“Dave Chappelle represents a segment of society (along with white supremacists, hoteps [a person who is pro-Black but not progressive], incels, and others) that is anxious about the waning power of cisheteronormativity and the patriarchy,” the transgender activist Raquel Willis tweeted.“People like him know that their outdated, limited view of the world is obsolete, and instead of transforming in the name of empathy and humility, they lean into toxicity.”
Trans employees within Netflix accuse the company of ignoring years of concerns raised by Black and trans employees, dating back to Chappelle’s 2019 film “Sticks & Stones.”
Variety reported that the company’s CEO, Ted Sarandos, sent employees an internal memo reminding staff that the company had a policy against platforming content that incites violence.
“And we don’t believe ‘The Closer’ crosses that line,” he reportedly wrote.
In a terse response, LGBTQ+ media organization GLAAD pointed out that its entire founding was based on the premise that cultural representations of queer people have real-life consequences.
“Authentic media stories about LGBTQ lives have been cited as directly responsible for increasing public support for issues like marriage equality,” the group said in a statement. “Film and TV have also been filled with stereotypes and misinformation about us for decades, leading to real world harm, especially for trans people and LGBTQ people of color. Ironically, the documentary Disclosure on Netflix demonstrates this quite clearly.”
Sarandos said in an interview Tuesday night with The Wall Street Journal that his remarks had been an oversimplification of the situation and that they had been lacking in humanity.
“I should have recognized the fact that a group of our employees was really hurting,” he told the Journal.
Adding to that the next day, a company spokesperson said in an emailed statement to The 19th that Netflix supported the walkout.
“We value our trans colleagues and allies, and understand the deep hurt that’s been caused,” the statement read. “We respect the decision of any employee who chooses to walk out, and recognize we have much more work to do both within Netflix and in our content.”
In a blog post, Terra Field, the Netflix senior software engineer who first complained about the special via a viral Twitter post, said an employee resource group voiced serious concerns about both specials only to be written off by executives.
“So when a company like Netflix says something like, ‘we do not believe this content is harmful to the transgender community,’ you can be virtually certain that not a single trans person was involved in that decision,” Field wrote.
Get the best of what’s queer. Sign up for them.’s weekly newsletter here.
