Amid those firings, Dear White People showrunner Jaclyn Moore announced that she has parted ways with the streamer as a direct result of their support for Chappelle’s harmful special.
“I do believe in freedom of speech,” Moore, who is a transgender woman, told Variety earlier this month. “I really do. But I have the freedom of speech to say that somebody’s speech bothers me, and I don’t want to work with a company that promotes that speech. It’s dangerous. It’s dangerous language. I can’t say it any clearer.”
Although some have called for The Closer to be removed from the platform, the public actions are primarily aimed at Sarandos’ multiple statements supporting Chappelle and questioning the very basis of the criticism.
“While some employees disagree, we have a strong belief that content on screen doesn’t directly translate to real-world harm,” Sarandos wrote in an internal email obtained by Variety, despite the fact that the Netflix Original Documentary Disclosure details the toll that decades of Hollywood transphobia have taken on culture writ large.
Meanwhile, it’s becoming clearer that Netflix may have even lost money publishing and promoting Chappelle’s latest special, all while suffering a PR hit in the process.
Just last week, an employee leaked confidential analytics regarding Chappelle’s special to Bloomberg. According to the report, Netflix shelled out roughly $24 million for Chappelle’s Closer special, but only garnered an “impact value” of $19.4 million and an “efficiency score” of 0.8x. (A Netflix show only earns back its cost with retained viewership when its efficiency score reaches or surpasses 1.0x, as Bloomberg noted.)
For comparison, Netflix spent $3.8 million for comedian Bo Burnham’s special Inside, which earned a 2.8x efficiency score.
Cosigning Chappelle’s transphobic comedy, it turns out, is a hazardous venture on multiple fronts: Not only is Netflix gambling with its own money, the company is risking losing its own talent, too.
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