The petition has now garnered over 50,000 signatures. The French film, which I saw this past January at Sundance, will be available to stream on Netflix next month and follows an 11-year-old Senegalese Muslim girl who joins a provocative dance group of twerkers. I remember, as I was walking to the Eccles at Sundance, bumping into “Cuties” producer Sylvain de Zangroniz and being asked what I thought of the movie — I tried to change the conversation to another topic, but he didn’t relent, I finally plainly stated to him that “it just wasn’t my cup of tea”. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so nice. I didn’t care for “Cuties” one bit, in fact, I thought it was a repulsive film that sexualized an eleven-year-old girl’s innocence for the sake of female empowerment. We see outrageous musical montages involving close-up crotch shots and sweaty pre-teens feeling themselves while soaking up the music on-stage. It’s a clearcut attempt at provocation from Doucoure, but it fails miserably. It doesn’t help that the film, a cliche-ridden coming-of-age-tale, is dull beyond belief — there’s nothing interesting about its we-have-to-win-the-dance-contest plottings. Maïmouna Doucouré, the film’s director, claims the movie “is in fact a critique of the sexualization of children, specifically the Internet’s role in it.” That’s not what I saw. It’s all part of the damage control being created to justify streaming this film to a massively large Netflix audience. The film, rated TV-MATURE, will be available on Netflix next week. Contribute Hire me
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