'Cuties' director defends film, says 'it does not hyper-sexualise young girls'
After all the controversy that has erupted around French film ‘Cuties’ after it landed on Netflix, film’s director Maïmouna Doucoure has defended her indie film. She argues that ‘Cuties’ does not hyper sexualise young girls as is claimed.
Speaking at a TIFF panel on French filmmakers, she said, "It's because I saw so many things and so many issues around me lived by young girls, that I decided to make this film and sound an alarm and say, 'We need to protect our children’.”
In the film, a preteen girl leaves her Senegalese family background to fit in by joining a group of precociously sexualized dancers as tradition and teenage rebellion collide.
The director said, "It's bold, its feminist, but it's so important and necessary to create debate and try to find solutions, for me as an artist, for politicians and parents. It's a real issue.”
"It's important to see someone like you on the screen, and to grow up with a lot of possibilities. So, of course, diversity and inclusion have to be the keys to progress in our cinema," she added.
Also, Netflix in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter defended Cuties as "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."
Cuties was picked up by Netflix after its Sundance premiere, and the streaming giant had to apologize for a marketing campaign and its promo materials in August. "We're deeply sorry for the inappropriate artwork that we used for Mignonnes/Cuties. It was not OK, nor was it representative of this French film which won an award at Sundance. We’ve now updated the pictures and description," the streamer said via its Twitter account.
