Cancel Your Netflix
But that was actually a fine note
Netflix is telling its writers to tell and not show. Gasp!!!!
You have probably seen this floating around the Internet, but just so we’re on the same page, here’s what happened. Will Tavlin published a very long and well-researched article in n+1 about what the hell is going on at Netflix and why it’s bad. Then, a little blog called World of Reel excerpted it highlighting that Netflix is telling its movie writers to make sure characters say exactly what’s happening so distracted viewers know what’s going on. I’m not going to link to World of Reel, because I think the blogger may be not so great. But. This went viral, and now I see a ton of people commenting about how terrible Netflix is.
The Tavlin article outlines several really important points about Netflix, namely that they’ve managed to divorce quality from their platform’s success. He calls Netflix “a pyramid scheme of attention.” He correctly identifies that Netflix has led the way in ruining the middle class of creative careers, and is currently doing its best to ruin movies. To my mind, the issue is that Netflix is a tech company with a stock, not an entertainment company with a product. All they have to do is keep subscribers, not necessarily make anything good. Tavlin gives a nuanced explanation of how Netflix has broken that age-old link.
What I don’t agree with is the unnuanced outrage at Netflix’s note to have your characters say exactly what's going on as reported by the World of Reel blog. I especially don’t have any problem with Netflix telling writers to make the first five minutes of their movies exciting, which that post also touts as a negative. You should definitely make the first five minutes of your movie exciting!
I possess a lot of anecdotal evidence from friends that Netflix doesn’t give many notes. Even in the Tavlin article, he mentions that projects often get greenlit without anyone looking at the script. Part of the whole systemic problem is that Netflix needs to give more notes, not fewer.
It’s funny, because as a writer I feel that I should always be at war with “studio notes.” I should be ecstatic that I could potentially make a tv show and get zero feedback on it from Netflix. But…notes are good. Creators should not have unrestrained access to do whatever they want! Left to my own devices, I become a bloviating nightmare! Can you imagine how much better this newsletter would be if I had an editor? My god!
I’m not some suck up who loves “studio” notes. On a series I wrote for an Amazon company, we got round after round of excruciatingly frustrating notes from a green executive. In the first round we got back, they asked us if we had heard of this great book Save the Cat. It somehow became our job to teach this exec story structure. So I get it. Netflix telling a professional writer to just have the characters announce what they’re doing is cringe. And yet. A seasoned writer knows what to do with terrible notes. Our show got better with every round of notes. Not because of the executive’s feedback. But because we kept working on the scripts. Because good screenwriters understand the note behind the note.
If I got a note to tell not show on a silly Christmas movie, it would make me think about what the purpose of the movie I was writing was, and how I could make it better for the audience given that purpose. How can I make this simpler and more fun? More Christmassy? When shows like Friends and Frasier first aired, there was an attitude of high and low art that’s evaporated now. Those kinds of shows were looked down on as entertainment for the masses given to us by money grubbing tv studios, but now those old sitcoms are considered excellent art. I think now we can’t deny that studio notes were probably…often helpful? For the best that they existed? Maybe this is a Trump making Bush look better situation, but I don’t think so.
As for the specific note of “make your characters say the exposition.” I have to admit…I’ve given this note so, so many times. It’s the number one thing I used to tell sketch students. “Just have your characters say the exposition so you can get to the funny thing.” Often in sitcoms and always in sketch, you want to knock out the “need to know” info as quickly as possible so you can get to the funny. The funny is the point of comedy, not the elegant reveal of information. You don’t do this in a prestige drama. They obviously didn’t give this note on Roma. It’s not actually that weird of a note. They’re making dumb holiday movies to write Christmas cards to, which is exactly how I watched them. Say the exposition and let Lindsay Lohan kiss the shit out of that guy.
The only productive thing left for us to do is to find a way to demand quality as viewers. I may like putting on a dumb movie I’m not watching while I write Christmas cards, but it’s actively hurting my industry. This is why it’s worth flagging that the “tell don’t show” note may not be as egregious on its own as it was made out to be. We’re attacking things that are meant to be low brow when that’s not what the fight is really about. Dumb notes are fine. A tale as old as time. The real fight is that subscription services ultimately destroy the livelihood of artists, and I’d encourage you to read the article and also cancel your Netflix subscription right now, like I did this morning. Their stock won’t do well if we all leave. We have financial power here in the form of $22.99 a month. Help a writer out, get angry, demand better quality (aka notes, many rounds of them! that the writer gets paid for!) and…show don’t tell Netflix we don’t like what they’re doing to artists.