The View’s hosts collectively gave the controversial Netflix film Cuties a negative review.
Meghan McCain, Sara Haines, and Sunny Hostin all expressed discontent on Wednesday with the movie that follows an 11-year-old Amy, a girl of Senegalese origin living in a poor neighborhood in France, who joins a dance group at school. Critics of the French film have accused it of hypersexualizing prepubescent girls, but director Maimouna Doucoure argues that the point of the movie is to start a conversation about the real-world issue.
Haines and Hostin both watched the movie, but Hostin said she turned it off because she “didn’t enjoy the movie.”
Haines said, “When you talk about what the director said, I appreciate her intent and attempt at doing what she did, which was to showcase how we sexualize young girls. As a mom and a viewer, I think she missed the mark and ended up sexualizing the girls, but that, I don’t think, that was her intention, and I don’t think she should be castigated for that, and there were critics at Sundance Film Festival that disagree with me.”
She also criticized the backlash that the film sparked, referencing that many opponents of the movie called for a boycott of Netflix.
“You can just not watch it, which is what I decided to do. I just turned it off. But I certainly have a problem with sexualizing young girls, and that is a problem in our culture,” Hostin added, before discussing how girls’ clothing can sexualize them. “I agree with Sara that this film missed the mark. I don’t think anyone needs to see a young girl twerking to get across this message, but I also don’t think that you need to sort of cancel Netflix. I also don’t think that it is child pornography. I don’t think that we need to cancel art because film is art.”
McCain, a conservative voice on the ABC show, said that she hadn’t seen the film, but noted, “I just don’t think we need to give the world a reason for disgusting pedophiles and perverts to sexualize young girls.”
Despite the opposition, Netflix has remained steadfast in defending the movie. The streaming service did, however, issue an apology for a movie poster that featured “inappropriate” artwork.
