Remember when everyone freaked the f*** out about that French movie on Netflix? No? Well everybody, let us introduce you to: Cuties. In this episode, Hannah and Maia discuss Maïmouna Doucouré’s quaint 2020 coming-of-age film and the all out moral panic that it spawned on the internet - which culminated in a real life obscenity lawsuit against Netflix. Discussions include: the thin line between depiction and endorsement, America’s many moral triggers and paradoxical attitude towards sex, the weaponizing of children as a political tool, the cultural consequences of Jeffrey Epstein, and Netflix… actually... defending… art? 

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Intro and outro song by our talent friend Ian Mills:

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Sources:

Caira Conner, “Watching the Outrage Over Cuties as a Survivor of P*dophilia” The Atlantic (2020).

Maria Cramer, “Netflix Is Charged in Texas With Promoting Lewdness in ‘Cuties’” The New York Times (2020).

Erich Goode and Nachman Ben-Yehuda, Moral Panics: Culture, Politics, and Social Construction” Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 20 (1994).

Zack Sharf, “‘Cuties’ Director Speaks Out Amid Backlash Film Sexualizes Children, Netflix Stands by It” Indie Wire (2020).

Alissa Wilkinson and Aja Romano, How Cuties, a French movie on Netflix, became part of America’s culture war” Vox (2020).