French-language film Mignonnes which took home the World Cinema Dramatic Directing Award at Sundace Film Festival earlier this year has invited the wrath of English language movie-watchers post one gross mistake by OTT platform Netflix. Mignonnes is all set to premiere on Netflix as Cuties on September 9, 2020 and in promotion of the same, Netflix used a poster which particularly sexualized the minor actors of the movie.
Added to that, the summary provided by Netflix for the movie didn't quite sit well with the public and they immediately took to object both the poster and the write-up. After the social media storm, Netflix has now apologized but Mignonnes directed by Maïmouna Doucouré is already bearing the brunt by inviting negative reviews and low ratings on its official movie page.
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.
— Netflix (@netflix) August 20, 2020
The poster and original series description were wholly inappropriate. 11 year old exploring her femininity!?
— qback27 (@qback27) August 20, 2020
Ok so the Netflix Cuties movie.
— 🤔•°{Miggs...?} (@miggsboson) August 20, 2020
I did some research and the director is a French Senegalese Black woman who is pulls from her own experiences as an immigrant and comments on the hyper-sexualization of preadolescent girls.
But look at the original poster vs the Netflix one pic.twitter.com/JVbaa5iueG
Many have also petitioned for the movie to be cut from Netflix as a whole citing its trailer but some argue that the film happens to portray such content because it is derived from the director's own experience of being an 11-year-old Senegalese immigrant once.