1,000 Netflix Employees Are Reportedly Planning Walkout to Protest New Chappelle Special
Staffers are threatening to revolt after executives doubled down
Following Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos’ continued defense of the anti-trans sentiments in comedian Dave Chappelle’s new special, The Closer , at least 1,000 incensed employees are now reportedly planning to participate in a virtual work stoppage on Oct. 20.
For nearly a week now, trans and trans-allied staffers have been voicing concerns over Chappelle’s ridicule of the LGBTQ community throughout the special, during which he self-identifies as a TERF (or “trans-exclusionary radical feminist”) and repeatedly dismisses the concept of a gender identity altogether. But in the wake of heated criticisms from both employees and customers, Netflix execs have made the bizarre decision to double down on their defense of the special, issuing a series of increasingly tone-deaf memos to staff.
In the most recent of these memos, a copy of which was obtained by Variety, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos dismisses the trans allies who had claimed that Chappelle’s comments had the potential to instigate real-life violence against the community,
On Thursday, The Hollywood Reporter spoke to one Netflix employee who confirmed that those comments had directly inspired the trans employee resource group at Netflix to organize support for the walkout, during which employees will halt their work and instead focus their energy on providing support and resources for the trans community and its affiliated charities.
“The memo was very disrespectful,” the staffer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said. “It didn’t invite a robust conversation about this hard topic, and that’s normally how things go.”
Their culture has always been interesting. They pay top of market for engineers in Silicon Valley. And I mean top.
But their culture has always been “We’ll fire you if don’t perform”.
Their mantra is “We’re not a family, we’re like a high performing sports team, if you’re not cutting the mustard, maybe it’s time to part ways”.
It works though. If you’re a top performer, it’s great to work with other top performers. We’ll see how things pan out regarding their existing culture and this new kerfuffle.
I could be wrong but I am pretty sure the 100 people who will walk out over this probably do very little real work and spend at least half their day making other workers miserable. They will probabpy be more productive without these people not having to walk on egg shells all day not to offend the outrage mob. It would also be a real shame if Hannah Gatsby didnt gift upon us another amazing comedic set on Netflix to make us laugh and take use away from our problems for an hour. It will be a huge loss.
