Netflix Has Apologized For A ‘Cuties’ Poster That Was Criticized For Sexualizing Children

Netflix is preparing to release a French film called Cuties (Mignonnes) on September 9, and people are not pleased about how part of the film’s U.S.-based marketing (specifically, a poster) appeared to be sexualizing young girls. The film, which won a directing award at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, holds an 82% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and has been generally well received by critics for handling delicate subject matter (an 11-year-old girl joins a neighbor’s dance clique that runs counter to the protagonist’s family values) in a deft way.

As Deadline reports, a backlash occurred over the unquestionably different tone of the French and American posters promoting the movie. Here’s a peek at the two images: (1) The French poster kinda makes it look like the girls went shopping; (2) The U.S. version looks, well, like an invitation for a demographic that shouldn’t be courted.

Netflix has addressed the matter with an apology. “We’re deeply sorry for the inappropriate artwork that we used for Cuties,” the streamer tweeted. “It was not OK, nor was it representative of this French film which premiered at Sundance. We’ve now updated the pictures and description.”

Here is the film’s synopsis from the Sundance website:

Eleven-year-old Amy lives with her mom, Mariam, and younger brother, awaiting her father to rejoin the family from Senegal. Amy is fascinated by disobedient neighbor Angelica’s free-spirited dance clique, a group that stands in sharp contrast to stoic Mariam’s deeply held traditional values. Undeterred by the girls’ initial brutal dismissal and eager to escape her family’s simmering dysfunction, Amy, through an ignited awareness of her burgeoning femininity, propels the group to enthusiastically embrace an increasingly sensual dance routine, sparking the girls’ hope to twerk their way to stardom at a local dance contest.

With a keen eye for and an understanding of adolescent behavior, Maïmouna Doucouré — whose short film Maman(s) won the Short Film International Fiction Jury Award at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival — focuses tightly on her rowdy protagonists, crafting a spirited film that nimbly depicts the tweens’ youthful energy and vulnerabilities while exploring their fumbling eagerness to be identified as sexualized. Fathia Youssouf captivates as Amy, shifting like a chameleon between the different identities her character is juggling and deftly anchoring the film’s immensely watchable, vivacious young cast.

As one can gather, “twerk”-ing is involved in this movie, and Cuties definitely looks like a film that should have been marketed with the utmost care (in order to avoid the suggested appearance of impropriety). The poster with the booty-popping poses was not a great look, and Netflix has since updated the description on the film’s streaming page. The old description read, “Amy, 11, becomes fascinated with a twerking dance crew. Hoping to join them, she starts to explore her femininity, defying her family’s traditions.” In the updated version, the word “twerking” has disappeared:

Netflix’s trailer appears below. While the dancing could still be interpreted as suggestive, and there’s a scene where the dance group is wearing the same outfits from the posters while performing a routine, the trailer looks less salacious than the poster. However, the YouTube comments are predictably full of backlash.