Technology
Netflix indicted by the Texas Grand Jury for 'light depictions' in Cuties.
Netflix has been charged in Texas on allegations that the film Cuties contains obscene children's depictions. The indictment follows the divisive backlash of conservative groups over some scenes in a film in which teenage girls dance provocatively.
A grand jury in Tyler County, Texas, charges Netflix with Promotion Of Lewd Visual Content Depicting A Infant, a criminal act in Texas that was enacted into state law in 2018, Reuters said. The indictment charges that Cuties, a film about a group of young girls who form a dance troupe, represents a lewd show of the genitals or pubic region of a clothed or partially clothed child who was younger than 18 years of age at the time the visual material was made, according to the indictment file.
The filing also notes that the said material invokes a pressing interest in sex and has no serious, literary , artistic, political or science merit.
(The film was screened at the Sundance Film Festival, where producer and writer Maïmouna Doucouré received the Sundance Global Filmmaking Award in 2017.) On 1 October, Netflix was summoned by the co-CEOs Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos. The business denies the reason for the charges; the Netflix spokesperson says to The Verge that "cuties are a social commentary against the sexualization of young children.
Netflix, Inc. indicted by grand jury in Tyler Co., Tx for promoting material in Cuties film which depicts lewd exhibition of pubic area of a clothed or partially clothed child who was younger than 18 yrs of age which appeals to the prurient interest in sex #Cuties #txlege pic.twitter.com/UJ1hY8XJ2l
— Matt Schaefer (@RepMattSchaefer) October 6, 2020
The accusation is one of "the stupidest and most ridiculous in the county, Texas-based defense attorney Paul Saputo said. Texas law explicitly states that content can not have any significant literary, cultural , political or science value. The fact that Doucouré won a top award at one of the world's most renowned film festivals and won critical acclaim from some of the most esteemed critics shows that Cuties has significant artistic value, according to Saputo.
It's absurd — the prosecutor thinks he knows more about art than the Sundance jury, Saputo said.
Cuties was swept up in a maelstrom of controversy when she premiered on Netflix a couple of weeks ago. The French film criticizes the sexualization of girls by the culture and follows an 11-year-old Senegalese girl who, by entering a dance troupe, is rebelling against her strict parents. Cuties uses scenes designed to make the viewer feel awkward, as Doucouré discusses the loss of childhood innocence.
Movie critics lauded Doucouré and Cuties for their childhood futures, but influential conservative figures, QAnon's conspiratorial theorists, and parents' organizations used social media to make #CancelNetflix trend while decrying the movie as lewd.
The charge has some ludicrous implications, Saputo said. If the point is that Netflix supports material that exhibits lewd behavior, it can also be argued that paying Netflix users have content that involves representations of children performing lewd behavior. Is the state of Texas indicting all Netflix subscribers?
This whole situation is crazy, Saputo said.
Since the ban on lewd content involving children extends to anyone under the age of 18, Saputo argued that, according to the rule, adolescents dancing on Instagram and TikTok may be seen as encouraging lewd depictions of children. Since the law was enacted in 2018, he never had a client or heard of a client being prosecuted because I don't think there is a lawyer who wants to take the case.
The situation of Netflix is a different story, he said. Saputo claims that if the prosecutors go ahead with it, the district attorney's office is likely to back up the case.
Netflix will have to employ a criminal defender and find some reviewers who can testify to the art of the film, Saputo said. It won't be difficult.
