her. It was very important not to judge these girls, but most of all to understand them, to listen to them, to give them a voice, to take into account the complexity of what they’re living through in society, and all of that in parallel with their childhood which is always there, their imaginary, their innocence.
The film is set to launch globally on Netflix on September 9th.
