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Netflix’s ‘Cuties’ Sexualizes Children, Says National Center On Sexual Exploitation, Parents Television Council

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The National Center on Sexual Exploitation and the Parents Television Council said Thursday that an upcoming French movie about young girls on Netflix sexualizes children.

Scheduled for release Sept. 9, the Netflix movie “Cuties” tells the story of 11-year-old Amy, a French girl who “joins a group of dancers named ‘the cuties’ at school, and rapidly grows aware of her burgeoning femininity – upsetting her mother and her values in the process,” according to the film’s description.

Parents Television Council (PTC) President Tom Winter said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation that “The only motivation” for producing such a film is “to sexualize children and to fuel the appetites of those who would feed on the sexualization of children.”

“Who at Netflix is greenlighting such a flood of content that sexualizes children? How can the company possibly reconcile a ‘coming of age’ film, and one that centers entirely on 11-year-old girls, with a TV-MA rating?” he asked.

“This is not a random decision – it has become corporate practice,” he said, naming Netflix titles such as “Baby,” “Big Mouth,” and “Sex Education” as examples of how Netflix continues to “embrace this pattern.”

PTC is an organization that seeks to “protect children and their families from graphic sex, violence, and profanity in media,” according to their website.

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The film is directed by Maïmouna Doucouré, a French-Senegalese screenwriter and filmmaker whose last film focused on a girl in a polygamous family who is being raised by two mothers, according to Variety.

“Netflix must stop sexually exploiting children for the sake of entertainment, period,” Winter told the DCNF. “‘Cuties’ is not the first time Netflix has blatantly promoted programming that sexualizes children, but this must be the last.”

Director of Corporate and Strategic Initiatives for the National Center On Sexual Exploitation Lina Nealon told the DCNF that “by allowing ‘Cuties’ on its platform, Netflix is surely fueling the crisis of child sexual abuse material.”

“Netflix must stop hosting and marketing content that hypersexualizes children and perpetuates racial stereotypes,” Nealon said. “Sexualizing children is unacceptable.”

Netflix apologized Thursday for the film’s initial artwork in a statement to the DCNF.

“We’re deeply sorry for the inappropriate artwork that we used for Mignonnes/Cuties,” a Netflix spokeswoman told the DCNF. “It was not OK, nor was it representative of this French film which premiered at Sundance. We’ve now updated the pictures and description.”

The poster for the film has since been updated.

Netflix did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding the statements from NCSE and PTC.