Maimouna Doucouré, the director of the controversial Netflix addition, Cuties, has spoken out once again in defense of her movie.
The film centers around a group of 11-year-old girls and their raunchy dance crew. The flick has been slammed as “child pornography.”
There is a petition to have the project pulled from the streaming platform.
“The controversy started with that artwork… The most important [thing] is to watch the film and understand we have the same fight,” said Doucouré per Variety.
The movie features gratuitous footage of the pre-teens dancing provocatively while scantily clad. Doucouré says she’s surprised by the backlash.
“I thought the film would be accepted. It played to Sundance and was watched by American people there; I met the public there and they really saw that the film is about a universal issue,” said Doucouré. “It’s not about French society — the hyper-sexualization of children happens through social media and social media is everywhere. People [at Sundance] agreed with that.”
Despite the images depicted in her film, Doucouré agrees that child safety is important — but insists that her offering was not to exploit the young actresses but to start a dialogue.
And she has succeeded in her mission — but many feel Cuties is a step too far.
“We need to protect our children. What I want to is to open people’s eyes on this issue and try to fix it,” she continued, adding that it’s “important and necessary to create a debate and find solutions as filmmakers, politicians, and within the educational system.”
Netflix has so far declined to pull Cuties.
