Netflix Self Sabotage on “Cuties” a Hard Lesson Learned

Hello Netflix, meet self sabotage. You’re not the only leadership and organization to miscalculate on judgment and make reckless, expensive, painful decisions. You have bad company.

The technology, media services provider and production company decided to “ride” with the product offering “Cuties,” a film about pre-teen Parisian girls who are “hyper-sexualized.” That was an egregious error.

Netflix shockingly, recklessly invited the criticism and punishment its received. The company learned the hard way that its decision was not well respected or well respected. The streaming service has experienced a reported 800% increase in subscription cancellations.

Nearly 18,000 Google reviews have the film rated as 1.4 stars (as of Oct. 25, 2020) on a scale of 1-to-5. While some critics respected or lauded the work, others didn’t see it the same way and audiences certainly didn’t. Critics appear to find greater artistic and social value in the work than the rest of the public.

Problematic is that those professionals are not the market for Netflix’s business. Media and consumers swarmed on “Cuties” and Netflix, offended, with a segment of the public on social media calling for #CancelNetflix.

Company leadership might put forth a statement expressing its reason as being for making the film available as it’s art, social commentary, entertaining, a movie worthy of viewing, discussion and debate and that Netflix might not believe in or partake in censorship.

Whatever executives decided, they could have reasonably known and forecasted that there could be, would be significant audience and media blowback and a stiff financial penalty, as is common these days, for arrogant, insensitive decision making. These are new times and organizations and individuals benefit by paying attention to the rules of the game — society’s expectations for behavior and upon failing those expectations, impulsive reaction to offense.

“Cuties” being analyzed as hyper-sexualizing children, how could Netflix leadership not have anticipated anger, a call to action and punishment? Is it more ignorance or arrogance? More supporting artistic voice or a lack of morality and absence of self control?

Netflix has to decide what it would like to learn, if anything, from this experience and unsurprising negative public relations. It has to decide what decision analysis and decision quality improvements it would like to make, if any, moving forward. It must decide how much humility and quality of character it will express as a response to the “other critics” — the paying public, investors and media who were repulsed by the decision to release and support “Cuties” and the poor reaction and response to it.

Netflix has erred. It will however be most defined in this moment by what it does next. Will it ignore its error and hope the negativity quickly passes or does it realize the opportunity to learn, speak wisely, with compassion and detail what it plans to do to avoid making similar errors in the future. Does Netflix want to show with action that is has received and understands the public’s feelings, judgment, attitude and behavior?

That’s what the smartest individuals, leaders and organizations do.

There are companies who fall into a pattern of repeat offenses and constantly remain in the news, not to the benefit of reputation and financial growth but with suffering of criticism, loss of trust and financial penalties. It’s always a choice and most often, predictable.

Despite the innocence of the film title “Cuties,” the decision to make it a Netflix consumer offering has turned out to be anything less than innocent.

This article first appeared on Red Diamonds Essays, on the Medium platform, on Oct. 25, 2020.