THE Obama’s have been slammed for being “complicit” in the Netflix Cuties saga as critics have called on the couple to end their “silence.”
Fox News contributor Rachel Campos-Duffy and Evita Duffy wrote an op-ed for “The Federalist” headlined “Michelle Obama is Complicit in Netflix Child Porn Film ‘Cuties’.”
“At a time the left has declared that ‘silence is violence,’ Michelle Obama’s silence on Netflix’s controversial movie ‘Cuties’ has not gone unnoticed,” it read.
“It is also undermining her brand as ‘America’s mom’ and chief defender of female empowerment across the globe.”
On Sunday in an interview on the Fox News Channel, Republican Ted Cruz elaborated that Netflix is “making money by selling the sexual exploitation of young kids.”
Cruz and others have made it a sticking point that Netflix has a production deal with former President Barack Obama and Michelle Obama, although neither have any association with “Cuties.”
The movie explores the world of Amy, an 11-year-old girl raised in Paris in a traditional Senegalese Muslim household who had a dream to join a group of dancers named “the cuties” at school.
The film is the debut work of French director Maïmouna Doucouré and premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, receiving a best director award.
It puts internet culture into the spotlight and focuses on the hyper-sexualisation of girls.
The film’s original synopsis 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.”
It now reads: “Eleven-year-old Amy starts to revel against her conservative family’s traditions when she becomes fascinated with a free-spirited dance crew.”
Netflix has defended the film as speaking against the over-sexualization of children in society and has urged critics to watch the movie to understand its perspective.
A Netflix spokesperson told The New York Post: “‘Cuties’ is a social commentary against the sexualization of young children.
“It’s an award-winning film and a powerful story about the pressure young girls face on social media and from society more generally growing up – and we’d encourage anyone who cares about these important issues to watch the movie.”
Speaking about the film’s intention to Cineuropa, writer and director Maïmouna Doucouré said: “This isn’t a health & safety ad. This is most of all an uncompromising portrait of an 11-year-old girl plunged in a world that imposes a series of dictates on her.
“It was very important not to judge these girls, but most of all to understand them, to listen to them, to give them a voice, to take into account the complexity of what they’re living through in society, and all of that in parallel with their childhood which is always there, their imaginary, their innocence.”
Netflix’s decision to show the film has also garnered an online petition and a trending Twitter hashtag to #CancelNetflix.
