STATEMENT: “CUTIES” HURTS, RATHER THAN HELPS, THE MOVEMENT TO END THE GLOBAL PLAGUE OF CHILD EXPLOITATION

O.U.R., at the request of numerous supporters, has reviewed the newly released film “Cuties,” which claims to show the hyper-sexualized world that our pre-teens face.

The director and the film’s distributor may have honestly intended to hold up a difficult-to-view “mirror on today’s society” to force attention through storytelling of the many sexualization pressures on the world’s children. Nonetheless, the film’s intentions to artistically portray the risks our children face are harshly overshadowed by regrettable lewd and sexually suggestive scenes and images involving child actresses. Such sexually graphic filmmaking involving children is unnecessary, inappropriate and hurts, rather than helps, the movement to end the global plague of child exploitation.