Senator Demands Netflix Remove “Cuties” Show That “Grotesquely Sexualizes Children”

National   |   Mary Margaret Olohan   |   Sep 17, 2020   |   6:10PM   |   Washington, DC

“Sexualizing children” through films like the newly released “Cuties” is “corporate practice” for Netflix, the Parents Television Council said in a letter obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The Parents Television Council (PTC) is calling for lawmakers to “convene hearings on the entertainment media’s troubling trend of sexualizing children in its programming,” according to a letter sent to Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley that was released Thursday.

“We urge you to understand the depth and breadth of this truly vexing subject,” PTC President Timothy Winter told Hawley, referencing the Missouri senator’s Friday letter to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings.

“All parents should be disturbed that Netflix would distribute a movie portraying real children engaging in sexualized performances and simulated sex acts for the cameras,” Hawley said in a Thursday statement to the DCNF.

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“Netflix needs to remove this movie now. And it’s well past time for Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, and maybe other Hollywood executives too, to explain their decisions before Congress.”

Winter cited what he said are examples of Netflix “graphically and grotesquely sexualizing children through its entertainment programming,” including Netflix’s “Desire,” which shows a “9-year-old girl self-stimulating herself to an orgasm,” according to the PTC president.

Winter also listed the Netflix animated comedy series Big Mouth, saying that the series includes “a girl who talks to her vagina about her life, with the vulva, clitoris and labia shown in graphic close-up for extended periods of time” as well as “sketches of a middle school student’s bare breasts” and “two 12-year olds playing a game with two high schoolers where they face each other in a competition to see who can ejaculate onto a cracker the fastest.”

The PTC president also mentioned the Netflix series “Sex Education” and the movie “Baby” in his letter to Hawley. “Sex Education” includes “high-school aged characters engaged in graphic sex scenes with dialog that one would expect only to find in XXX films,” Winter said, adding that “Baby” glamorizes teen prostitution.

“Senator Hawley, one instance of a Netflix program that sexualizes children could be an anomaly; two instances could be a coincidence; three instances could be a random connection; but four instances, and actually it’s more than four, suggest a corporate practice for such programming,” Winter wrote to the senator.

The letter also is directed to lawmakers who have vocalized their distaste for “Cuties,” including Republican Senators Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Ted Cruz of Texas, and Mike Lee of Utah, as well as Republican Indiana Rep. Jim Banks and Democratic Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard.

Netflix declined to comment to the DCNF on the PTC letter.

“Cuties” sparked debate on social media over its depictions of little girls and suggestive dancing. Director Maïmouna Doucouré said in an interview with Deadline that she hoped “Cuties” would “make a big change in this world that hypersexualizes children.”

“I really put my heart into this film,” Doucouré told Deadline. “It’s actually my personal story as well as the story of many children who have to navigate between a liberal Western culture and a conservative culture at home.”

“Hopefully they will understand that we’re actually on the same side of this battle,” she said of critics ahead of the film’s release.

A review of the movie by the Daily Caller News Foundation found that “Cuties” not only includes many close up shots of little girls’ crotches and buttocks but also shows the children viewing pornography and discussing sexual acts. Additionally, it shows one girl photographing her genitalia, among other suggestive scenes.

LifeNews Note: Mary Margaret Olohan writes for Daily Caller. Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience.