Netflix Goes Scorched Earth on Woke Employees
When you go woke, you run the risk of going broke, and apparently, Netflix is pulling the ripcord before the streaming giant good and fully faceplants.
Following a financial report that saw its stock price plummet 37 percent in late April, Netflix is now moving to adjust its culture and reengage its frustrated audience. A new “culture memo” dealing with “artistic expression” has been sent out, and it’s clearly a shot at the woke staffers who have been sandbagging the company.
Excerpts come via The Daily Wire.
“If you’d find it hard to support our content breadth, Netflix may not be the best place for you,” the memo states, later adding that employees may be required to work on projects that they “perceive to be harmful” and that if they have a hard time accepting their work assignment, they might want to consider working somewhere else.
“Entertaining the world is an amazing opportunity and also a challenge because viewers have very different tastes and points of view. So we offer a wide variety of TV shows and movies, some of which can be provocative,” the new section reads, later adding, “we support the artistic expression of the creators we choose to work with” and that “we let viewers decide what’s appropriate for them, versus having Netflix censor specific artists or voices.”
Most of this appears to center on the controversy over a comedy special by Dave Chappelle that Netflix put out. In it, he made a few relatively mundane transgender jokes. Of course, he also made Jewish jokes and took a variety of other shots are other demographics. That’s what comedy is, and the idea that certain groups are off-limits is not something Chappelle is ever going to abide by.
But the trans jokes led to a “trans walkout” and other protestations from Netflix employees. At the time, the CEO came out and defended Chappelle before bending the knee, attempting to coddle the woke employees that were lashing out by seeking an ill-advised middle ground. Once that financial collapse happened, though, it looks like a sudden change in direction happened. You can imagine that the board of directors and the shareholders were none too happy with seeing their company burn to the ground in order to make a small minority of far-left activists happy.
I believe the physical attack on Chappelle was the last straw, though. A man with a knife (hidden in a fake gun muzzle for some reason) tackled the comedian on stage and came out far worse for it. Netflix obviously said enough is enough and wanted to make it clear that they will not have any more internal incitement toward those that actually make the company successful.
The new hardline isn’t just in words, either. The employee who led that walkout has been fired. Further, the recommendation for those who object to Netflix’s work to find another job is about as tough of a line as I’ve seen from a company on this issue. It’s heartening to see that perhaps, just maybe, we might see a return to sanity, at least on some fronts.