This Wednesday promises to be eventful for Netflix. Employees have scheduled a walkout and a rally in front of the company’s headquarters in Los Angeles. Demonstrators will protest against the support given by Ted Sarandos, co-executive director of the platform in charge of content, to comedian Dave Chappelle, whose show The Closer, posted in early October, contains valves deemed hostile to trans people and gays by some. Explanations.
A controversial spectacle
Almost unknown in France, Dave Chappelle, 48, is one of the most celebrated comedians in the United States. The African-American artist has been singled out regularly throughout his career, which began in the 1990s, for his comments aimed at trans and homosexual people. This is again the case with The Closer, available since early October on Netflix. In this show, he says he belongs to “the TERF team”, the acronym for feminists who deliberately exclude trans women from their struggles and demands. He claims that “gender is a fact” and that his detractors are “too sensitive”.
Dave Chappelle puts forward his experience as a black man and believes that white gays “are part of a minority until the moment when they need to be white again”. He claims that the LGBTQ community [lesbienne, gay, bi, trans et queer] has made more progress in a few years than blacks in decades. “If the slaves had had oil and minishorts, we would have been free a hundred years earlier,” he says in his show, among other examples.
Strong internal reactions
The reactions of indignation were numerous. The LGBTQ + GLAAD association thus deplored, supporting studies, the negative impact that the dissemination of stereotypes about minorities could have. The storm has blown within the streaming company itself. To internet users who criticized Most, Netflix’s Twitter account dedicated to “LGBTQ + stories,” the community managers replied on October 14: “As a queer and trans person who manages this account, you can imagine that these two last few weeks have been difficult. We can’t always control what’s on the screen. What we can control is what we create here and the perspectives we bring to internal discussions. “
The stir among the staff was such that Ted Sarandos, one of the executives of the platform, sent a memo to the employees of Netflix. He wrote that what was shown “on the screen did not translate directly into harmful consequences in the real world” and that the principle of freedom of expression took precedence.
Layoff and dismissal
Terra Field, a trans and white employee of Netflix who expressed her outrage on Twitter on October 6, was fired days later on the grounds that she had barged into a virtual executive meeting. She was then reinstated. Last week, Pagels-Minor, a trans and black employee of the platform, was fired for sharing confidential information with the editorial staff of Bloomberg. Namely that Netflix had spent $ 24.1 million for The Closer, compared to $ 23.6 million for Dave Chappelle’s previous show or $ 21.4 million for the nine episodes of Squid Game. At New York Times, Pagels-Minor, says he was actually fired just after making a walkout call through Slack messaging.
A mobilization for “the safety and dignity of all marginalized communities”
This walkout will take place this Wednesday. “A list of firm demands” will be presented to Ted Sarandos at the rally. If the demonstrators have not, for the time being, revealed in detail their demands, Ashlee Marie Preston, one of the organizers, spoke of “the safety and dignity of all marginalized communities”. Terra Field calls on Netflix to precede The Closer warning about its content and promote more “queer and transgender comedians and talent”. “A workplace cannot be a good place if you have to betray your community,” she writes.
in a blog post.
The tarnished Netflix rainbow ?
The juggernaut Netflix has often communicated its desire to support, among other things, LGBTQ + people, notably through inclusive content. Ted Sarandos, in his memo, assured that the company “was working hard to ensure that marginalized communities are not defined by a single story” and took the series as an example. Sex Education, Orange is the New Black, as well as the show by lesbian comedian Hannah Gadsby. The latter replied on Instagram: “Hey Ted Sarandos. I would prefer you not to meddle in your mess. You haven’t paid me enough to deal with the real consequences of the hate speech you refuse to acknowledge, Ted. Fuck you and your algorithm-based amoral cult. (…) It’s just a joke: I haven’t crossed a line since you just told the world that there was none. “
Jaclyn Moore, trans woman, producer and showrunner of the Netflix series Dear White People,
announced that she would no longer work with the company as long as it “will continue to make available and benefit from dangerous transphobic content”. Jonathan Van Ness, star of Queer Eye, for his part, recorded a video of encouragement to the demonstrators and,
according to Variety, will participate in the rally. Other talents who have worked with Netflix, such as Jameela Jamil, Eureka O’Hara, Colton Haynes, TS Madison and Joey Soloway are also expected to mobilize.
Ted Sarandos admits mistakes
In an interview with Variety this Tuesday, Ted Sarandos admits to having “missed his internal communication”. “I should have done this with more humanity. A group of employees were saddened and hurt by a decision we made. I think that this must be taken into account as a priority (…) Which I did not do. ” About The Closer, he believes, “under the definition of” is the intention to cause physical injury? ” “, The show” does not fall into hate speech “. Ted Sarandos is also said to be “committed to continue to increase the representation [des minorités] on screen and behind cameras ”. Will this be enough to calm the spirits? To be continued in the next episode.