Dear White People, a brand new Netflix Original series due to arrive onto the service in April has been hit with a massive boycott and backlash after it released the first teaser trailer last week. It’s the first real-time Netflix has had a backlash like this and has led to hundreds, if not thousands of people canceling their subscriptions. We’re going to take a bit of a deeper look at the show.
The 35-second teaser trailer, which at the time of writing stands at 44,000 likes to 359,000 dislikes is one of Netflix’s most disliked videos of all time.
With tensions high at the moment thanks to a heated 2016 election in the USA, it’s fair to say things like this are going to instantly cause controversy but is it completely justified? Let’s take a deeper look.
Let’s start off by saying that this is an awful utter shit trailer thats only intention, did seem to be to causing controversy. The marketing team have either achieved their goal with flying colors or failed miserably depending on what it was they wanted here. That depends on your stance, but the news has been dominated by mostly negative headlines in past days and remains in the top trending videos on YouTube. As a trailer, it did nothing to tell you about the actual plot of the series only that the radio host wanted to say some perceived controversial things and not much else other than a release date.
If you do a bit more research into the series, you’ll instantly find out that the series is based on a movie that came out of the same name. That movie trailer when it first launched also received similar negative attention for the same reasons as the Netflix show.
Once the film released, however, the actual story is the exact opposite of what the trailer depicted. It does shine a light on stereotypes, but it does go in both directions. It’s conclusion, and buildup to said conclusion takes a completely different life with it actually being a genuinely funny and thought provoking movie.
Youtuber Philip Defranco did a great comparison of the two shows and analysis as to whether or not the show is racist propaganda or a huge marketing fail.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gt_tUnf6T2E
As for my opinion, I just found the trailer to be utter garbage and was nothing but a short, out of context, look at a series that if it’s anything like the film is more of an educational satire than a hate filled show that the trailer suggests. It’s a particularly bad trailer, and that’s the cause of most of the controversy if more people did the research they’d probably come to the conclusion as I do below.
Ultimately, I’m holding judgment on this series right now. The show itself promises to take it a different direction and in my opinion, canceling your account over a trailer is a bit premature.
Over to you guys, what do you think about the trailer? Are you one of the people who canceled their Netflix subscriptions? Let us know in the comments below.
