The quantification of diversity: Netflix,visibility politics and the grammar of transnationalism

Abstract

This article argues for Netflix’ efforts to create a transnational middlebrow, highlighting especially the strategy of visibility politics as a measure to create a metrics for ‘diversity and inclusion’ in a process I call the quantification of diversity. Hence, the article seeks to draw together themes of Netflix’ efforts in transnationalism, the platform’s efforts in diversity and inclusion and the strategy of visibility politics, common to middlebrow television as visual signifier of marginalisation, rather than narrativisation. This process becomes part of a larger grammar of transnationalism to formulate a kind of transnational text specific to Netflix. Visibility politics seeks to quantify visibly marginalised bodies on screen as a measure of ‘progress’ and is, thus, particularly relevant for a Silicon Valley company that seeks remedy social problems via mathematical solutions. This leads to a politics that produces highly visual measures of social progress, but does not offer narratives to communicate barriers to full participation. The metrics for ‘otherness’ are hardly universal, though and Netflix cannot provide such a metrics for its transnational productions. Instead, it seeks to combat ‘universal’ issues of discrimination by means of visibility politics. The platforms’ earlier American texts tried to remedy issues of marginalisation via the narrativisation of barriers. To document this change, the article analyses the Netflix series One Day At A Time with the popular 2023 series Wednesday.

Netflix is a transnational broadcaster, which has developed what I (Jenner, 2018) have previously called a ‘grammar of transnationalism’ for its texts that allows it to formulate a very specific kind of transnational text. In 2016, Netflix expanded massively, establishing operations around the globe (see Lobato, 2019). With it came investments in translation (https://about.netflix.com/en/news/netflix-is-looking-for-the-best-translators-around-the-globe) and considerations of how to formulate transnational appeal. Netflix has increasingly moved towards standardisation, whether that is of the cameras used or other formal aspects of production. However, there is also a standardisation of the content of texts and the way they formulate transnational appeal, even though this seems to be more informal than official policy (as referenced in G-Stolz, 2021). Transnational television is not new and Netflix series are not thematically unique. Yet, its standardisation means aesthetic unity, often even thematic and in political outlook. Specific algorithmic associations between texts are established, often internal to the platform, which makes it specific to Netflix.

Netflix is a company based in Palo Alto in Silicon Valley, close to the headquarters of Google, Apple, and other tech companies. In many respects, Netflix is a Silicon Valley tech company first, and an entertainment company second. With this comes the belief that social problems can be solved by algorithmic, or mathematical, solutions or as Marina Levina and Amy Adele Hasinoff put it simply, the Silicon Valley Ethos (2017). This explains a firm belief that social problems like racism can be solved by changing the numbers of people of colour working before and behind the cameras. To a certain extent, that may be true, but the problem is not merely one of visibility, as Maryann Erigha (2019) and Kirsten J. Warner (2015, 2017), show, so cannot be solved only by numbers. Visibility is an important part of gaining equality, but as a next step, involves changing the conventions of storytelling. In other words, I follow Warner’s argument, that Black bodies on screen, even playing traditionally white roles, is not a measure towards equality because that would require a change in the way we tell stories and construct images. Hiring Black writers and directors means little if they are meant to adapt to existing conventions. I call this process ‘the Quantification of Diversity’ to highlight how issues of diversity are reduced to sheer numbers. In other words, those with visible signs of ‘difference’ from the normative white, middle-class, able-bodied, heterosexual cis male are counted in terms of how much screen time they have or lines they speak. This involves the reduction of diversity to what I call ‘visibility politics’, in which visible signs of ‘otherness’ become easily quantifiable. Of course, the term is used in different contexts in different fields (including its literal usage in political science), I tie it here specifically to the representational politics of middlebrow television. This makes visibility politics well suited to the Silicon Valley Ethos, but without engaging with marginalisation on the level of narrative.

Visibility politics is common to middlebrow television, particularly American network television, allowing for signifiers of changing attitudes towards race, gender, or ability, without changes to the way narratives are constructed. In other words, changing images, but not narratives. For Netflix, this has a very specific use, which is decidedly different than for middlebrow television, which seeks mostly to avoid political allegiance. The platform proudly declares its own inclusion and diversity goals, as stated in the company’s Diversity and Inclusion Report (https://about.netflix.com/en/news/netflix-inclusion-report-2021). Initially, Netflix also produced a range of texts that narrativised marginalisation, like Orange is the New Black (Netflix, 2013-19), and translated this to aesthetics, as in Luke Cage (Netflix, 2016-18). Especially in the latter example, narrative and aesthetics work together to conceptualise what representation, as opposed to visibility, looks like. I differentiate between visibility and representation. Representation describes the linking of specific identities with political projects, the mechanisms of marginalisation. Visibility describes the appearance of non-normative bodies on screen without explaining why they were excluded in the past. In other words, representation is the union of narrative and visual, whereas visibility is about images. At the same time, though, as a transnational broadcaster, Netflix caters to many markets where meanings of diversity and inclusion differ. Netflix has, arguably, shifted its emphasis in programming towards middlebrow content. When Netflix first produced its own series, a focus was on emulating HBO and its version of ‘quality’ TV with series like House of Cards (Netflix, 2013-18) or Orange is the New Black (see Jenner, 2018). The more Netflix produced its own content and attracted a larger transnational audience, the more it focused on budgetary friendly fare that would attract a mass audience. This was distinct from the largely American and cosmopolitan (Straubhaar, 2007) audience of its early years.

I argue that problems of discrimination, or at least how they originate and are mitigated, are inherently national. Engagements with disability representation are deeply intertwined with national healthcare systems. Histories of racism are nationally specific, dependent on national histories of colonialism or slavery that shape how racism functions today. Feminism developed differently in different national contexts, influencing how societies are structured. Interventions to counter harm from racism, ableism, sexism, or homophobia are also nationally specific. Visual representation in popular culture is one of these interventions and Netflix’ efforts to address universal issues via transnational texts offer this, but their transnationality makes it impossible to address these issues in a manner that is nationally specific.

Before I start, I want to highlight that Netflix’ company policies differ, and several impulses tend to run parallel in its current texts. In 2018, Netflix formed a contract with Ryan Murphy Productions, which remains in place at the time of writing (though the production company is set to leave) and produces American texts that show engagement with a specific, national history of LGBTQIA+ discrimination. As Elkins (2024) explains, the Obamas production company, Higher Ground Productions, produces deeply national political programmes, like The G Word With Adam Conover (Netflix, 2022), directed at an American audience. Following criticism of the first season of Bridgerton (Netflix, 2020-), production company Shondaland explored non-colourblind storytelling in the second season of the series (as ham-fisted as attempts seem here) and in the spin-off Queen Charlotte (Netflix, 2023-).

In this article, I want to draw together how Netflix’ own demands for representation are balanced with its transnational ambitions and the approach to diversity as primarily mathematical problem, caught up in the Silicon Valley Ethos. To do this, I will focus on the issue of visibility politics to then place this in a context of Netflix’ grammar of transnationalism and its construction of texts that appeal beyond the US market. I will then explore this issue further by looking at two examples of Latina representation, by comparing the most successful Netflix texts from 2023, Wednesday (Netflix, 2022-) with an older Netflix text, One Day at a Time (Netflix, 2017-2020). The texts work as examples of the different approaches Netflix takes to representation in line with its grammar of transnationalism.

Netflix and the Middlebrow

Over recent years, a range of articles in the press have lamented that the ‘quality’ of Netflix texts has declined as numbers of productions have increased. In fact, many journalists blamed it for a subscriber loss in 2022 (Adalian, 2022; Fraser, 2022; Tassi, 2022). Much of that can be linked to Netflix’ focus on attracting massive transnational audiences whose tastes need to be negotiated. The transnational expansion has involved many productions outside of the US, investment in translation, and the construction of texts that form a consensus within television. Essentially, Netflix has focussed on constructing a ‘transnational middlebrow’.

In a very simplistic view, the cultural hierarchy of television is divided into ‘quality’ or highbrow television, the middlebrow and lowbrow. All of them are difficult to define, and boundaries impossible to police, but I focus on ‘the middle’ here, or what is commonly termed ‘normal’ or, in the words of Francis Bonner (2003), ordinary television. As a category, it is often understood in negative terms, not ‘quality’ TV and not lowbrow TV. At the same time, it is what these categories are defined against. The categories are historical, but arguably, the shift in the early 2000s to HBO-influenced ‘quality’ TV, parallel to a wave of lowbrow reality TV, plays an important role in how these categories are defined today (Newman and Levine, 2012). Amanda Keeler and Seth Friedman (2023) argue for the category of prestige TV to highlight the industrial labels involved in bestowing quality onto texts produced by HBO and certain streamers. For many years, Netflix’ output was focussed on the audience of ‘quality’ TV with series like Orange is the New Black or House of Cards functioning as a kind of ‘calling card’ in many markets (see Havens, 2018). In fact, its stated goal was to compete with HBO (see Hass, 2013). As Netflix’ audience widened, both in the US market and transnationally, it employed different strategies for capturing the audiences’ attention. Just by looking at content production this means investment in content across all cultural categories, including in genres commonly labelled lowbrow like reality TV.

Victoria E. Johnson (2008) has done much to define the American middlebrow by pointing to the myth of the Heartland, which she understands as a mythical space.

The power of the middle (ideologically/politically and geographically), in fact, is its foundational American iconicity: ‘true’ Americans do not ally with ‘extremes’; ‘real’ Americans are presumed to gravitate toward a healthily neutral wherein the family and self are the basic self-reliant units by whom decisions are made on a case-by-case, not party-line basis. The political strength of popular artifacts of the ‘middle’ […] is, therefore, their very apoliticalness. (2000, 45)

A geographical ‘middle’ is an allegory for a cultural one, this mythical space of political ‘neutrality’. Scholars (Newcomb, 1985, for example) and journalists (e.g. Ryan, 2020) have often used this rhetorical device. As much as Johnson’s definition is driven by American geography and mythmaking, the ideology of being ‘reasonable’ (Sedgman, 2018) and politically ‘neutral’ can be translated to the transnational context. An important aspect of this is never challenging the existing status quo of neoliberal capitalism (see Elkins, 2021).

Because of the structures and histories of television studies, despite efforts to decolonise, historically, its most dominant theorists have been British, American, or Australian. This has consequences for how the space of the middlebrow is theorised. Johnson theorises a Heartland that is geographically located in the US, and this has long been translated to the rest of the world via American exports. However, most countries have an East-West or North-South divide that suggests a mid-point between rich and poor, industrialised and agricultural, city and country, and so on, and, importantly, high-culture and low-culture. These ideological mid-points between different extremes are, in Johnson’s words, more mythical space than any real space. This does not mean that there are not local or national specificities to how this heartland is constructed, but there are elements that are easily graspable for audiences from a variety of countries. As such, the ideological function of a ‘middle’ reaches far beyond a geographically bound space in any specific countries. While there is, of course, national specificity to the ideological concept of ‘real Americans’, the power of the middle lies in the non-extreme, the apolitical, as Johnson puts it, political neutrality, as I call it. This politically neutral space is often constructed around American ideals, such as family or neoliberal concepts of self-reliance. As Elkins suggests, Netflix has strategically sought alignment with the Obama White House, so generally conforms to a centrist-left American agenda.

As a tech and entertainment hybrid, Netflix is an avatar of this blend of liberal-but-not-radical cultural politics and deregulatory (neo)liberal economic policies. Its political activities are apparent not only in its institutional, branding, and programming practices, but also in its increasing attempts to influence political figures directly. (2021, 152)

As such, even its construction of seeming political neutrality figures into a larger project of the non-extreme, but also non- (and in some cases even anti-) racist, ableist, sexist or queerphobic. He even goes so far to tie the Obama’s production company, Higher Ground Productions, specifically to the platform’s formulation of (American) mass culture, or what I call middlebrow culture (2024). Higher Ground Productions formulates this for specifically American programmes, which are sold as such, so I argue that this specificity keeps it from formulating a more transnational mass audience. This blend of American cultural politics and liberalism is certainly visible in the construction of Netflix’ own grammar of transnationalism and use of visibility politics, as explored below. The grammar of transnationalism is increasingly part of how Netflix addresses a transnational middlebrow. Thus, an important part of constructing the middlebrow is ideological. While, on a national level, this can be expressed via a geographical allegory of ‘middle’, this is not really possible for constructing a transnational middlebrow.

Easier in the construction of a transnational middlebrow is an economic axis: middlebrow TV has middling budgets compared to the high budgets of ‘quality’ TV and the much lower budgets of lowbrow TV, often soaps or reality TV. However, there is also another dimension to this economic, or industrial, axis. As Janice Radway (1997) argues in her work on the Book-of-the-Month club, middlebrow culture is mass culture, or, more accurately, mass-produced culture:

The category of the lowbrow was [in 1926, when the club was founded] understood to include all cultural objects that were generated through a corporately organized mode of production, including moving pictures, radio programs, and pulp novels. The space of the middlebrow was occupied by products that supposedly hid the same machine-tooled uniformity behind the self-consciously worked mask of culture. (1997: 221)

Applied to television, this works to classify the entire medium as middlebrow culture since it relies on big audiences and emphasises its own commercialism through ad breaks. The rise of the HBO brand of ‘quality’ TV uses subscriptions, rather than ad revenue to finance itself, which reduces ad breaks significantly (see Friedman and Keeler, 2023). The model later heavily informed streaming and Netflix, at least around 2013, heavily relied on this. Ads work to highlight the commercialism of the medium of television and have come to signify mass culture and, thus, mark programming on commercial channels as somehow less culturally significant, or middlebrow, in some cases even lowbrow. As Jorie Lagerwey and Tyler Nygaard (2017) argue, this can work to the detriment of network series, which can be overlooked for awards. Netflix actively worked to emulate HBO’s idea of ‘quality’ TV, but emphases shifted once it moved more into transnational markets in 2016.

The platforms’ first move towards middlebrow television included launching a range of American sitcoms like Fuller House (Netflix, 2016-20), which are ‘cross-generational’ in their appeal. Netflix’ move towards more middlebrow content started around 2015, as Netflix embarked on a wider project of transnational expansion that not only involved wider market penetration, but also investment in local programming and translation. This also involved investment in American middlebrow genres like sitcoms, such as the revival series Fuller House, that draws on the transnational success of late 80s and 90s sitcom Full House. Kathleen Loock argues about the marketing of the revival:

By effectively mobilizing family tropes within and without the fictional world of Fuller House, the show thus quickly came to stand for Netflix’s family-friendly revival model. (2018a: 363)

It is worth mentioning that this push also involved sitcoms like One Day at a Time, which had many of the markers of ‘quality’ TV, including a well-known cast, which involved Rita Moreno and Justina Machado. The platforms’ investment in non-American content also became more common around that time, for example, with the Mexican Club de Cuervos (Netflix, 2015-19). However, with only one or two series produced by most countries each year, these texts often stay within the metrics of US ‘quality’ TV. The platforms’ move towards middlebrow TV and transnationalism started around the same time. Today, Virgin River (Netflix, 2019-), staunchly in the tradition of the feminised genre of the soap, regularly finds itself in Netflix’ ‘International Top 10’. The platform also features a range of reality series that breach the spectrum of more middlebrow fare (such as Queer Eye [Netflix, 2018- ]) to the more lowbrow (such as Selling Sunset [Netflix, 2019- ]). In many respects, this reach across the cultural spectrum is inherent in Netflix’ mission to replace broadcast television. However, scholars like B. G.-Stolz have argued that we are entering (or have already entered) ‘a new era of lowest common denominator programming’ (2021, 155). This idea predates the so-called streaming wars and the competition through other transnational streamers, but these often work in a similar manner as Netflix.

Netflix, visibility politics, and the transnational

One aspect that is central to Netflix’ current ambitions towards the middlebrow is the concept of visibility politics. The concept of visibility politics summarises how a range of social movements are ‘flattened out’ to mean only issues of visibility, not about a specific narrative perspective. Issues of representation and visibility have, of course, been widely discussed in film, television, and media studies. Stuart Hall argues:

… there is something radically wrong with the way black immigrants – West Indians, Asians, Africans – are handled by and represented on the mass media. What’s more, I don’t believe this can be resolved by a few more black faces on screen, or by an extra documentary or two on immigrant problems. Nor do I think it can be traced to casual discrimination on racial matters within broadcasting organizations. Its roots lie deep within the broadcasting structures themselves, and good liberal broadcasters, as well as bad radicalist ones, are both constrained by these structures. (2021: 52)

Hall plays at the way narrative conventions haven’t changed the way stories about immigrants are told, instead focussing on ‘black faces’. Further, in 1986, filmmaker Andrea Weiss explores ‘happens to be gay syndrome’, which, she argues, is the representation of gay characters where their homosexuality is incidental, rather than a vital part of their identity. These approaches formulate a vital call for marginalisation and the barriers to full social participation to be narrativised to address structural discrimination. The scholarship on representation, stereotyping and visibility in film and television studies reaches wide, especially when considering different marginalised groups.

Different social movements that fight for the rights of marginalised groups have distinct goals, that can be at odds with each other. For example, disability rights activists and feminists fighting for abortion rights approach the issue from different angles. Visibility politics, however, aims to reduce these issues to visual, rather than narrative, representation. This supposes that the visibility of more people of colour, cis women, gay couples, and visibly disabled people, is, to paraphrase Claire Perkins (2020), the endgame of their respective movements. This, of course, means the exclusion of non-visible characteristics (like transgender, or invisible disability). However, visibility itself does only change the visual, not narrative perspectives. In parts, this focus may explain the platforms’ often inept response at protests surrounding the transphobic comedy special Dave Chappelle: The Closer (Netflix, 2021). Based on visibility politics, a Black body is visible on screen and can be counted. However, it is the narrative level where issues of representation arise. Co-CEO Ted Sarandos, for example, would insist on the platforms’ existing catalogue rather than seek to address policies for future content or intervene otherwise (see Donnely, 2021 for an outline of events).

Importantly, visibility politics does not make visible the various social and physical barriers experienced by those who do not conform to the normative. It treats various social movements as ‘the same’ and inequalities remedied by the same measure: being visible on screen. As Warner explains:

To many men and women of color, as well as many white women, meaningful diversity occurs when the actual presence of different-looking bodies appear on screen. For them, this diversity serves as an indicator of progress as well as an aspirational frame for younger generations who are told that the visual signifiers they can identify with carry a great amount of symbolic weight. As a consequence, the degree of diversity became synonymous with the quantity of difference rather than with the dimensionality of those performances. (2017, 33)

To this purpose, Warner develops the concept of plastic representation (2017), which follows on from her work on colourblind casting (2015) and highlights how the inclusion of Black characters on screen translates to visual signifiers of ‘inclusion’ rather than a reconception of storytelling. Banet-Weiser (2018), and later Perkins (2020) in her analysis of Ghostbusters (Feig, 2016), point to a similar problem in feminism where it functions as visual signifier without changing narrative perspectives. Catherine Rottenberg’s (2018) analysis of Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In shows how the inclusion of women in leadership teams often does little to advance feminist causes under the regime of neoliberal feminism. Maryann Erigha (2019) shows the mechanisms of Black directors being assimilated into the white system of Hollywood to direct high-budget films dominated by white characters and stories. Warner highlights this as well as a version of plastic representation. All these theories point to the same problem, only focussing on different marginalised groups: a ‘flattening out’ of political projects. Showing, rather than telling and explaining what marginalisation really is. This fits well with the Silicon Valley Ethos to solve social problems with mathematical solutions, since visual representations are easily quantifiable.

For Netflix, one aspect central to creating a transnational middlebrow is representation, or rather, visibility. Sarah Arnold (2016) notes that Netflix’ algorithm does establish a ‘norm’, or at least assumes a norm of white, male, able-bodied, etc. In Arnold’s words, ‘[u]sers [are] addressed through their difference’ (2016, 57). As such, Netflix’ efforts are not guided by an underlying assumption that diversity is the norm, but that all assumptions about what a norm is remain in place. In other words, the norm itself, the status quo, is never challenged. In its earlier years of producing content, Netflix distributed several series that discussed the various barriers people faced, as much as they tended to discuss these barriers in explicitly American contexts (Jenner, 2018). Orange is the New Black was, perhaps, most programmatic in this. The series is comprehensive in the way it depicts the workings of sexism, different forms of racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism and other forms of prejudice, and its intersections, in the US. Other series followed, even though American programmes incorporated these politics at a deeper level than the few non-American texts available in the first few years after its transnational expansion. Series like the comedy Dear White People (Netflix, 2017-21), set at a fictional American Ivy League college, tells the stories of the barriers that produce different outcomes for Black people in the US than for white people. On Christmas Day 2020, Bridgerton (Netflix, 2020-) premiered, almost a year before the final season of Dear White People. It is important to recognise that the difference between both, at least in this specific context, lies not in the subject matter or even the fairy-tale like diegetic universe the latter series creates. These aspects speak to different genres and subject matters, resulting in, at best, unfair criticism that devalues more ‘feminised’ genres. The distinction, as far as visibility politics are concerned, lies in the way social barriers are thematised and dealt with for the purpose of easy consumption across borders. Transnational viewers’ knowledge of educational policies or the history of Ivy League colleges (or how the Ivy League differs from other colleges) in the US, as represented in Dear White People, may be shaky. Bridgerton, however, sets no demands of historical knowledge. In fact, though ostensibly set in London, it creates a semi-alternative universe, which mostly becomes complicated when it refers to real-life history where actual barriers exist. And colourblind casting, where roles are cast without considering race (or by considering race less), ensures that these barriers are not narrativised, as characters are not written to encounter these barriers. Because characters never encounter barriers, no national or transnational status quo is questioned. The strategy of ‘flattening out’ of national history predates Bridgerton and colourblind casting. In fact, even the first season of The Crown (Netflix, 2016-23) already shows how some facts about national histories have to be glossed over to make the text more palatable transnationally (Jenner, 2018).

Asmar et al. (2022) evaluate Netflix’ first Diversity and Inclusion Report, which shows an increase of more underrepresented groups both, before and behind the camera as well as the makeup of company employees and leadership (see https://about.netflix.com/en/news/netflix-inclusion-report-2021). It is important to note that in this, Netflix ‘counts’ the number of people it states are non-normative who appear on screen, usually defined by visible characteristics like race, visible disability, or gender (at least as it presents on screen). Thus, diversity and inclusion (which are used almost synonymously in the Netflix report) is understood to be measurable and quantifiable. Warner, specifically discussing Black American visibility, sums up, ‘each image must be counted as a signifier of progress that affirms black importance and success’ (2017, 34).

I do not want to devalue the efforts Netflix makes towards diversity and inclusion, or quantitative data. The obvious problem, however, is the proposition to solve the social problem(s) of marginalisation through quantitative and algorithmic solutions alone, rather than more structural change. Further, Netflix’ Diversity and Inclusion Report analyses US productions only, which already points to a narrow, nationalised version of diversity and inclusion, even in the measuring of the easily recognisable. The report almost seems like an admission that developing a metrics for a transnational diversity and inclusion would be too complex to capture through quantitative metrics, given differences in populations, colonial histories, or contemporary legislation. However, as Elkins argues, Netflix uses these metrics more broadly to advertise itself outside of the US:

In its programming, branding strategies, and attempts to influence global media content, trade, and infrastructure policies, the entertainment platform promotes a broad vision of globalized cultural and economic liberalism geared towards humanist principles, cosmopolitan branding, international free trade, technological disruption, and economic deregulation. (2021: 150)

A prime example of how this is translated in Netflix texts is the way both, Money Heist (Casa de Papel, Antena 3, 2017-18, Netflix, 2018-21) and Squid Game (Ojing-eo geim, 2021-) refer to a vague concept of poverty, rather than any specificities of Spain and Korea. This is represented through bare walls and worn-out clothes, or by not being able to afford care for loved ones or keep up with an ex-spouse in providing for children. The emotional affect of it is transnationally understandable, because these elements are universally recognisable. Both countries may suffer from a generalised problem of poverty, which is then exploited by the ultra-rich. However, the status quo of neoliberal capitalism isn’t questioned. Instead, an Obama-style version of a humanist capitalism is advocated over more radical solutions. Further, Spain and Korea likely sought to mitigate the damage of financial crises’ in nationally and culturally specific ways. This ‘flattening out’ of problems of class and poverty allows the series to function as a kind of ambassador of progressive values without reflecting on their own role, or the platforms’ transnationalism.

For Netflix, the investment in visibility politics is a feature that fits into the textual transnationalism the platform is invested in. It creates a measure that can be easily captured in quantifiable data, but also ensures the transnational non-specificity that guarantees the political ‘neutrality’ and ‘inoffensiveness’ of middlebrow culture. In other words, it serves to quantify diversity. Various expressions of discrimination and mechanisms of marginalisation are national problems, not transnational ones. This does not mean that stories that connect different national problems of poverty, racism or ableism to broader transnational ones cannot be told, but Netflix makes no effort to do this.

In 2018, I collected some characteristics of Netflix’ transnational texts as:

- Genre frameworks that have proven transnationally palatable and prone to a flattening out of histories, especially costume dramas and the mix of fantasy and historical drama in Stranger Things (Netflix, 2016-25).

- Appeals to value systems enforced by supranational institutions like the UN and its charter of Human Rights, which formulates global aspirations towards anti-discrimination. This also links to Elkins (2021) argument of highlighting Obama-style capitalism.

- A linguistic diversity, which is now largely guaranteed through standardisation in translation. However, early Netflix texts like Orange Is the New Black or Narcos (Netflix, 2015-17) also deliberately have characters who communicate in a broad variety of languages.

This list is in no way conclusive and changes as Netflix shifts company strategies. In the 2018 edition of my book, aesthetics that emulate US ‘quality’ TV were included as well, though a range of Latin American telenovelas draw into doubt how relevant this aspect is now (Jenner, 2018). In an article from (2021a), I extended the list to include nostalgia as a feature of that list and an article from the same year (2021b) highlighted the role of the tagging system and recommendation algorithm to link genre texts. The second article describes the careful balancing of referencing of the local (often through superficial visual signifiers) and the transnational and supposedly ‘universal’ themes. Asmar et al. (2022) have added the industry studies perspective and the way narratives around diversity further the ways it promotes itself in different markets. Thus, the list is flexible as company emphases shift or artists are confronted with criticism. Further, a shift towards a visibility politics that might gesture towards more universal concepts of class, race, disability, or gender, is notable. Thus, Netflix’ turn towards the middlebrow includes understanding diversity as a transnational issue of visibility, rather than an issue of national narratives. G.-Stolz argues for the concept of transculturality to tie together how ‘consumers, talent and content’ come together with a by now well-established platform brand to construct what she calls a ‘Netflix Cultural Moment’ (2021: 156).

In the following section, I want to focus specifically on the representation of race and Latina immigration to the US. Since Netflix’ report on inclusion limits itself to US texts, the texts are American, but distinctly formulated to address a transnational audience. However, they make obvious a shift in strategies to appeal to a transnational audience.

Netflix, Latina representation and the quantification of diversity

This section focuses on Wednesday, which as of 24. April 2024 is listed as the most popular Netflix show with a total of 252,100,000 views. Netflix remains vague on what ‘views’ mean since it isn’t specified if that means a few minutes or the complete season. What is important to me here is the Latina representation through star Jenna Ortega, who plays the title character. Selecting an older Netflix text for comparison is more difficult because, as vague as Netflix is on viewing figures now, it has been even more so in the past. One Day at a Time, however, has been part of popular discourse at the time of its publication, having a critics score of 99% on the website Rotten Tomatoes, with an audience score of 89%.

Wednesday is a The Addams Family (Sonnenfeld, 1991) spin-off, slotting neatly into a mixture of 90s nostalgia and high-concept teen series with horror elements, continuing the quirky tone of the films. In line with this, the series’ first four episodes are directed by Tim Burton, whose style is consistent with the films. He also acts as executive producer. Wednesday leans heavily into a scene from Addams Family Values (Sonnenfeld, 1993) where Wednesday (Christina Ricci) hijacks a Thanksgiving play to outline the holiday’s genocidal roots, which is often shared on social media (YouTube lists 1.7 million views for one video of the scene). In this respect, the series references political commentary from the earlier film (which criticises a specifically American holiday) but does not make any political commentary itself. The series uses a number of nostalgic references, including the participation of actress Christina Ricci, who plays Wednesday in the films and acts as a sort of double to her. The references are mostly to the broader universe of Addams Family adaptations, and are, thus, to popular culture, and lack the broader political thrust of, for example, the disruption of the Thanksgiving play in Addams Family Values. Wednesday fetishises death through dialogue and the heavy white makeup the Addams family wears. This almost invites the series to make statements around the ‘return of the repressed’ (see Wood, 1978) for US culture in the form of Mexicans, only the series doesn’t say it. In the framework of the grammar of transnationalism, it cannot say it as that would require national specificity.

Wednesday has the title character live in the boarding school Nevermore, which educates a variety of mythological monsters. Wednesday references the title character’s Latinx identity. In this version, Wednesday’s father Gomez Addams is played by Luis Guzmán, and Wednesday’s brother Pugsley by Isaac Ordonez, all visibly Brown-skinned, despite piles of white makeup, and Gomez’ brother Fester by is played by Fred Armisen. There are a range of references to Latin American heritage in the first season. Wednesday listens to Spanish-language music on her phonograph, such as the Puerto Rican singer Carmita Jiménez, and has written novels where the heroine is called Viper De la Muerte. Gomez Addams eats tacos at parent’s day and his wife Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones) explains that the Nightshades, a secret society at Nevermore, was founded by one of his ancestors from Mexico. The fact that much of American popular culture understands elements from Latin American culture, especially rituals surrounding death, as ‘creepy’ certainly helps. However, the cultural references do not reach much further than these, arguably superficial, references.

Wednesday is using the Mexican American experience as image. Of course, having Gomez Addams and his children played by Latinx actors makes a difference to previous versions. However, Wednesday doesn’t discuss the immigrant experience, even allegorically. The grammar of transnationalism makes it impossible to formulate a social critique. Despite the fact that the Addams family is clearly racialised, this version works more to incorporate Gomez Addams’ race than past versions not to frame the family as doubly ‘othered’ through race and what the original series termed their ‘kooky’-ness. In the original 1960s series (The Addams Family [ABC, 1964-6]), Gomez’ race could easily be interpreted to frame the family as, at least, akin to immigrants, in line with the message that behind their ‘kooky’ nature lies a good hearted, loving family. In the midst of the civil rights movement and cultural uproar of 1960s America, such a message of stability through the heteronormative family, no matter what it looks like, is political. The family’s ‘kooky’-ness stands in for general ‘otherness’ through race.

To apply the grammar of transnationalism to Wednesday, the series mixes the fantasy and horror genres, which allows it to focus on its central story about a teen who can shift shape into a monster, which kills students at Nevermore. Time and space, enabled by the genre, are alternate to our own, and because the setting is indeterminate, the text never works through specific national debates. At the same time, it’s also a teen series and Netflix has invested in transnational series of this genre from the Spanish Elite (Élite, Netflix, 2018-24), the British Sex Education (2019-23) or the German How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast) (Netflix, 2019-). As such, Wednesday incorporates relatively ‘classic’ themes of the teen genre, such as first love, friendship, and identity (see Moseley, 2015). The genre seems to function well as vehicle for transnational communication, and Wednesday easily aligns itself here. The relatively vague appeal for acceptance of ‘others’ remains in place, but the ‘others’ are fantasy creatures without equivalents in the real world or allegorical function. Thus, the more political appeal, if it can be called that, remains vague enough to be universal. In terms of language, the series rarely features Spanish outside of Gomez’ pet name for his wife (cara mia) and is otherwise available subtitled and dubbed. The algorithm tends to link teen series, de-emphasising language. As argued above, the series uses nostalgia for the 90s films in order to align itself with Addams Family Values and its political commentary. But its appeal to nostalgia is more complex. There is a rich history of Addams family texts, as mentioned above, and nostalgia frames Wednesday as the evolution of the franchise, centralising the character Ricci played so memorably. Yet, the series itself keeps this reference rather broad, pointing Ricci’s performance, especially the monotone speech to suggest emotionlessness. Catherine Pallister’s (2019) collection Netflix Nostalgia. Streaming the Past on Demand makes the centrality of nostalgia for Netflix clear. In Wednesday, the reference is to films that, in the vocabularies of recycling culture, as Kathleen Loock defines them, is derivative: ‘The televisual afterlives of series tend to take three different forms: derivative (reboot, spin-off), repetitive (rerun), and renewed (reunion show, revival)’ (2018: 302, italics in the original). This means the reference is there, but knowledge of previous films or TV series is not necessary to understand the text, which is forward-facing.

One Day at a Time ran from 2017 until 2020. The series was a reboot of the 1975 sitcom, focussing on the family headed by Penelope Alvarez (Justina Machado) as single mother of Elena (Isabella Gomez) and Alex (Marcel Ruiz), supported by her mother Lydia (Rita Moreno). The title song is performed by Gloria Estefan. One Day At A Time was part of Netflix’ original push into middlebrow culture via sitcoms that address a family audience, following on from sitcoms like Fuller House. However, as Michael L. Wayne and Ana Uribe Sandoval (2021) point out, the metrics by which Netflix measures ‘success’ are often vague, especially at the moment in time One Day At A Time ran, before national and international Top 10 lists. The comparison serves to illuminate the way Netflix moved from formulating a nationally specific identity to transnational one that, overall, serves more as visibility politics. Since the series started in 2017, it comes after Netflix’ big push into transnational markets was completed.

The first season deals with Elena’s quinceañera and a negotiation of the ritual with contemporary American feminist, and later queer, values. The family discuss overt racism, homophobia and queerphobia, and sexism as well as micro-aggressions and mental health routinely. It, thus, takes on the intersectionality of female/immigrant/Latina identity. In this, they often discuss structural issues. For example, Penelope, a veteran and nurse, spends one episode on the phone with the Veteran’s Affairs office, trying to get medical help for an injury she sustained while deployed in Afghanistan (‘Hold, Please’, 01/07). In another episode, neighbour Schneider (Todd Grinnell) wears a Che Guevarra shirt, and the Cuban immigrants explain their associations with him (‘Viva Cuba’, 01/09). The series ran during Trump’s first primary and at the beginning of the Trump presidency and the family link racism they experience explicitly to the political climate. All of that happens before a backdrop of Cuban music, dancing, religion, food, and coffee. The specificity of Cuban immigration and the US context serves to make the issues specific to a cultural context and moment. Jessica Ford and Martin Zeller-Jacques (2022) position One Day at A Time as ‘woke reboot’. It is a reboot of a series that was already invested in feminist politics in its 1970s incarnation, and now incorporates the intersection of feminism and Latinx identity.

By placing people of color at the center of a family sitcom and presenting significant portions of the dialogue in unsubtitled Spanish ODAAT refutes the idea that it is a simplistic exercise in nostalgic formalism and implicitly claims a place for its characters at the heart of the symbolic American family. (ibid. 280)

They further argue that this is not radical in itself, but in a context of a Trumpian America where Latin Americans, especially Latin American refugees, are continuously vilified, the politics changes. This kind of storytelling somewhat relies on our understanding of the day-to-day political context, which is difficult for streaming platforms to respond to.

As much as most of the world was probably aware of the American political climate in 2015 and 2016, the same is not easily transported to a Colombian or French series. Further, beyond the spectacle of Trumpism, a transnational audience is likely unaware of American politics. The overall Obama-associated centrist-left politics are adopted. This explains a desire for Netflix to stay away from narrativising day-to-day politics and issues of marginalisation. However, the value of visibility lies in a character’s ability to voice struggles, that, as One Day At A Time makes clear, are nationally specific, not just to America, but also Cubans as immigrant group in America. However, to speak of the broader mechanisms is a deeply national issue: for Latin Americans, the paths taken to get to the USA differ, the conditions of legal and illegal immigration to America differ and the ways national cultures live on in the new country. Further, Latin American immigration to countries other than the US looks different again. This specificity, however, makes it less universally applicable than the vagueness of Wednesday’s appeal for acceptance. Linguistically, One Day At A Time ran as dubbing and subtitles became increasingly part of Netflix, but as Ford and Zeller-Jacques (2023) mention above, the series features spoken Spanish. The sitcom genre is understood by industry scholars C. Lee Harrington and Denise Bielby (2008), writing about global television trade, as highly culturally specific. This suggests that the genre is not chosen for its transnational reach, though American sitcoms have often sold well internationally. For example, for Full House, which spawned revival series Fuller House, 48 export countries are listed on imdb, based on alternative titles in different languages. The focus for Netflix, at the time, was on family sitcoms featuring different generations, modelling the kind of nostalgic cross-generational experience Loock discusses in relation to Fuller House. She argues:

…the Full House revival, more than twenty years after the show’s cancelation, was not only driven by the possibility of bringing back a beloved sitcom and thus exploiting an existing property with ongoing media and cultural presence but also by Netflix’s strategic efforts to revive the bygone days of ABC’s TGIF [Thank God It’s Funny] programming and reinvent family-friendly viewing in the era of complex television and online streaming platforms. (2018a: 362)

The nostalgic framing for One Day At A Time is different. For one thing, imdb only lists 20 alternative titles and for another, the series ran from 1975 until 1984, so earlier than Full House. At the same time, the platforms’ start in the sitcom genre very much recalled exactly the programming features of broadcast television that Netflix previously aimed to eschew. Namely, this means the set 20-min structure. With its sitcoms, Netflix also published ‘Part I’ and ‘Part II’ of a season rather than full seasons. Since these interruptions are rather artificial, the suggestion is that the platform emulates the model of longer seasons, even if they are not as long as those of US network TV. However, this means that the platforms’ nostalgia is oriented towards the national, as the series itself and the genre play more on the broadcasting memories of the US than the transnational.

Both, Wednesday and One Day At A Time play into diversity goals Netflix sets for itself, but do so in very different ways, which makes them representative of different strategies to achieve those goals. One Day At A Time is extremely specific in its national outlook: the characters’ experience of discrimination is specific to a time and place, the experience of cultural heritage is specific to Cuba and the way the country is remembered in America, and even the nostalgia expressed in the form of the reboot and the family sitcom is specific to American broadcasting. Wednesday, however, is easily integrated into a more transnational outlook: its genre framing permits a storytelling that allows for the creation of an alternate universe, its appeal to accept ‘others’ is vague enough to address a transnational audience of varied political and cultural backgrounds and its nostalgic references reach back to Hollywood cinema and a scene from the film, which can be easily shared on social media. Visibility politics plays into this, as characters are played by people who share the Addams families’ racial heritage, but this is not part of the narrative. In this, it differs from One Day At A Time, since this is invested in communicating a racial and cultural experience. From this basis, it is possible for the sitcom to formulate political projects against racism, even Trumpism, against queerphobia, and to develop an intersectional feminism. Wednesday is unable to do so, partly because of its avoidance of national specificity.

Conclusion

Netflix has made genuine efforts to further diversity and inclusion in the company and on the platform. However, this often runs counter to its efforts in transnational production since marginalisation is produced and counter-acted by different national and cultural discourses. It is not impossible to bring these two impulses together, but Netflix does so by privileging visibility over narrativisation of barriers. The company has expanded its transnational audience since 2016, and published a range of non-American successful series, from the Spanish Elite and Money Heist to the Korean Squid Game. To add to this, Netflix’ stated goal for its US productions is to increase gender, LGBTQIA+, racial, and class diversity before and behind the camera. As laudable as this goal is, it is at odds with its transnationalism as the mechanisms of marginalisation are nationally specific. This can also be observed in the fact that diversity goals are only set for US productions, since diversity means different things in different countries.

Netflix’ transnationalism is often rooted in the middlebrow, and relies on exploring the apolitical, or politically neutral of middlebrow culture in the name of the ‘universal’. This involves the spreading of the version of capitalism akin to the ideology of the Obama White House, as Elkins (2021) argues. Netflix seeks to resolve this issue through visibility politics, which here serves a process I call the quantification of diversity (which is in line with the Silicon Valley Ethos) as it relies more on the counting of bodies of ‘others’ as visual signifiers of diversity rather than stories associated with it. This easily quantifiable version of diversity and inclusion already only works in specific national contexts, not a transnational one. Granted, Wednesday sidesteps the most glaring Latina stereotypes, but they do this by acting ‘colourblind’ rather than tell stories of a marginalised group. Personally, I think there is space for such utterly race-blind content as Wednesday, but not if it is the only content there is or will be going forward.

In what G.-Stolz (2021) summarises as transculturality, specific textual structures, audience behaviours, platform marketing, and other economic factors taken together produce this form of transnational television I argue can be called a transnational middlebrow. Visibility politics is one element of this that purports to create ‘solutions’ to ‘universal’ problems of inequality without addressing specific cultural conditions of marginalisation.