If you are up to date in the most recent controversies in mainstream media, you might have come across the trailer for a new Netflix show "Dear White People," planning to debut 10 episodes on April 28th. If not, take a quick look at the trailer below.
Now after viewing this, what is your initial reaction? To many, it was outrage. People quickly commented on the topic of this spinoff from the 2014 movie of the same name, saying that it is anti-white propaganda/racism, while others stated they were going to delete their Netflix account until this controversy was dealt with.
Although I had not previously seen the 2014 Justin Simien film, he stated his film as not being about white or black, but being about how you identify both yourself and others. Depictions of the identity crisis take place in the fictional, prestigious Winchester University, the college radio station lists what is and is not considered racist anymore (such as dating someone of color or going as someone black for Halloween). To see the difference, here's the trailer for the film below.
And it turns out, the film was highly well received. High enough that it got both 91% critic rating as well as 93% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
Yes, with the current state of the nation, there is going to be tons (and I mean tons) of commentary on where the United States is going and what people think is going to happen with the new president at the helm. Because we are not always able to tell if content like this new show is just showing up as clickbait (i.e. not as anti-white as the trailer seems but more like the movie), or if it is actually going to be political commentary, there might now be a lot of uncertainty in our online streaming services.
Free speech exists for a reason, and a lot of content like this does not entirely seem like it is aimed at a person or group in particular, but should we be worried if this is the first of many shows/films to cross from the political into the entertainment world?
I think, if interested, we should watch and see. I appreciate as much as the next film/TV lover when people take a chance on their projects - such as Donald Glover's show "Atlanta" as well as Jordan Peele's film "Get Out."However, if all this new content is going to have a strong political agenda, I worry about the creativity of separate film/TV content.
As long as it doesn't become completely one-sided in its dialogue, I think we're okay in where we stand with this type of content. Like the premiere episode of season 12 of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," when important issues are discussed in a surprisingly really intelligent way, it alters how we actually view these types of things.
So overall I don't think we should freak out just yet. When there were so much controversy and bias in multiple different media platforms both during and after the election, they experienced a lot of backlash as well. It is definitely not going to stop them from continuing to produce new content, and I don't think Netflix will stop either. This may be the start of a whole new wave of content.