Remember the controversy of the century from five months ago? Activists demanded all sorts of concessions from Netflix because they were offended by Dave Chappelle. Netflix didn’t back down. Deprived of oxygen, the story gasped, sputtered, wheezed and finally died.
Take a note, corporate America! You don’t have to bow down before to the wokeagentsia. It’s a completely workable strategy to just ignore the demands of lefty activists (you know, the way you ignore the demands of conservative activists). Stick to your principles and, wonder of wonders, you might just find yourself winning.
Last October, activist hysterics falsely labeled Chappelle a hate monger and a transphobe because he made some jokes they didn’t like about transgender people in his special “The Closer.” They demanded a disclaimer be attached to the special alerting viewers that it contains “transphobic language, misogyny, homophobia, and hate speech,” they demanded lots of new jobs for their pals, and they even demanded that imagery of Chappelle be removed from Netflix offices. At a small walkout that was covered by the media as though it were the Selma to Montgomery March, shrill activists absurdly tried to implicate Chappelle in “gender violence,” because to these people, words are violence but violence is merely speech.
Apart from a bit of press-release groveling — a big mistake on the part of Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, who shouldn’t have indulged these babies — the activists got zilch. The special remains up, without a trigger warning. Far from ditching Chappelle, Netflix is re-upping with the standup, who has agreed to produce and host four new specials highlighting other comics whose work Chappelle likes.
And the activists? They just sort of….shut up and went back to work after their meaningless little break. Maybe some of them quit the company. From Netflix’s point of view, who cares? Chappelle is a huge draw to the service. Retaining him matters a lot more than whether a handful of self-righteous fringe characters are happy.
Netflix’s refusal to make any substantive policy concessions should be a model to every company that is getting bombarded with demands from the people who came of age on woke college campuses where it’s the norm to boycott, block or shout over people you disagree with. As anyone who has ever been the cause of a social-media tornado can attest (been there, enraged that), these things always blow over after a few days. Log off, listen to some music, cook a few nice meals, and by the time you check back in, the mob will be bellowing about something else.
After Georgia passed a heartbeat bill restricting abortions, there was much chatter about Hollywood boycotting the state — but since the movie studios long ago moved a big chunk of their production to the Peach State, that much-talked about boycott didn’t happen, except on a microscopic scale. Activists are currently up in arms about a Florida law that bars teachers from teaching sex to third graders because the bill is supposedly “anti-gay,” and they’re training fire on Disney for supposedly not doing enough to stop the legislation. Disney CEO Bob Chapek begged for forgiveness from the activists, but he should have just said, “We don’t make the laws of Florida.”
What is Disney supposed to do to satisfy the mob? Move Disney World to one of the dwindling number of non-problematic states? There are only 22 left, according to San Francisco, which is boycotting all of the others for various woke infringements and is now having to rethink its procurement process for routine goods and services. Among the states San Francisco won’t do business with are New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Nevada.
Moreover, Disney didn’t count on conservative employees speaking out to support the popular education bill (which enjoyed majority support in a recent poll). An open letter to the company leadership this week noted that these employees didn’t like “being condemned as villains” and called for the company to revert to being politically neutral. Anytime Disney chooses a side, someone’s going to get angry, so why not stay out of political beefs entirely?
Chapek and the rest of the CEOs who cower and cringe every time someone with more than 12 Twitter followers launches a hashtag war need to rethink their strategy of begging forgiveness. Instead they should point out that different states have different policies and that being a grownup acknowledges you may work with or near people you don’t agree with on everything. It’s a big, diverse country, so try to learn some tolerance. You know, that thing you always claim other people lack?
Kyle Smith is critic-at-large for National Review.
