The N-word thing is kinda weird, in so much as people are boycotting the service after Netflix fired the offending... offender. The hashtag seems to be being used by anti-racists, so I'm not sure what they're trying to accomplish there. It kind of seems like they're sending the opposite message of what's intended, unless they think the company should be taught a lesson for ever having someone on staff who regularly throws around N-bombs, despite the fact that they tried to do the right thing by firing him. But no one ever accused progressives of being intelligent in their strategies.
The Obama thing - fine. I'm sure Netflix crunched the numbers and figured out how many QAnon-following MAGA conservatives they'd lose versus how many dyed-in-the-wool Obama-4eva regressive lefties they'd gain and made their choice accordingly. From a business perspective, I can't really fault them for that one. Because of the willing delusion of his scores of fans, Obama 4eva = $$$.
In my recent article about 'The Magic Pill' documentary, I commended Netflix for sticking to their guns and not only not cancelling the documentary amid pressure from government health bodies, but renewing it for another year:
And Netflix is actually coming out looking pretty good in this (to me, at any rate) since they aren't budging on streaming the film despite the pressure. Sure, all they really care about is the fact that they're making serious bank from the controversy, but at least they haven't wimped out and hypocritically removed the film while featuring so many vegan propaganda pieces. I still haven't forgiven them for the whole Obama show thing, though.And this was basically my view on the company until recently. Netflix is obviously all about the money when it comes to the content they're providing. Progressivism and diversity are trending right now, so Netflix offers a whackload of titles that reflect that (Dear White People, Queer Eye, Glow, etc., etc., ad nauseam). It's not that the company itself is particularly progressive, one would assume, it's that progressivism is diverting the cash river straight into their coffers. I'm sure if the alt-right started taking up a significant share of the market we'd see a show dedicated to a lone white national protecting a confederate statue from being taken down by a mob of BLM activists. Starring Chuck Norris and Laura Prepon (conservative actors are hard to find in Hollywood).
I stopped watching Sense 8 when it became obvious that I was going to be treated to a graphic polysexual orgy scene in every episode, despite the fact that I enjoyed the story. I'm not a prude, but Jesus Christ, Wachowskis - is this really necessary? If you want to make porn, just make porn and don't weave it into an intriguing tale of a diverse group of psychically connected good guys trying to take down an evil shadow corporation. I'm a sucker for that stuff. But in the end, leaving that series didn't stop me from enjoying Mindhunter, Stranger Things or Black Mirror. You take what you like, leave the rest.
But when does capitalizing on the 'spirit of the age' become pushing propaganda? At what point do we stop excusing a company for 'sticking to the bottom line' while courting a little controversy? Where's the line?
The sexual exploitation of children seems like a pretty good line, to me. Right wing comedy news channel Revenge of the Cis has brought to their viewer's attention a rather disturbing film on offer on Netflix. The film is called Desire, an Argentinian film, titled Desearas in Spanish. Here's the movie poster:
Looks pretty good, eh? I wonder what it's about...
The film ignited controversy in 2018 when a Facebook user uploaded a video he took of the opening scene. https://www.facebook.com/zeke.gonzalez.77/posts/1988251714542483Incidentally, it seems this controversy is pretty fresh. The Facebook link was posted on June 24 and has 177,000 views. Also, the link to the film on Netflix is dead, although it still shows up on web searches, leading me to wonder if Netflix has taken action already since this seems to be getting some traction.
In the scene, two pre-pubescent girls wordlessly sit on pillows on the floor in front of a TV and pretend to ride the pillows like ponies. However, one of the girls stops and begins to watch the other girl ride, whose riding became faster and faster and breathing became more intense as her body moved up and down, strongly suggesting that this (again pre-pubescent) girl was masturbating/mimicking sex and coming to orgasm.
Revenge of the Cis estimate that the girls in the clip are around seven or eight years old. So the question has to be asked: Who is this scene supposed to be appealing to? Any properly functioning adult, if asked, is not going to be interested in watching children masturbate and will be quite offended by the proposition. Even those interested in a soft-core-porn-dressed-up-as-an-art-film, like Desire, are not going to be interested in a scene like this. While the scene doesn't depict actual pedophilia, it could only serve a pedophile's interests, sexualizing pre-pubescent girls. And who was working for the interests of the child actors who were forced to act out this scene? How exactly was it explained to them? Isn't this illegal?
But perhaps working a scene like this into a titillating film is a means of creating acceptance. This is just one in a list of recent things in the media seemingly serving the normalization of pedophilia. Just recently a TEDx Talk in Würzburg Germany featured med student Mirjam Heine speaking about her belief that pedophilia is a natural, unchangeable sexual orientation (the clip has been removed from Youtube, but there's still copies floating around). And recent changes in the law in France lowering the legal age of consent to 13, under the guise of 'protecting children' do nothing but attempt to increase the acceptance of pedophilia among the public. Back in 2013, the American Psychological Association listed pedophilia in their psychological bible, the DSM-V, as a 'sexual orientation' rather than a disorder (this was later retracted). The normalization of pedophilia seems to be creeping in, ever so slowly, on multiple fronts.
More recently, the Hollywood film Show Dogs courted controversy when parent's groups accused the film of containing a scene which normalized child grooming. The film's producers apologized and cut the scene. From Wikipedia:
The film was criticized for normalizing child grooming based on a plot point which depicts the canine main character being forced to have his genitals fondled by a dog show judge without consent. In the film, other characters "teach" him not to think about it and to go to his "zen place" when that happens. Initially, in a test screening for the film, online magazine Macaroni Kid's Terina Maldonado said "With the #MeToo movement and all the talk of sexual predators in Hollywood, I couldn't help but think this message, that is blatantly in the open for adults to see, but over a child's understanding, is meant to groom children to be open to having people touch their privates, even though they don't want it." Spurred on by this review, other professional reviewers agreed that the child grooming implications were "disturbing and serious".It's very interesting to note how many of these instances are later retracted, almost as if they're pushing the boundary, trying to nudge the Overton window ever closer towards a full scale acceptance of pedophilia in the public discourse.
Coming back to Netflix, what's odd is that when Kevin Spacey was recently accused of "unwanted sexual advances" against a 14-year-old boy back in the 80s, the reaction from Netflix was near-instant condemnation: cancellation of his series, cancellation of a future movie deal and a statement from the company cutting themselves off from Spacey. Yet this film, Desire, somehow got the go-ahead from Netflix. Even though Netflix barely escaped being associated with a pedophile in the past, they're going to go ahead and flirt with the taboo again by offering viewers the chance to watch children masturbate??! Then again, controversy equals ratings, dontchaknow.
It is possible that this is a simple misunderstanding and that somehow Desire flew under the radar without anyone at Netflix actually watching it. It's a stupid B-movie with a 9% user rating on Rotten Tomatoes, after all, and Netflix is constantly scooping up low quality content to pad out their available viewing material and sell subscriptions (as Revenge of the Cis say, you spend more time on Netflix in the menu screen, trying to find something worth your time, than actually watching content). But given how rabid Netflix is in pushing a very particular liberal SJW agenda through much of its programming (including their children's programming; take a look at this little gem), one has to wonder what's really going on here.
So while the #boycottnetflix hashtag hasn't yet been picked up for this dirty little secret, it probably will. Seems like a more worthy reason to boycott the company than partisan politics, Star Wars or show cancellations.
Reader Comments
Netflix also bypasses the old psychopath-infested Hollywood model of studio and theater distribution. (At the moment, anyway; Netflix is entirely capable of being infected by the forces of ponerology over time). But I thought it was marvelous to watch the entire film review universe melt down when Will Smith starred in the big-budget, straight-to-streaming Netflix exclusive, "Bright" last year.
That had never happened before; a top shelf movie star in a $60 million dollar film? -Which was able to side step the normal advertising expenses (normally half a film's budget according to the old model), skip the distribution costs and put every dollar on the screen. Hollywood and the critics, suddenly dropped from the entire equation like so much extraneous dead wood, decided that they HATED it, calling it the worst film of 2017. Viewers, however, rated it much more favorably. -It wasn't a great piece of cinema, but it was fun and interesting.
It's the reason I decided to sign up with a NetFlix subscription, actually. The possibility of indie content being produced with high budget production values and made accessible through a legal distribution system? That's an intriguing idea. New options! Cool.
If people pull their subscriptions over seeing too little they like and too much drek.., then that's fine. The capitalist model can accommodate, and can try to redirect its resources in order to retain customers. -Within the bounds of the law, of course.
Where it gets dangerous and muddy is where the socialist model gets involved.
Kevin Spacy being cut from films because of past criminal behavior and being sketchy? Hmmm. I'm not a Kevin Spacy fan, but his work is top notch for what it is. I might want to watch "The Usual Suspects" again. Am I not allowed to do that now?
On the one hand, it's fair that people in his profession might decide he's icky and not want to work with him. And that's fair. I make choices like that all the time. Whether or not a person is a sexual predator SHOULD be a consideration during the hiring process.
But cutting his work from Netflix?
Well.., why not? Netflix is a private business and they can make that call if they want. They can decide that they're from now on going to be the 24/7 cookie channel, all cookies, all the time. That's their business. I might stop subscribing to them. And that's my choice.
You can cancel if you don't like Sense 8 or Star Wars; that's a sustainable choice within the capitalist model. If, however, people are bullied into cancelling their subscriptions to Netflix because they fear social or workplace reprisal for not adopting toxic groupthink, then that's something different.
And similarly, if Netflix is bullied into cancelling or running material because of fear of fascist groupthink reprisals.., is that the same as serving the free market? Retarded socialists have wallets too. It seems tragic and destructive to me, a rocket ride to shite film forever, but I guess it's a fair response.
People only get to reap the benefits of capitalism if they decide to play along. If they all act like idiots, then it stops working. -Which in a way is the Ultimate Free Market expressing itself. The Universe allows you to kick over and set fire to all your cities if you want. But you'll have to live in a smoking ruin thereafter, suffering the consequences accordingly.
Netflix pulled the item, and when listing it in the first place, probably nobody actually watched the thing or looked any further than whatever press copy it was being distributed with. I honestly doubt that copy read, "Features child pornography".
If Netflix had actually commissioned and funded the production, then that would be a very different story. But it's just another bit of mindless stuffing acquired to throw into the bottomless bandwidth landfill. The content acquisition department is probably asleep at the switch half the time.
Now, the Overton Window activity wrt child abuse is no doubt actively being pushed, but I doubt it's a fully conscious activity and I doubt the pressure is even invented entirely by humans. Netflix is going to be as much a vector as any other media entity. The bigger and more pervasive, the more it will be a under pressure.
Not sure why anyone would waste their money on that service...if you must watch boring, unpopular and 'B' grade junk, you can subscribe to Amazon Prime, watch all the junk you can, PLUS get free shipping on stuff you done need. Winning...I think...
What next? The famous scene in Once Upon a Time in America where 12 year old Deborah strips in front of Noodles is perverse as well?? Ban passages from Nabokov's Lolita ?
News flash: sexual awakenings do happen in human nature. And it has been rendered in the arts ever since we dreamed up neolithic myths around the fire
It's a difficult one because in reality kids don't wait until they are the legal age in their country - they do what kids do & try things.
It's very easy for some old perv to make movies about this however so there has to be a line somewhere.
In the UK sex is legal at 16 so it kinda depends on where you live as to what is acceptable - for me under 16 is & has always been a no no. There will always be controversial subjects so I think context is key.
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