"[It's] going to be embarrassing that Netflix released this thing."
As Dave Chapelle's special, "The Closer," is criticized for transphobia, Netflix fired trans employee B. Pagels-Minor. They spoke to Brut about what happened...
As Dave Chapelle's special, "The Closer," is criticized for transphobia, Netflix fired trans employee B. Pagels-Minor. They spoke to Brut about what happened...
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TVTranscript
00:00Trans lives matter!
00:03Netflix has the possibility of being the media company that changes how media represents trans people.
00:10Trans people have opened up the door for more transphobic violence!
00:31Comparing Blackface to trans women is not a congruent joke or comparison.
00:36Trans women are not dressing as women to make fun of women. Trans women are women!
00:51If anything, we were like, leave it up, because in a few years, this is going to be embarrassing.
00:58That Netflix released this thing.
01:00Sometimes the funniest thing to say is men.
01:03I would love to laugh with Dave Chappelle again. He said he was not going to do any more LGBTQ comment until he was sure we were laughing at the same thing.
01:12There's only one way to make that happen, and that's by educating himself and becoming someone who really understands this nuance.
01:20Black people can be trans. Trans people can be Black.
01:24If nothing else comes out of this conversation, I need people to understand that you can be both.
01:33Trans people and non-binary people aren't getting visibility or respect in the entertainment industry to begin with.
01:46And to have something like Dave Chappelle's special not be noted that it's promoting discrimination and hate conversation is very hurtful to the activism and the cause that we're trying to progress ourselves in the industry.
01:59We have impacted every single aspect of the world, and specifically America, from music to art to literature to science to sports.
02:18You know, it started off from a place of super, let's work together, let's educate people, let's figure out what the heck happened and make sure this never happens again.
02:33And then it turned into full blown, I am angry. I am very, very angry.
02:39And when I say I am, I mean like Netflix employees.
02:48I think Ted misunderstood what the issue was.
03:05The emails were dismissive. In some ways, they were kind of disrespectful.
03:09And then we started bringing up the fact that violence on TV does not impact people in real life.
03:15I was just like, why do we have PG-13 then? Why do we have PG?
03:20If we didn't think violence impacted people, anyone could watch anything at any age.
03:26And we know that that's not true.
03:40So ultimately, Netflix's position is that at the very least, I took actions by gathering together a great deal of internal information and starting a memo.
03:59And also sharing that information with various internal colleagues that led to the leaking of information that they considered to be confidential and sensitive.
04:09And so I couldn't be an employee there anymore because of the leaking of information.
04:17But did you leak that information?
04:19No, I did not leak that information.
04:22And I fundamentally believe and I hope that the company that I signed up for in 2020, right before COVID started,
04:31that gave me hope and made me feel like maybe it could be a safe place for me can actually be a safe place from a content perspective and also from an employee perspective.
04:52There are people who exist in this world who've had so much damage done to them that they are not whole.
05:01They are half people who struggle every day to just wake up.
05:07And so if you're creating content that tells some people who are not already whole that they are less than, they do not matter, you are still harming them.
05:20And you're taking away from society someone who could be great.
05:25And that's not acceptable either.