Netflix is rather upset about everyone criticising Cuties, a film that’s seen its fair share of controversy across the world for some themes that many have seen as inappropriate. Netflix is reportedly issuing DMCA takedown notices to anyone who bad-mouths the film on social media which is pretty shady no matter what your views on the subject matter at hand.
Cuties is a French film that tells the story of a young girl rebelling against her parent’s conservative, traditional culture. In doing so, she begins to dance provocatively and become active on social media to express aspects of her identity that she hasn’t properly grappled with or understands entirely. The film has received a great deal of public backlash due to its depiction of children, most especially in the United States where the film’s marketing as hailed as perverse and inappropriate. Thus, people flocked to social media to complain about Netflix supporting Cuties.
The issues grew to such an extent that Netflix was indicted by a Texan judge and forced to speak on the matter to which the streaming service commented by saying, “Cuties is a social commentary against the sexualization of young children,” and that “(The) charge is without merit and we stand by the film.”
It seems they may be standing by the film a little too closely as social media users have reported that they’ve begun having their posts about Cuties taken down due to a copyright violation. Now, some tweets have shown clips of the movie so some kind of strike seems passable there. Yet many tweets have simply included a video of the movie’s trailer, a piece of media that’s open to being shared by the public, and they too have been blocked by Netflix.
Within the last month, according to TorrentFreak, Netflix has sent out roughly 300 DMCA claims to Twitter alone and more than half were targeting people that tweeted negative feelings towards Cuties. It’s a strange situation indeed and focused enough that Netflix clearly knows exactly what it’s doing.
Speaking to TorrentFreak, one Twitter user who shared the trailer in their post said, “Someone posted the trailer and I retweeted it and stated how I felt about the movie. I believe people have the right to be upset about the movie. If people share the trailer and say ‘go watch it,’ it’s not a problem, but if someone disagrees with it, it’s a problem.”
Netflix has yet to comment on the matter. 2020 has been a wild year, folks.
(Source: Ars Technica)