CUTIES (2020): Backlash Leads to Spike in Netflix Cancellations

Cuties controversy draws backlash

The social media campaign waged against Netflix over it’s sexualized portrayal of children in Maïmouna Doucouré‘s Cuties (2020) has resulted in an eight fold spike in subscriber cancellations since September ninth, the day after the release of the controversial film.

On Saturday, September twelfth, Netflix’s U.S. cancellation rate reached a multiyear high according to data analytics company YipitData. While the #CancelNetflix hashtag continues trending on social media, it is possible the spate of cancellations will continue over the next several days, according to the firm. Though it is uncertain how much of an overall impact it will have on Netflix’s subscriber base, as YipitData could not provide estimates on the number of cancellations. In subscription based business models, customers regularly end their subscriptions (referred to as “churn rate”), and YipitData’s metrics may merely reflect a short lived blip in the U.S. market churn rate. Indeed it is hard to imagine people giving up a service upon which they have come to depend so much. In the first half of 200, Netflix netted roughly 25.9 million new subscribers globally, with so many people having to quarantine at home.

Fueled by the intense controversy surrounding Cuties, the film has been one of the most popular on Netflix since its release, fueled by the controversy surrounding it. On Tuesday, September fifteenth, it was the fourth most viewed film on American Netflix, behind the animated childrens’ movie Pets United, documentary The Social Dilemma and horror film The Babysitter: Killer Queen. Netflix’s ranking system is based on how many users watched a title for at least two minutes.

The film’s reception has certainly been mixed. It has won the world cinema dramatic directing award at its screening at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival; though we’ve also seen that the anti-Cuties movement has been linked to the QAnon conspiracy movement, which regularly accuses Hollywood and Washington DC elites of engaging in secret pedophile rings, as was seen in the Pizzagate conspiracy movement. Of course not all Cuties critics are QAnon supporters, but the backlash has provided another opportunity for QAnons to spread their conspiracy theories online.

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