‘Cuties’: the award-winning drama that got Netflix indicted

Posted On February 25, 2025February 25, 2025

There have been many recent debates about the startling lack of critical thinking and decline of media literacy skills, with people posting blatantly un-nuanced interpretations of films, novels and television shows that demonstrate a troubling inability to critically engage with art and observe it from multiple angles. Whether it be the widespread confusion and controversy around the release of Poor Things or the dazzling incompetence that some display when struggling to tell the difference between comedy and harassment/bigotry, we are in a crisis of thought that reveals many people as being unable to think for themselves.

However, this became a particularly hot topic of discussion after the release of Cuties, a French film that whipped global audiences up into a frenzy due to a clash between the marketing campaign and the messaging behind the story.

Cuties, directed by Maïmouna Doucouré in 2020, follows the story of an 11-year-old girl called Amy who joins a group of dancers at school called ‘The Cuties’, becoming rapidly aware of her burgeoning femininity, which causes conflict at home. The movie first premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was instantly met with intense backlash and intense conversations about the portrayal of these characters, with the young girls sexualising themselves through the way they dance and dress. However, the director has expressed that her intention with the film was to critique internet culture and the content that children are exposed to, often leading young girls to believe that their entire worth comes from their sexual appeal after being sexualised from such a young age. 

But despite Doucouré’s passionate defence of the story and the themes that are scarily prevalent today due to the heavily sexualised and explicit content that young girls see on social media, many people could not get past the shock of seeing this on screen, claiming that she was a paedophile for daring to articulate these ideas. While male directors have gotten away with much worse, such as Kids, directed by Larry Clark, which showed girls as young as 12 years old being sexually assaulted, apparently, a woman making a cautionary tale about the dangers of this and critiquing it is not justified or morally acceptable. 

However, perhaps the outrage over the film was exemplified by the marketing campaign executed by Netflix, which picked up the distribution rights to the project. Netflix shared a new poster for the movie allegedly without consulting the director, creating a promotional campaign with an image of the children dressed in revealing outfits. This caused an uproar online, with people even sending death threats to the director and continuing their outpouring of abuse for what she had created despite the fact that she played no part in the marketing campaign.  

Netflix quickly replaced the poster with another image and apologised to their audiences, posting an apology to all those who had been offended by it. While many people have criticised the film for sexualising these young girls, the director has spoken about how it was influenced by her own personal experiences and how it clashed with her Senegalese upbringing and Muslim values at home. She wanted to explore how young girls are being indoctrinated with hyper-sexualised portrayals of femininity and how this impacts their perception of themselves, describing her intensive research process as she met with hundreds of preteens to hear their experiences of growing up on the internet, often imitating what they see without understanding its meaning.

While the film was initially met well in France, the wider release through Netflix is what caused the onslaught of negative attention, with American viewers finding it incredibly offensive, leading to the creation of #CancelNetflix. While it is an undeniably uncomfortable story, it seems as though something is being lost in translation, and some audience members need to examine why they are outraged. The subject matter should provoke an intense reaction, but perhaps this shouldn’t be expressed towards the director for daring to articulate something taboo on screen. Isn’t that what cinema was made for?

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