Re: Netflix Exec Weighs In On "Emilia Pérez"Tweet Scandal: "Such A Bummer"

On Feb 17, 2025 at 1:30:43 AM PST, "Ubiquitous" <weberm@polaris.net> wrote:

Netflix has broken its silence on the controversy over EMILIA PÉREZ, the
streaming giant's musical drama, which earned 13 Academy Award nominations.
 
While the film has been heaped in praise for months, things took a turn
recently when old social media posts from trans-identifying actor Karla Sofía
 
Gascón, who plays the main character, resurfaced and went viral. The posts
put forth controversial takes on hot topics, including George Floyd, Muslims,
 
and diversity at the Oscars.
 
Now Gascón has become persona non grata, with many in the film industry,
including EMILIA PÉREZ director Jacques Audiard, disavowing him.
 
Netflix's Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria gave her take on the situation
during an interview on THE TOWN podcast, echoing what many others have been
saying and placing blame firmly on the film's star rather than defending his
actions.
 
"I think it's really a bummer for the 100 incredibly talented people who made
 
an amazing movie," Bajaria said, per Variety. "And if you look at the
nominations, and all of this awards love that it's received, I think it's
such a bummer that it distracted from that."
 
She continued, "It really has kind of taken the conversation in a different
way [from] this incredible movie that Jacques Audiard-- who is an incredible
director-- has made. It really is a bummer for a lot of the people, like
[co-stars] Zoe [Saldaña] and Selena [Gomez]. And our awards team did an
incredible campaign for that movie."

This high-level executive of one of America's premiere corporations uses the
word 'bummer' in a professional media interview to address a corporate crisis
three different times in the space of two paragraphs. I think I'm beginning to
see the problem over at Netflix.

The Netflix exec responded to a question about potentially vetting a star's
social media accounts by saying, "It's not really common practice for people
to vet social tweets that way. A lot of people are reevaluating that. I do
think it is raising questions for a lot of people about reevaluating that
process."

So basically "We're going to start screening people for wrong think before
hiring them and blacklisting those who have opinion that stray from the
leftist orthodoxy."

Bajaria added, "I think you also have to [ask]: Are we going to actually look
 
at the personal social media of tens of thousands of people, every single day
 
around the world, [given the] amount of original film and TV and co-prods
that we make and license? It raises a lot of questions about what that should
 
look like."

So it's just a matter of scale, not ethics or morality or basic fairness.
"We'd totally do it if it wasn't just so much work."