According to TheHollywoodReporter:
Netflix is asking a Texas federal judge to get “Spider” off its back.
The streamer says Tyler County District Attorney Lucas Babin, a former actor best known for his role as “Spider” in School of Rock, is abusing his power and the court needs to intervene.
The fight stems from Netflix’s 2020 release of French film Cuties, a coming-of-age story about an 11-year-old Senegalese immigrant who joins a dance group. The movie, intended to criticize the hyper-sexualization of young girls, garnered widespread acclaim at Sundance but became controversial for showing sexualized dance moves. The controversy culminated in Babin charging Netflix for promoting child erotica (content that depicts children in a lewd manner, not to be mistaken for child pornography).
What has happened in the year and a half that followed led to Netflix taking the rare step of seeking a federal court’s intervention to stop the prosecution. The streamer argues Babin is knowingly pursuing a losing case to harass it.
“It’s insane prosecutorial overreach,” says Duncan Levin, a former federal and state prosecutor who’s now a partner at criminal defense firm Tucker Levin. “He’s misusing the power of his office to chill free speech.”
Netflix in October 2020 was originally charged for allegedly violating a state law that criminalizes the possession or promotion of visual materials that “depicts the lewd exhibition” of children — which the Texas Legislature dubbed “child erotica.” The state enacted the statute in 2017 to cover content that falls outside the scope of its child pornography laws.
