Protesters Give Netflix a List of Demands to do Better for Trans Staff

In their initial protest against Netflix and Dave Chapelle’s comedy special, The Closer, trans employees demanded to have the special removed. As part of their walkout, the protestors have come back with an exhaustive list of reparations.

The walkout was held on October 20 at Netflix’s Vine Street offices, attended by over a hundred protestors and allies.

The list includes measures from taking down any Dave Chapelle imagery/references in the workplace to investment of trans talent both on-screen and off. This is to highlight the fact that there are currently no trans content executives in leading positions at the streamer.

About the special itself, the primary demands were to have the offensive parts removed. Now, in addition to that, the protestors want The Closer to have disclaimers of “transphobic language, misogyny, homophobia, and hate speech.”

This is followed by asking Netflix to commit to reviewing content more diligently to ensure it does not harm marginalized communities.

Furthermore, there is a demand to acknowledge that the special causes harm to the trans community, and Netflix’s onus about the same to deal better with transphobia. This is a dig at Netflix’s CEO, Ted Sarandos, whose first response wasn’t to empathize with the trans employees.

He later amended his statement to the press:

I feel I should’ve made sure to recognize that a group of our employees was hurting very badly from the decision made, and I should’ve recognized upfront before going into a rationalization of anything the pain they were going through.

Ted Sarandos

However, he is still fixed in his stance of supporting Chappelle’s special, alluding to it as Netflix’s commitment to creative freedom.

Another demand states giving trans employees and allies the ability to remove themselves from Netflix’s promotional videos, especially those used to showcase the streamer’s commitment to allyship, as it is nothing but tokenism.

It goes hand in hand with the fact that while Netflix released a public statement on how they support their employees’ right to protest, behind the scenes, staff participating were warned that in no way can they knowingly talk about the same to the press, as they can be held accountable for it.

It is left to see how Netflix will respond to the demands and the whole movement itself.

Source: Deadline