Protesters clash as Netflix Dave Chappelle furore blows up

A employee walkout protest has been met with opposing forces, leading to tense scenes as the fallout from Netflix’s Dave Chappelle controversy escalates.

Protesters and counter-protesters clashed outside Netflix’s LA offices. (Photo by Frederic J. BROWN / AFP)

In tense scenes, protesters and counter-protesters clashed outside Netflix’s Los Angeles offices as the streaming company deals with the fallout over its controversial Dave Chappelle comedy special.

Among the protesters are Netflix employees who have walked off the job for the day, and external allies, who faced off against Chappelle’s supporters.

Variety reported that “at times, the situation threatened to devolve” as counter-protesters pushed up against trans speakers while a Chappelle fan’s sign was torn out of his hand.

Netflix has been embroiled in controversy since the release of Chappelle’s most recent special, The Closer, which featured what many considered to be offensive “jokes” about trans and LGBTQI communities.

Chappelle also allied himself with author J.K. Rowling, who has termed herself as a “TERF” (trans-exclusionary radical feminist) and has made anti-trans comments multiple times.

Counter-protesters clashed with pro-trans protesters outside Netflix’s LA headquarters. (Photo by Frederic J. BROWN / AFP)

According to the Los Angeles Times, the protesters held up signs which read, “support, uplift protect trans voices” and “Gender is not a fact, educate yourself” while rallying cries of “What do we want? Accountability! When do we want it? Now!” were heard.

The LA Times reported the cries drowned out chants from the counter-protesters who came with signs which said “jokes are funny” while others brandished anti-trans messages.

Among the speakers was Joey Solloway, who created the series Transparent. Soloway said to the crowd Chappelle’s comments crossed a line.

“Trans people are in the middle of a holocaust,” Soloway said. “Apartheid, murder, a state of emergency, human rights crisis, there’s a mental health crisis. There’s a suicide crisis, a bullying crisis, an anxiety, depression, self-hatred state of emergency crisis.

“But trans people are also out here dreaming. Dreaming of safety, dreaming to be alive, to be human, to belong and to have some time, which is privilege.

“The line is simple, stop making things worse.”

Dave Chappelle is at the centre of a storm due to comments he made during his latest comedy special. (Photo by Eamonn M. McCormack/Getty Images)

Since The Closer was released in early October, Netflix executives have been met with furious opposition from within and externally. Its own employees, including software engineer and trans woman Terra Field has publicly criticised the company for giving Chappelle a platform.

TV writer Jaclyn Moore, who was showrunner for Netflix series Dear White People, vowed to not work with the company again while Australian comedian Hannah Gadsby, whose two specials are on Netflix, called out co-chief executive Ted Sarandos after he invoked her name in an internal memo defending the company’s actions.

Among what Gadsby posted to social media, “You didn’t pay me nearly enough to deal with the real-world consequences of the hate speech dog whistling you refuse to acknowledge. F**k you and your amoral algorithmic cult.”

On the eve of the protest, Sarandos tried to ameliorate the publicity and HR crisis, which, arguably, he has fuelled with several internal memos that escalated the situation.

He told The Hollywood Reporter that he had “screwed up” in how he communicated to staff, but he still stood by Chappelle’s work.

“No, my stance hasn’t changed,” Sarandos said. “I can tell you I screwed up those communications in two ways. One of them was, I should have first and foremost acknowledged in those emails that a group of employees were in pain, and they were really feeling hurt from a business decision we made.

“And I, instead of acknowledging that first, I went right into some rationales. And so, first of all, I’d say those emails lacked humanity, in which I like to and I do generally communicate with our teams.”

Ted Sarandos has stood by Dave Chappelle's special. (Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images)

The Hollywood Reporter challenged Sarandos on a point he’d made in the leaked internal memos, in which he argued that “content” did not directly relate to real-world harm.

Sarandos now appears to be backtracking on that claim.

“I 100 per cent believe that content on-screen can have impact in the real world, positive and negative.”

Sarandos went on to argue, “When we think about this challenge, we have to entertain the world, part of that challenge means that you’ve got audiences with various taste, various sensibilities, various beliefs.

“You really can’t please everybody, or the content would be pretty dull. And we do tell our employees upfront that we are trying to entertain our members, and that some of the content on Netflix you’re not going to like, and so this kind of commitment to artistic expression and free expression is sometimes in conflict with people feeling protected and safe.

“I do think that’s something that we struggle with all the time when these two values bump up against each other.”

Sarandos interview did not stop his employees from protesting today.

Figures leaked last week to Bloomberg showed that Netflix paid Chappelle $US24.1 million for The Closer and $US23.6 million for a previous special, Sticks & Stones.

For comparison’s sake, Netflix paid $US21.4 million for Squid Game, the South Korean drama series which has been watched by 142 million households, and $US3.9 million for triple-Emmy winning comedy special, Bo Burnham’s Inside.