Netflix released the movie on Sept. 9, which sparked a social media campaign urging Netflix users to cancel the service, saying the film sexualizes underage girls. By Sept. 12, cancellations increased eight times the daily averages recorded in August, Variety reported.
YipitData research firm compiled the data, and it's unclear if the spike in cancellations will have a large effect on overall subscriptions. The controversy over the film, however, is continuing as lawmakers condemn it as encouraging pedophilia.
Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz has called for a Department of Justice investigation into the movie.
"The film routinely fetishizes and sexualizes these pre-adolescent girls as they perform dances simulating sexual conduct in revealing clothing, including at least one scene with partial child nudity. These scenes in and of themselves are harmful. And it is likely that the filming of this movie created even more explicit and abusive scenes, and that pedophiles across the world in the future will manipulate and imitate this film in abusive ways," Cruz wrote to Attorney General William Barr.
The backlash comes from politicians on either side of the aisle calling for Netflix to pull the film, including from Democratic Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard and Republican attorneys general.
"@netflix child porn 'Cuties' will certainly whet the appetite of pedophiles & help fuel the child sex trafficking trade. 1 in 4 victims of trafficking are children. It happened to my friend's 13 year old daughter. Netflix, you are now complicit. #CancelNetflix," Gabbard tweeted.
Attorneys general from Louisiana, Florida, Texas, and Ohio wrote a joint letter to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings saying, Cuties is "fodder for those with criminal imaginations, serving to normalize the view that children are sexual beings."
The film's director Maïmouna Doucouré, however, is sticking by her movie, saying it's about the dangers of sexualizing girls.
"It's because I saw so many things and so many issues around me lived by young girls, that I decided to make this film and sound an alarm and say we need to protect our children," Doucouré said.
Netflix issued a similar statement, saying the movie is "social commentary against the sexualization of young children. It's an award winning film and a powerful story about the pressure young girls face on social media and from society more generally growing up - and we'd encourage anyone who cares about these important issues to watch the movie."
Yes and every single thing involved in its production came from the very evil that is encouraging it. Call it for what it is, it's from the tribe and only the tribe.