Moral Duties

     The Netflix film, Cuties, is known for its controversial scenes that have been brought to attention by angry viewers on social media.  The movie was originally a French film directed by Maïmouna  Doucouré who’s individual conscience of the film was not taken properly by viewers. Her true individual conscience of the film was to showcase the influence of social media on young girls, especially preteens. It is because of the provocative scenes of young girls dancing inappropriately and taking pictures of their private parts on camera that caused these scenes to become objects of moral judgement. Audiences in America are taken back by these scenes because of how uncommon it is to see things such as this on the big screen than in France where the film was first shown. 

    Most of these complaints came from Netflix’s financial supporters, which would be its subscribers in the United States. Although the film is not a Netflix Original, the company did seek out the film to put out on the streaming platform for they truly felt as if it was something of worthy content. But due to all of the negative reviews circulated throughout the internet, the institution, being the French production companies that helped produce Cuties, as well as Netflix were highly impacted due to the negative reviews. Not only were the institutions that helped produce the film affected by negative reviews but also professional colleagues such as the director of the film and the young actresses along with their parents. People were judging Doucouré due to her negligence of how these young actresses would be perceived for future roles and how society would view them as people as well as their parents. 

    Since viewing the film in America and going viral over controversial scenes, Cuties has been viewed as a kind of child pornography by American viewers, rather than a film that could actually inform people on the dangers of social media to young girls. American society has asked Netflix to remove the movie from its platform and has been protesting against Netflix over its allowance to have a film controversial such as Cuties on its platform.