Comedian Hannah Gadsby has shut down co-CEO of Netflix, Ted Sarandos, for mentioning her amidst the streamer’s anti-LGBTQ+ backlash.
Over the last two weeks, Netflix and Dave Chapelle have been under fire for the latter’s transphobic comedy special.
In The Closer, Chappelle declared himself a “TERF” after defending Harry Potter author JK Rowling’s transphobic comments.
“They cancelled J.K. Rowling — my god. [Effectively] she said gender was a fact, the trans community got mad as shit, they started calling her a TERF,” Chappelle said.
After making “jokes” about the bodies of trans women, he went on to say: “Gender is a fact. Every human being in this room, every human being on earth, had to pass through the legs of a woman to be on earth. That is a fact.”
In an internal memo obtained by Variety, Sarandos mentioned Gadsby comedy special while defending Chappelle’s comments.
“We are working hard to ensure marginalised communities aren’t defined by a single-story,” he wrote.
“So we have Sex Education, Orange is the New Black, Control Z, Hannah Gadsby and Dave Chappelle all on Netflix. Key to this is increasing diversity on the content team itself.”
Shortly after the memo was released, Gadsby took to Instagram to shut down Sarandos in a lengthy post.
“Hey Ted Sarandos! Just a quick note to let you know that I would prefer if you didn’t drag my name into your mess,” she wrote.
View this post on Instagram
Gadsby continued: “Now I have to deal with even more of the hate and anger that Dave Chappelle’s fans like to unleash on me every time Dave gets 20 million dollars to process his emotionally stunted partial word view.
“You didn’t pay me nearly enough to deal with the real world consequences of the hate speech dog whistling you refuse to acknowledge, Ted. F**k you and your amoral algorithm cult.
“I do shits with more backbone than you. That’s just a joke! I definitely didn’t cross a line because you just told the world there isn’t one.”
Gadsby’s post was soon met with praise from some of her industry peers like Ruby Rose and Amy Landecker.
“Hannah. You are incredibly special. Never change a damn f**king thing and thank god for you,” Rose wrote.
Landecker commented: “Brilliant, as usual.”
Gadsby isn’t the only Netflix star to speak out against the streamer and Chappelle.
On Monday (11 October), Queer Eye talent Jonathan Van Ness tweeted: “The violence and harm perpetrated against Trans, NB & Intersex folks is relentless and people pay with their lives, their livelihoods, and we’re sick of it.”
They continued: ”It breaks my heart that such important people and platforms continue to ignore that.”
Dear White People showrunner Jaclyn Moore also released a statement and revealed that she would be distancing herself from Netflix.
“After the Chappelle special, I can’t do this anymore. I won’t work for Netflix again as long as they keep promoting and profiting from dangerous transphobic content,” she wrote.
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