Netflix is under fire from a parents group over a film containing a sexually-charged scene involving a nine-year-old girl.
In a July 27 letter, the Parents Television Counsel called on Netflix to pull the film “Desire,” an Argentinian film first released on the platform in December 2017. The film contains a scene in which a nine-year-old girl masturbates to the point of orgasm while watching a western film with her even younger friend. The scene features a close-up of the nine-year-old’s face and depicts the moment in slow-motion, accompanied by the sound of heavy breathing.
In the letter, addressed to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, PTC President Timothy Winter asked if Hastings’ company will “stand for the distribution of nine year old girls masturbating”:
It has come to our attention that your streaming service has made available an Argentinian film called Desire which depicts a nine year old girl masturbating to the point of orgasm. I respectfully, but pointedly, ask you: Does the Netflix brand stand for the distribution of nine year old girls masturbating? The answer is yes or no; there is no other choice here.
No doubt you have learned of this controversial film, and the aforementioned scene has been publicly described thusly: “Two young girls, approximately ages seven and nine, are watching a western on television and are pretending their pillows are horses. The older girl begins to obviously masturbate as the younger child watches. The camera even takes this scene into a closeup of the child’s face in slow motion, moving up and down and panting like a porn star. The scene is graphic and includes an orgasm.” Director Diego Kaplan actually defended his film, and suggested that those disturbed by the scene are, themselves, depraved.
When the child masturbation scene first drew attention online back in June, Kaplan defended his handling of the scene in a statement to IndieWire, blaming any sexual interpretation on the viewer. “Everything works inside the spectators’ heads, and how you think this scene was filmed will depend on your level of depravity,” he said. But he also made clear that he knew the scene was explicitly sexual and took steps to make sure that the girls “never understood” what they were depicting and no adults interacted with them during the filming.
“Of course this scene was filmed using a trick, which was that the girls were copying a cowboy scene from a film by John Ford,” he said. “The girls never understood what they were doing, they were just copying what they were seeing on the screen. No adult interacted with the girls, other than the child acting coach. Everything was done under the careful surveillance of the girls’ mothers. Because I knew this scene might cause some controversy at some point, there is ‘Making Of’ footage of the filming of the entire scene.”
PTC also calls out Netflix for the animated series “Big Mouth,” which “sexualizes children in the most disgusting and disturbing terms possible.” The groups says that with the airing of “Desire,” Netflix is “callously placing profits ahead of any sense of corporate responsibility, to potentially engaging in criminal activity.”