Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos put at least part of his foot in his mouth on Tuesday, ahead of an employee walkout largely sparked by his internal memos about Dave Chappelle’s latest special, The Closer.
In prior defenses of the comedian, Sarandos had told Netflix employees that “content on screen doesn’t directly translate to real-world harm” — a theory directly contradicted by the Netflix Original Documentary Disclosure, for one.
“Obviously, I screwed up that internal communication,” Sarandos told Variety in a Q&A timed to be released ahead of the Wednesday protest.
“Of course storytelling has real impact in the real world,” the streaming boss went on. “I reiterate that because it’s why I work here, it’s why we do what we do. That impact can be hugely positive, and it can be quite negative.”
Still, the CEO insisted that Dave Chappelle’s The Closer, in which the comedian ridicules trans women’s genitals, among other transphobic comments, does not amount to hate speech. “Under the definition of ‘does it intend to cause physical harm?’ I do not believe it falls into hate speech,” he told Variety.
However, short of specifying that he believes Chappelle was not directly encouraging violence, Sarandos largely refrained from issuing judgment on the content of the special.
“Sometimes, and we do make sure our employees understand this, because of that — because we’re trying to entertain the world, and the world is made up of folks with a lot of different sensibilities and beliefs and senses of humor and all those things — sometimes, there will be things on Netflix that you dislike,” he said. “That you even find to be harmful.”
Indeed, many Netflix employees have found the Chappelle special to be harmful. In advance of today’s walkout and public rally, the company’s trans employee resource group released a statement of demands, obtained by The Verge.
“We want the company to adopt measures in the areas of content investment, employee relations and safety, and harm reduction, all of which are necessary to avoid future instances of platforming transphobia and hate speech,” the statement reads.
The statement goes on to ask Netflix to commit resources to developing work by trans and nonbinary artists, recruit trans and nonbinary leadership behind the scenes, flag transphobic content, and promote trans-affirming titles on the service. The released statement does not call for The Closer to be removed from Netflix.
