A day or two ago workers at Netflix walked off the job in protest of Netflix airing the Dave Chapelle show. It is a monologue, supposedly funny, which featured jokes about transgender persons. The strikers considered it transphobic, I cannot say as I didn't see it. Not because I don't consider Chapelle funny - which I don't - but because I don't subscribe to Netflix.
Netflix offered me three free months of their programming some time ago. I accepted their gracious offer and in the ensuing three months I could not find one single thing that I felt was worth my time to watch. At the end of the three months, I thanked them politely and cancelled the contract. They seemed genuinely surprised, I would guess most folks just forget to cancel and keep paying the $8.95 a month forever. And since these same folks never check their credit card statement except to find out what the minimum payment is, they don't realize it. It keeps the folks at Netflix happy and it also keeps their teen and pre-teen children happy.
But I digress. What was so egregious about the Chapelle monologue as to cause a boycott at Netflix, in my opinion, cannot hold a candle to the South Korean series Squid Games. It is without a doubt the biggest hit Netflix has had in years. From what I have read, the series is set in a futuristic society where there is a monumental divide between social classes - the haves and the have-nots. For entertainment purposes, the haves offer a life changing amount of money to the survivors of a children's game. The losers are dispatched in various horrific ways; the viler and more gruesome the better.
Their biggest audience, teenagers. Impressionable young adults who are becoming inured to these horrid acts. They discuss the torture at school and over social media. All this is done at a time when there is a trial of Nikolas Cruz happening. Cruz pleaded guilty to murdering seventeen students and injuring seventeen others on February 14, 2018 at Marjory Stoneman High School in Parkland Florida. Perhaps we should ask the survivors of the shooting spree on that awful day what their opinion of the Squid Games is.
I am not belittling the feelings of transgender or cisgender people, I believe the feelings of disrespect are justified. I am asking where is the moral indignation that should surround the Squid Games? Have we become so callous, so emotionally unfeeling, so insensitive that we can watch this depth of depravity and enjoy it with popcorn and a beer? I am glad I walked away from Netflix when I did and I wish more people would join me. Companies like Netflix respond more to the bottom line than to the picket line.
I'm just sayin'
