***TRIGGER WARNING***
There is a trend in the U.S. to produce films and cartoons centered around children and sex, and this trend only seems to be growing. A child is more likely to gravitate toward a cartoon like Nickelodeon’s Sponge Bob than a John Wayne Western, or a movie around the story lives of children like The Goonies than a cooking show with Martha Stewart. As Parent Television Council emphatically said in reference to HBO’s “Euphoria” (2019), “who watches a show about high school children, except high school and junior high school-aged children?” Cartoons or television featuring children are a natural attraction to children and should not be made in such a way as ‘adult’ entertainment. Even despite the R or ‘Mature’ rating applied, children may as well find their way in front of it. Unfortunately, popular companies such as Netflix and HBO are of the worst actors to produce films of this nature. The following are some examples of some recent movies and television programs.
In the last 3 years, Netflix has created a handful shows and movies that centers around the lives of children and sexuality. There’s perhaps none worse than Netflix cartoon Big Mouth. This cartoon, now on it’s third season, is full of sexual references and nudity around the lives of middle school children.
Examples of scenes include, a middle school girl talking with her vagina, a full close up shot of a middle school boy’s penis and testicles, children masturbating, a monster forcing a decapitated head to perform fellatio on him, a dad tells his son to “kiss a penis”, and much more. As we showed in an earlier post, this show naturally targets young viewers, is very harmful to young viewers, and can be found featured around child loved films.
Other Netflix produced shows include:
- ‘Sex Education’ (2019), another Netflix ‘Original Series’ is a movie about a 16 year old boy and his mother creating a sex therapy clinic for other high school students, the film centers on high schoolers and includes full frontal nude (breasts and genitals) of a character, explicit sex shown using explicit language with words like orgasm, masturbation, and pornography, a shot of a penis, and more.
- ‘The Package’ (2018), is about a group of teenagers on a camping trip with scenes including a severed penis throughout the film, a scene of a porn film that shows breast and butt, constant references to ‘sucking dick’, and more.
- ‘Oh Romona’ (2019), revolving around a 16 year old boy, is about his life around sex and his crush on a pretty girl at school. The movie portrays teen sex throughout, and even has a half cut fruit on the movie cover that simulates a vagina. One scene shows a boy run out of a house naked with only a sock covering his penis.
Netflix is clearly invested into entertaining “Mature” viewers (as goes their rating system) with sexual themes involving children.
One show that quickly received public scrutiny, even before it’s release in 2019, for its themes involving teenagers and drugs, explicit language, and sexual content is HBO’s ‘Euphoria’. The show revolves around a character, played by famed Disney star Zendaya, and the struggles of ‘teen life’ which seem anything but euphoric, and where the extremes of drugs, sex, and relationships are very much normalized.
In one episode, the Hollywood Reporter reports, “close to 30 penises flash onscreen”, and a statutory rape scene of a transgender character. There are various sex scenes and nudity of underage people played by adult actors. Common Sense Media reports about Euphoria, “Girls are violated in many ways, included being leered at, groped, and touched without their permission. Boys wonder if they’re “whores” and share their images on social media “slut pages.”‘
I think perhaps one of the most concerning and damaging to children films is Columbia Pictures, Sausage Party (2016). This is an animated film about the life of various food, specifically, a grocery sausage trying to find his purpose in life. Really the entire movie is an excuse for sexual puns, references, and sexual and homosexual activity. The title itself gives that away. The movie ends with a slew of food items having sex in 3-minute orgy with all sorts of sexual acts and explicit references.
Cartoons are a natural attraction to kids. The movie’s featured cover itself, showing a sausage link with a happy and goofy kind of smile (while horizontally erected and in the shape of a penis), couldn’t have been more marketable to a child. Other major motion pictures include Happytime Murders, not about children, but using Muppet characters, that are traditionally loved by children, and created by the Jim Henson Company as their first R-rated film, the movie includes Muppet dolls having sex and even ejaculating silly string, and Good Boys (2019), full of explicit language and sexual references from 12-year-old boy characters.
It’s time this trend stops. We, at the National Decency Coalition, are making creative steps to end this trend of creating cartoons, films featuring children, or films inherently attractive to children as sexualized ‘adult’ entertainment. Take action by signing the petition below, and make your voice heard.