Netflix CEO says he ‘screwed up’ over Dave Chappelle memos
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos has said that he “screwed up” over a series of memos sent to staff defending Dave Chappelle’s latest comedy special, but that his stance on the performer’s material “hasn’t changed” .
Sarandos’s comments follow much criticism of Chappelle’s Netflix special The Closer, deemed by many to be homophobic and transphobic. In keeping with much of the comic’s recent output, the one-off features jokes on the genitalia of transgender people, pronouns and the rapper DaBaby – who made controversial comments on HIV/ Aids earlier in the year – among other subject matter.
Following its release on 5 October, Terra Field – a software engineer at Netflix – spoke out against the company in a viral Twitter thread, describing Chappelle’s comedy as symptomatic of “a culture that marginalises and devalues trans people”.
Field was was one of three employees suspended by the company for subsequently attempting to attend an executive meeting. She has since been reinstated. On 16 October, it was reported that the company had fired a trans employee for leaking “commercially sensitive” documents in the wake of the controversy around the special.
Sarandos’s memos only served to heighten tensions both within and outside the company. In an all-staff email obtained by Variety sent on 11 October, the Netflix boss acknowledged that some employees were “angry, disappointed and hurt” by the special, but defended creators’ right to “artistic freedom”.
“With The Closer we understand that the concern is not about offensive-to-some content, but titles which could increase real world harm … While some employees disagree, we have a strong belief that content on screen doesn’t directly translate to real-world harm,” he said.
In a previous memo on Chappelle, Sarandos had said that some people “find [stand-up] to be mean-spirited but our members enjoy it, and it’s an important part of our content offering”.
Ahead of a company walkout planned for today (20 October), Sarandos has now told The Hollywood Reporter that he handled the situation poorly, but that he remains supportive
of Chappelle’s work. He said that his emails “lacked humanity”, and did not acknowledge that “a group of our employees were in pain”, but said that his stance “hadn’t changed”.
“[The challenge that Netflix has] to entertain the world [and] part of that challenge means that you’ve got audiences with various taste, various sensibilities, various beliefs,” said Sarandos. “You really can’t please everybody or the content would be pretty dull. And we do tell our employees upfront that we are trying to entertain our members, and that some of the content on Netflix you’re not going to like … this kind of commitment to artistic expression and free artistic expression is sometimes in conflict with people feeling protected and safe.”
He described The Closer as “consistent with Dave Chappelle’s comedy brand”, and said that he did not think that adding a content warning – as per his employees’ wishes – was necessary.
Sarandos also underscored the “allyship that the company has towards the LGBTQ+ community, including massive investment in content and creators and storytellers”. Despite this, many are likely to remain dissatisfied with the situation. The lesbian comic Hannah Gadsby, who has made two specials for the streamer and was namechecked in Sarandos’s 11 October memo, condemned the company on Instagram on 15 October, describing it as an “amoral algorithm cult” and asking Sarandos “[not to] drag my name into your mess”.
Meanwhile, producer Jaclyn Moore, showrunner of the Netflix series Dear White People, has also announced that she will no longer work with the company. The producer, who is transgender, told the Hollywood Reporter that Chappelle’s content was “the same rhetoric that inspires people to [inflict] violence on trans people, which is itself an epidemic”.