Netflix’s “Cuties” sparks a firestorm

Netflix is facing renewed backlash from subscribers and members of Congress after it released the awardwinning French film “Cuties” on its platform.

Some senators are even calling for an investigation into the movie, which has been criticized for sexualizing young girls.

The film, which was released as “Mignonnes” in France and won a directing award from the Sundance Institute in February, follows an 11- year- old girl named Amy ( Fathia Youssouf) as she tries to find her place growing up in a poor suburb of Paris. At home, Amy has to please her family, who are observant Muslims from Senegal, but she eventually falls in with a group of friends who have their own dance troupe in defiance of her family’s strict rules.

Maïmouna Doucouré, the film’s director, said in an interview with Netflix that the movie incorporated elements of her own childhood in its portrayal of Amy’s struggles between two distinct modes of femininity: one dictated by the traditional values of her Senegalese and Muslim upbringing, the other by Western society.

“I re- created the little girl who I was at that age,” she said. “Growing up in two cultures is what gave me the strength and the values I have today.”

“As a child, that question of how to become a woman was my obsession,” she added.

Doucouré has said that the idea for the film came to her after she attended a neighborhood gathering in Paris where she saw a group of 11- year- olds performing a “very sexual, very sensual” dance. She said she spent a year and a half doing research and meeting with hundreds of preteens to prepare for the film.

“I needed to know how they felt about their own femininity in today’s society and how they dealt with their self- image at a time when social media is so important,” she told Netflix.

The more sexualized a woman appears on social media, the more girls will perceive her as successful, Doucouré said.

“Children just imitate what they see to achieve the same result without understanding the meaning,” she said. “And yeah, it’s dangerous.”

In France, where the film was released in theaters Aug. 19, “Cuties” did not stir much controversy.

But in the United States, the hashtag # CancelNetflix has trended on Twitter, with parents, politicians and conspiracy theorists calling to remove the film or even get the Department of Justice involved. Last month, Netflix apologized for the artwork it created to market “Cuties” to streaming audiences after many criticized it for inappropriately sexualizing the film’s young stars.

An IMDb parents guide rates the film’s sex and nudity as “severe.” Several scenes show young girls dancing suggestively in short outfits.

Calls to remove the film have been amplified by supporters of a conspiracy theory that top Democrats and celebrities are behind a global child trafficking ring.

Several members of Congress have called for the film to be removed from Netflix or for a formal investigation.