Too weird for Netflix?
It might come as a surprise to some, but there was a time when Blockbuster was actually viewed as a force for good: you had your choice of literally hundreds of VHS tapes to rent, and if you had to plunk down some outrageous late fees, well, you probably should’ve gotten that tape back by noon instead of 12:30. That era is long-since gone, of course, with Netflix quickly establishing its position as both the king of American DVD renting and the host of an amazingly diverse library of little-known films, both foreign and domestic. You can find almost anything on Netflix, but it's a selection which you pay for with a small wait before it arrives at your doorstep.
Almost anything, mind you. There was a bit of news today that startled me: Drag City, the distributor that puts out Harmony Korine’s films, announced that Netflix has apparently declined to purchase any copies of Trash Humpers, Korine’s latest magnum opus of weirdity, for rental to customers. The only info I’m finding on all of this is from filmmakermagazine.com, which is reprinting a portion of a press release from Drag City, which says:
America’s video rental service of choice has all the previous Korine films – Mister Lonely , julien donkey-boy and Gummo. They offer the film he wrote the script for, Kids . They’re also making available the following films: Antichrist, Irreversible, Emmanuel in America, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer and all the Jackass films. What do all these films have in common? They all feature more full-frontal nudity, on-screen sex, violence, rape and/or murder than is featured in Trash Humpers. Some of them are in as “poor taste” as Trash Humpers. Or at least they wish they were! Yet Netflix has deemed the content of Trash Humpers to be too inappropriate for their subscribers to make it available to them.
That’s...kind of disturbing, honestly. I don’t really care about Trash Humpers, or Harmony Korine, really, but I also value Netflix as an outlet for basically-any-dvd-I-care-to-rent. Obviously it’s entitled to stock, or not stock, whatever it likes, and certainly has always shied away from pornography, but still--there are an awful lot of films that I don’t find to have any particular artistic merit that Netflix still carries. Refusing to stock Trash Humpers out of concerns over content would seem to be a black mark against the service--I can’t really imagine any situation in which simply stocking the film would result in someone unwittingly renting it, getting it in the mail, popping it in their DVD player, and somehow being scarred for life due to the experience.
The convenience of Netflix is amazing, to be sure, but that convenience takes second stage to the service’s unprecedented selection in my mind. It’s hard to imagine another time in history that the movie-going public has had such an array of titles easily available to them. We’re barely 40 years past the invention of the VCR, before which you’d have been hard pressed to watch Citizen Kane when you wanted to, and now we’re able to have Vampires Suck delivered to our homes the day after we desire it to be done. It’s an amazing thing, but should Netflix decide to play arbiter as to what is suitable for its audience to watch, then it risks losing a lot of goodwill, especially from the small-but-vocal minority of its subscribers who do actually wish to view avant-garde, potentially-offensive-to-the-majority films. I mean, I can add 2005’s Chaos to my queue, one of the most nauseating movies I’ve ever seen; I have a hard time imagining that Trash Humpers is any worse than that.
There are, of course, alternatives to Netflix: Redbox has been expanding fairly rapidly over the last year, and there are a number of other kiosk companies that are trying to muscle in as well. In terms of rent-by-mail, Blockbuster has launched their own service, and there are also competitors like Greencine, which has been around for a while and offers a fairly strong collection of foreign and obscure cinema alongside mainstream releases. Still, Netflix reportedly had an absurd 97% market share for rent-by-mail before Blockbuster entered the field, and it's unlikely that anything will rival it in that space anytime soon; its aggressive forays into the world of streaming are also positioning it as the third-party market leader there.
This may yet be a mere misunderstanding, and I suspect that Drag City may simply be manufacturing controversy here. The @netflixhelps account on Twitter responded to a user question by linking to an IMDB page which indicated that there isn’t a DVD release for Trash Humpers, but if you search for the film on Amazon, you can get a copy shipped to you in a week, so this might merely be a hiccup in their data. (I'm sure their twitter accounts would have more responses to this if their website hadn't been down all day.) It’s easy to get into a the-sky-is-falling mentality when dealing with news like this, so I’ll try to keep an eye on Netflix’ response and see if they reverse course, or if their course was misrepresented in the first place.
What do you think? If Netflix started to selectively eliminate, or opt not to offer for rental, movies of a slightly risque nature, do you think they'd continue to get your business? Or are you effectively locked in by the power of their streaming arrangements?
Blockbuster was never a focre for good, there forced edits was always a bone of contention.
Personally, I'm not all that fussed about it since it's not a film that I'm all that interested in but if I became interested in it, I still have a way to see it. Granted, in that case it would be really nice to have a rental alternative instead of having to purchase it. If Netflix started to make this policy, that would only open up a niche market for another service, just like the mom-and-pop video stores survived for a while by renting porn after Blockbuster came in.
WHOW! Blockbuster ''edited'' their movies? So what, R rated movies had censor bars on the naughty bits?
XD
If you arent blessed with the glory that is scarecrow video (the best video rental shop ever) then green cine is a good choice.
Just the ropes of being into obscure movies. It's better than it ever was, but it'll never be perfect.
That shit is hardcore...which you wouldn't expect from one of those crappy Emmanuelle movies.
Man, if you're got this little to say, why not just not bother typing anything? Rorie probably cares because he wrote this entire article about it. I care, because if this service (which is gaining a natural monopoly on home movie distribution in the US) starts censoring their content, it will increasingly narrow the field of what is available to the masses. Which I see as a bad thing.
About this specific instance though, it seems like a non-issue. There are countless "independent" movies that still aren't available through Netflix, and I don't expect them to change that. But the blockbuster comparison is actually far from apt, because they were a company that ACTIVELY censored their content. It seems to me that Netflix bases it's content on demand, and I'd venture to guess that the demand for Trash Humpers isn't at all what it was for Gummo or Julien Donkey-boy.
Netflix is a "main stream" service and anything like that will always lack some niche content. That's the nature of these huge businesses.
So if they're missing something, it's probably something indie that could use it's own money anyway, so just helm 'em out and buy the DVD.
To the people saying "I didn't want to see it, who cares?" you're idiots. If it is indeed them not stocking it for taste reasons and we let them get away with that, what's going to stop them from stocking a movie you do want to see? Or something that has legitimate value as art or education(not saying Trash Humpers doesn't, I haven't seen it) but is graphic?
I can't help but be reminded of "A Film Unfinished" the Holocaust documentary that the MPAA rated R due to disturbing images and nudity, effectively banning it from being shown in schools. It's all nonsense. We have to take a cautionary approach to not offend anybody in our society which I feel is completely in contrast to our ideals as a country.
Exactly. I don't have any interest in movies from this Director. From what I've seen, to me they're all trash. I do find it as a negative though if movies aren't being made available to be seen. Neflix does have that right to have available what they want of course, so you can't really complain. You can buy almost anything on the internet though so I'm sure if an individual wants it enough they can score whatever film they please.
We'll see though. I still hope Netflix is in the mentality of "hey, we don't give a fuck. Here's these movies, pick anything we probably have it, enjoy....just give us the money"