After ignoring all of the backlash surrounding Cuties and adding it to the content library last month, it looked as if the furor had quickly died down. But it seems that’s not the case. Yes, as if 2020 couldn’t get any stranger, multi-billion dollar media conglomerate Netflix are now being indicted in the state of Texas for releasing a critically acclaimed and award winning coming-of-age drama from a rising filmmaker.
The tale behind the pic is an incredibly strange one, of course, and nobody would have batted an eyelid about the French indie had the streaming giant not made the odd decision to release a tasteless poster for it. Despite swiftly issuing a public apology, though, one out of context image alone was enough for the internet to mobilize and demand that it be boycotted, while petitions were launched to have it removed from the platform that gained hundreds of thousands of signatures.
Director Maïmouna Doucouré was subjected to death threats even though she had done nothing except hand over the distribution rights for her breakthrough feature to the world’s biggest streaming service so that it could find a much larger audience, and that audience then downvoted the movie into oblivion and actively avoided it. Although, Cuties did eventually crack the Top 10 most-watched list based largely on the curiosity factor.
Senator Ted Cruz even called for a Federal investigation that seemed to have fallen on deaf ears, but the latest twist in the tale has seen the pic indicted in the Lone Star State, and you can check out the reasoning behind the summons below.
“Knowingly promoting visual material which depicts the lewd exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of a clothed or partially clothed child who was younger than 18 years of age at the time the visual material was created, which appeals to the prurient interest in sex, and has no serious, literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.”
Netflix are standing by the film, though, and have once again publicly defended Cuties as social commentary following the indictment, saying that the charges are entirely without merit and they’ll continue to support the movie.
“[This] is a social commentary against the sexualization of young children,” a spokesperson for the streamer said in a statement. “This charge is without merit and we stand by the film.”
Fair enough, but now that the law has officially become involved, the saga looks to be far from over.