In case you haven’t noticed, Netflix has been making many original shows and series about real-life or historic events. From crime dramas to documentaries, Netflix is getting into the narrative business.
And that’s the troubling part. Netflix has become so ubiquitous and such a go-to for media viewing, that anything they produce instantly has a certain trustworthiness attached to it.
Many people now believe that a Netflix produced show about a historic event is the definitive true story of that event. Part of that belief comes from the popular nature of Netflix as a service. Another part is people see Netflix as sort of “rebellious” and a disruptor. So therefore the thinking goes that if they produce something about a historic event where the facts are presented differently than people previously thought, people assume they are finally hearing the “real story”.
All of this isn’t lost on Netflix either. They understand they have this power now in modern culture and they plan on using it. In fact, their recent programming suggests they already are.
It’s also why former political players are suddenly climbing into bed with Netflix. For example, Susan Rice the former National Security Advisor under President Obama was named to Netflix’s board of directors. A very strange move considering Netflix is a media company, so it’s not clear why they would want someone with national defense experience on their board.
Then of course we have Susan Rices’s former boss, Barack and Michelle Obama signing a multi-million dollar production deal with Netflix to produce shows and content. Keep in mind, Barack Obama has publicly stated he wants to remain very engaged in “activism” after leaving the White House.
These people as well as those running Netflix understand the power they are building to re-write history and create whatever narrative they want for historic and current events.
Netflix is now filled with these borderline propaganda pieces masquerading as content. For example, the extreme left-leaning news site Vox has a series on Netflix called “Explained”. A series where they purport to objectively explain a variety of issues from cultural to scientific.
Next we have the new series “When They See Us” which is a retelling of the so-called Central Park 5 story from the 1980’s where 5 black teenagers were ultimately falsely accused of a brutal rape. The main reason to bring up the case and the old wounds of this incident is most likely because it has a tie to Donald Trump who was a very prominent figure in New York at the time. So the show is basically an attack vector to go after Trump as well as to stir up more racial division using an old case. Important to note, NBC aired a similar 2 hour special covering the case just before the Netflix episode aired, which seems like a strange coincidence that two networks would release shows about the same incident from decades ago within a week of each other.
Netflix has wanted to get into the political and cultural game for a few years now. But their earlier attempts were too overtly political and left-leaning. Shows hosted by comedians Sarah Silverman, Michelle Wolf, and Chelsea Handler were all canceled and all ended up having very strong political overtones which turned viewers away.
So it seems Netflix has now realized a more subtle approach is needed to push their ideology and beliefs on their viewers. And this technique is becoming more common among propaganda sources such as Vice News. They build an image of being rebellious so when they tell stories to steer the narrative, naive consumers assume they must be finally hearing the “real story”.
SHARE