Business & Tech
Netflix Under Attack For Film Considered 'Child Porn' By Some
The streaming service released 'Cuties' which depicts young girls dancing suggestively and has led to a rash of canceled subscriptions.
LOS GATOS, CA – As the number of Netflix customers outraged by the release of the French film, ‘Cuties’ continues to grow to more 600,000 who have signed an online petition for customers to cancel their subscriptions on Thursday, the Los Gatos-based streaming service company has become the target of angry subscribers who are referring to the offering many as child pornography.
On Thursday, the hashtag #BoycottNetflix is trending nationally on Twitter in response to the release of the film, which critics say objectifies children. The film, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year and debuted on Netflix Wednesday, is currently described on the streaming service as the story of an 11-year-old girl who starts to rebel against her family’s conservative traditions by becoming fascinated by a “free-spirited” dance crew.
Netflix originally used the word “twerking” rather than “free-spirited” in its original description and said that the main character, Amy, begins to explore her femininity. The company has already apologized for artwork that was used to promote the release of the film’s trailer last month, referring to it as “inappropriate.”
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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
On the Change.org petition, Kelsi Swift, who began the petition, calls for Netflix customers to cancel their subscriptions after “Netflix has chosen to ignore the petition and wishes of their customers”. She continued, “Netflix is no longer the family friendly streaming service I once believed it to be.”
In addition to the petition calling for subscribers to cancel, a separate petition calling for Netflix to remove the film from the platform has drawn more than 345,000 signatures as of Thursday afternoon.
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As a number of subscribers announced on Twitter they planned to cancel their accounts because of the film's presence, some said the film went beyond the realm of common decency.
"Netflix really thought they could sneak a movie like Cuties which is literal CHILD PORN onto their platform without us noticing??," one person wrote on Twitter.
According to IMDB.com, the film’s description includes a parental warning regarding the film’s content. In part, the warning reads that one of the “highly sexualized & erotic dance scenes…purposefully exploit and objectify numerous scantily clad underage girls.”.
It continues: “This is lawfully defined as pedophilia and can be extremely distressing to many viewers.”
Netflix did not immediately reply to a request for comment on Thursday by Patch.
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