I know the premise of the movie. I’ve seen the trailer and it’s not something I want to watch as I think it’s exploitation of children. They’re themselves are not old enough to understand the impact this could have. That not everyone would find it as a work of art but something to jerk off to. I have a problem with that so don’t presume to tell me what I know and don’t know.
But from my understanding, that's exactly the point of this film. That young girls are doing this sort of thing without realizing what it means to older people; they are just copying behaviour on the assumption that it's not normal, cause that's what you see in music videos and wherever. And so that, if we are scandalized by seeing this in a movie, we should think of what young girls (and boys, for that matter) are getting to see every day, and how normalized that has become.
I mean, as I think I saw pointed out in the Trump or US Elections thread, people are all disgusted by Cuties, but no-one comments on girls in high-school skimpy outfits at pageants or in cheerleader squads. Are we, as a society, thus saying that young girls can reasonably be sexualized as long as it's a known, set context? E.g., yes when cheerleading, but not in film? There are good discussions to be had, and the film triggers them - exactly by having these scenes and making people feel uncomfortable.
Moreover the actually controversy is about Netflix who went ahead and decided to use the exact snapshot of the objectionable footage and put it as the poster of the film for people browsing their website just for gaining extra views and traffic. I'm glad they are receiving cancellations on the back of this, absolutely pathetic from them.
The film isn't responsible for Netflix's marketing strategy though.