Netflix’s high-end global telefantasy: Conspicuous and virtual localism

Abstract

Netflix has commissioned and released an increasing number of high-end international series that tap into the genres of science fiction, fantasy and horror. These follow one of two strategies: (1) local productions that engage with local folklore and myths, or (2) productions centred in the ‘West’, where international talent is brought in to create cosmopolitan ‘global’ TV events such as 1899 (2022). The first strategy brings together local storytelling with a globally appealing packaging. The second strategy risks reducing ‘transnational’ production to a few tokenistic stars and narratives which are ultimately from everywhere and nowhere at the same time.

Introduction: the intersection of the local and the global in Netflix’s high-end global telefantasy

In the opening episode of Netflix’s sci-fi mystery 1899 (2022), we visit the first-class dining room of the nineteenth century steamship Kerberos, sailing from Southampton to New York. The camera lingers over the table of a wealthy French couple (Jonas Bloquet; Mathilde Ollivier), who muse (in French) about the disappearance of the Kerebos’s sister ship, The Prometheus. The Frenchman seems distracted, so his companion looks to the next table to see what has caught his attention. We cut to another pair of guests: Asian women (Isabella Wei; Gabby Wong), the younger of whom is wearing the kimono and makeup of a Japanese geisha. The ‘geisha’ is confused by the silverware and asks her companion for advice (in Cantonese), who tells her to ‘play along’. Next a British woman, our protagonist Maura (Emily Beecham), enters the dining room and strikes up a conversation (in English) with a fellow Englishwoman (Rosalie Craig) about Maura’s medical training and the mysteries of the brain. Finally, the calm is shattered as a lower-class passenger (Lucas Lynggaard Tønnesen), a man sporting a facial scar, charges in shouting (in Danish) that he needs a doctor. Thus, a kind of cosmopolitanism is placed front and centre of this big-budget German genre series, commissioned by a US streaming service whose influence and audience has long since expanded beyond its national borders (Lobato, 2018, 2019; Lotz, 2021).

This article examines three of Netflix’s recent high-end global telefantasy series. These fantastical (sci-fi, fantasy or horror) genre series were commissioned by the streaming giant, produced outside of the US, and have ‘big budgets and the high production values associated with them’ (Nelson, 2007: 2). ‘Telefantasy’ is a broad term that describes TV series in the horror, sci-fi, and fantasy genres (see Hills, 2010; Johnson, 2005; Lynch, 2022; Short, 2011). It began as a generic descriptor in fan circles but was popularised in TV scholarship by Catherine Johnson in her 2005 analysis of US and British sci-fi, fantasy and horror TV history and has since been deployed by authors such as Matt Hills, Sue Short and Lynch. ‘High-end’ is a term popularised in television studies by Robin Nelson in his 2007 book State of Play: Contemporary “high-end” TV drama. It refers largely to TV production values and budgets as markers of product distinction and is sometimes (but not always) likened to ‘Quality TV’, a commercial strategy to attract desirable audiences that began with linear broadcast TV but continued with cable TV and now SVOD (see Cardwell, 2007; Feuer, 1984; Lynch, 2022; Newman and Levine, 2012; Schlutz, 2016; Thompson, 1996). Here we use ‘high-end’ specifically to refer to the series’ high production values as a marker of Netflix’s intentions for them to be taken seriously by its global audience (and critics) alongside its other, similarly budgeted originals, rather than minor series produced only to replicate offerings already available in those local markets where these series are produced (such as Mexico and South Africa). The series examined here deploy similar genre conventions and high-end production values to Netflix’s US-produced counterparts but often add layers of cultural complexity that engage with issues such as colonialism and inequality.

To explain Netflix’s approach to high-end global telefantasy, we analyse three recent series commissioned from and produced in three different countries: the Mexican supernatural procedural Diablero (Netflix, 2018-2020), South African superhero fantasy The Brave Ones (Netflix, 2022-present), and the German-produced, but explicitly global sci-fi mystery 1899. ¹ In this article we employ formal and narrative analysis to highlight the hybrid local/global character of these series, while remaining sensitive to the local/global industrial conditions in which they were commissioned, produced and distributed. This analysis reveals what Tim Havens calls ‘conspicuous localism’ (2018). Havens notes for many contemporary big budget, transnational series favoured by global streaming services, ‘…part of the expense of these series comes from the variety of locations in which they are shot and the extensive use of HD cinematography to create a strong sense of place’ (2018). This expense is warranted because, Havens argues, ‘…dramas with a strong sense of authenticity offer cosmopolitan cultural capital to affluent viewers in a way that less conspicuously local production strategies do’ (2018). Global ‘locations’, ‘…both geographical place[s] and the setting[s] of the narrative’ (Grønlund, 2023: 209), are thus valuable in and of themselves, but further expense needed to create telefantasy’s requisite fantastical imagery in these locations extends this ‘conspicuousness’. It would be clear to Netflix subscribers watching these series that the streamer is spending significant capital to shoot on location and render culturally ‘authentic’ fantastical imagery from local folklore and cultural traditions with sufficient spectacle and fidelity to match US telefantasy series in its catalogue.

Out of all Netflix’s global telefantasy series, our three case studies were chosen for analysis because of where they were produced. Diablero and The Brave Ones are examples of Netflix facilitating a kind of production (big budget, special effects-heavy) required by telefantasy that is rare in the Global South countries of Mexico and South Africa respectively. In contrast, 1899 was produced in Germany, a Global North nation with substantial film production resources, where Netflix had already worked to produce the globally popular telefantasy series Dark (2017-2020). These local industrial conditions are important because they inform power relations between the US-based Netflix and the countries in which it is producing content. The telefantasy series we examine here are just a small part of what Trisha Dunleavy and Elke Weissmann describe as the ‘increasing flow of high-end drama productions being produced outside the US, often facilitated by means of transnational coproduction deals that entail full financing or co-financing from leading US-owned premium players’ (2023: 117). Likewise, in their 2021 edited collection Luca Barra and Massimo Scaglioni and their contributors tackle the recent influx of largely US subscription cable and SVOD money and production into European markets both large and small. In recent years cable channels like HBO and streamers like Netflix ‘dedicated more resources to original-content creation [in Europe] and had more and more titles in production at the same time in different countries’ (Jin, 2019). As The US’s longstanding effort of pushing its cultural products around the globe for commercial gain and cultural influence has arguably been exacerbated by its increasing ‘platform imperialism’. This is ‘an asymmetrical relationship of interdependence between the West, primarily the U.S., and many developing countries, characterised in part by unequal technological exchanges and therefore capital flows’ (Jin, 2019: 54). The series we discuss in this article can be read as evidence of platform imperialism. Globalisation has allowed a US-based transnational streaming service to channel capital into less established markets to produce content that is both authentically local and produced for the enjoyment of a global cosmopolitan audience hungry for such sense of authenticity.

The import of popular genres provides an avenue for the telling of local stories primed for global distribution through streaming. The ‘Global North-Global South’ and the ‘Anglosphere-rest of the world’ flows of content are subverted on a scale that was not viable before the global streaming assemblage became prominent in the past decade. We perform this analysis while being critical of Netflix as an entertainment behemoth prone to establish unequal industrial relationships and monopolise content distribution in local, regional, and global markets. Though it is a US-based company, Amanda Lotz argues that Netflix can be understood as ‘transnational’ from several perspectives in addition to where its content is produced, including its content’s reach and the location of its offices (2021). As Axelle Asmar, Tim Raats and Leo Van Audenhove note, Netflix’s ‘cosmopolitan strategy’ is an important branding exercise ‘to promote itself as a vehicle of tolerance and empathy across the world’ to avoid being perceived as a cultural interloper in foreign territories where it operates (2022: 33).

Evan Elkins has described platforms such as Netflix as ‘internationally scaled services with global user bases and financial interests stretching across territories’ (2019: 378). Netflix has capitalised on the proven success of non-Western commodities in global markets. As Lobato explains: ‘One of the distinctive features of internet-distributed television services is that they can enter into and compete in a large number of international markets without extensive in-country infrastructure’ (2019: 114). The examples we discuss below come from countries with ready-at-hand film industries that have long-established styles and talented cast and crew and follow Netflix’s established ‘…glocal blueprint that emphasis[es] cooperation over competition [and] pursue[s] a policy of hiring an abundance of homegrown talent’ (Edgerton, 2023: 132–133). Rather than building local industries from the ground up, as would be the case if Netflix produced local content in, say, Guatemala or Myanmar, the streaming service harnesses the creative and operational networks in countries with established audio-visual traditions and/or with a practical expertise of filmmaking; to name a few, Brazil, Argentina, France, Spain or South Korea (on Mexican Netflix operations see Gómez and Munoz Larroa, 2023; on Australian Netflix operations see Scarlata et al., 2022).

Netflix’s approach to commissioning high-end global telefantasy both complicates and reaffirms preconceived notions of cultural capitalism in what Trisha Dunleavy calls the ‘multiplatform era’ (2020: 337) or ‘TV IV’ (Jenner, 2018; Schlutz, 2016), where broadcast TV, cable and SVOD co-exist. Netflix’s near-global reach and global ‘bespoke’ (Lotz, 2022) content strategy makes it an ideal site to study this phenomenon. As a multinational ‘first tier’ (Scarlata and Lynch, 2023) SVOD, Netflix, like Amazon Prime Video and Disney +, produces and distributes an enormous amount of its own original content under a ‘conglomerated niche strategy’ (Lotz, 2017, 2022). As part of this strategy, Netflix commissions a vast range of global content across an equally vast spectrum of genres, from romantic comedies to children’s programming. In this article we focus on the telefantasy genre because of its potential to make local culture explicit via heightened, fantastical representations of national folklore and history.

Genre in streaming: adapting US formulas for global screens

As Lotz argues ‘Netflix’s content strategy functions as a sort of Rorschach prompt: most viewers see only the bit of the library that interests them, and thus that corner becomes the totality of their imagined “Netflix”’ (2022: 147). Netflix’s early commissions were focused on replicating ‘a model of premium drama characterized by high production values, edgy storytelling, and narrative complexity’ (Scarlata et al., 2022: 3–4) associated with US cable’s Quality TV dramas such as HBO’s The Sopranos (1999-2007). Emulating its US subscription cable predecessors, Netflix’s first ‘original’ series Lilyhammer (2012-2014) featured The Sopranos’ Steven Van Sandt as a gangster relocating to Norway. This Quality TV original content strategy continued with series such as Orange is the New Black (2013-2019) and House of Cards (2013-2018). These two series can be understood via Lotz’s observation that Netflix’s original series are familiar but distinct, or what she calls ‘shifted 45°’ (2022: 148). In this case the shift is in location, in and outside the US. Orange is the New Black revisits HBO’s early success with its prison drama Oz (1997-2003) but shifts the focus of the drama ‘45°’ into a women’s prison, with its attendant socio-political dynamics. Likewise, House of Cards might seem like a dark, cynical reimagining of broadcast Quality TV classic The West Wing (1999-2006) but is in fact a transnational adaptation of the homonymous British show directed by Paul Seed for the BBC (House of Cards 1990).

Though these series can still be said to have a US focus, Lilyhammer and Orange is the New Black offered a preview of the tilt towards a regional and audience diversity that is now one of Netflix’s defining characteristics as a global SVOD. Lilyhammer may have been centred around a US star (van Sandt) but was not really a ‘US series.’ It was set (and filmed) in Northern Europe, a ‘transnational co-production’ (Hilmes, 2014) between Netflix and Norwegian TV broadcaster NRK. Though its viewership on Netflix is hard to gauge, it was likely far more successful via domestic broadcast in Norway, where it garnered the eyeballs of a fifth of the entire population (Berglund, 2013), than in the rest of Netflix’s territories. Orange is the New Black, on the other hand, is a quintessentially US product with a white protagonist, but features and appeals to the underserved Latinx and African-American demographics. All told, this early era of Netflix’s original commissions helped establish and presage its current set of content strategies that target a diverse range of viewers via a more varied selection of genres, characters and settings.

The larger cultural ‘need’ to discuss Netflix (and SVOD in general) in terms of its relationship to traditional TV comes from what Lotz describes as the ‘hegemony of linear norms’ (2022) wherein TV’s medium and history-specific qualities seem natural for screen media consumed in the home on a TV. To counteract these old ways of thinking, even regarding genre, she proposes that ‘focusing on what content is about may not be the most useful language for conceptualizing the SVOD environment’ (2022: 43). Jason Mittell calls genres ‘cultural products, constituted by media practices and subject to ongoing change and redefinition’ (2004: 1). In this vein, Jenner (2018) and Lotz (2022) have highlighted a number of ways in which genre on streaming services differs from linear television. In the long run traditional genres may indeed become inconsequential to the analysis of screen content, but for the moment, we argue the cultural function of genre as outlined by Mittell remains in effect. Internally (and in their promotion) Netflix may downplay traditional genre categorisation in favour of new terms like altgenres and taste communities, but audiences continue to use genre to understand their own taste preferences and to find something that is worth watching. Instead, we focus here on how genres largely understood as US/Western creations are refashioned into something that can tell local stories from around the world.

Global telefantasy: local folklore on global screens

Each series examined in this article can be considered an example of telefantasy (Johnson, 2005). Telefantasy series are connected by their ‘significant representations of ‘fantastic’ events and objects that confound culturally accepted notions of what is believed to be real’ (Johnson, 2005: 4). Johnson argues that ‘it is possible to identify a set of representational strategies that arise from the shared concerns of texts that attempt to represent the unreal’ (2005: 57). Horror (Abbott and Jowett, 2013) and sci-fi (Johnson-Smith, 2005; Telotte, 2014) each have their own specific generic histories, and fantasy tends to be folded into analyses of either sci-fi or horror (Geraghty, 2009). The three genres encompassed by the term ‘telefantasy’ have tended to intersect (Johnson, 2015: 56). For example, sci-fi shows often contain frightening content, while horror shows may incorporate the magic and lore of fantasy. Though telefantasy series have not always been taken seriously by critics or drawn wide audiences, they do tend to generate valuable ‘cult’ fandoms. As Matt Hills notes regarding the entertainment media landscape from the early 2000s, ‘[cult]-consumers are no longer viewed as eccentric irritants, but rather as loyal consumers to be created, where possible, or otherwise to be courted through scheduling practices’ (2002: 11). This engagement and loyalty are especially valuable to streaming services, where revenue is directly tied to ongoing subscriptions.

Telefantasy’s industrial status and audience participatory function as a genre is clearly visible in how Netflix categorises such content for subscribers. As Matthew Freeman and Anthony N. Smith note ‘Netflix’s use of genre tags may be commonplace and even fairly obvious to describe, but it demonstrates a very important point: that genre, while working differently when viewed from either industrial, technological or participatory perspectives, remains the bedrock of today’s transmedia landscape’ (2023: 1). Browsing our own Netflix homepages, we observe the conflation of science fiction and fantasy as part of a single genre in the category ‘Sci-fi & Fantasy’ as well as the traditional audience for telefantasy in the category ‘Geeked: Sci-fi, Fantasy, Superhero & More.’ When observing each series’ individual pages, the language of genre is used to highlight their specific locality. For example, under ‘genre’ Diablero is first classified as ‘Mexican’, while The Brave Ones is listed as ‘South African.’ In this way we can see genre being deployed by Netflix at two levels. At the first level, both US and non-US series are sorted into expansive categories for viewers based on traditional, identifiable genres such as telefantasy. At the second, more granular level, the language of genre is used to distinguish these non-US series based on their locality. For example, Diablero is a horror series, but that genre is ‘shifted 45°’ (Lotz, 2022: 148) by being set in modern-day Mexico City and reflecting ancient Mesoamerican culture.

Each of the three series we address in this paper is undoubtedly indebted to the US and its history of telefantasy, thanks in part to Netflix’s US-based corporate identity and the country’s long history of television production and global export. Nonetheless, despite varying levels of success (judged by cultural impact and renewals), both Diablero and The Brave Ones meaningfully engage in national and regional cultural specificity in ways that complicate the idea of Netflix as simply extending US hegemony via cultural imperialism. In comparison, 1899s relationship to locality is complicated at the level of narrative and production thanks to its experimentation in ‘global’ storytelling and virtual production.

Diablero (2018-2020): demon hunters let loose in Mexico City

Diablero, created by J.M. Cravioto, echoes the narrative structure of the long-running US telefantasy series Supernatural (2005-2020) but subverts expectations by incorporating Mexican Indigenous and mestizo lore, making it more than a copycat of the long-running adventures of the Winchester brothers. Episodes are approximately an hour long, and follow a main narrative while incorporating satellite storylines, often missions, in each episode. ‘Diableros’ are demon catchers who fight, trade, and are sometimes possessed by supernatural entities. Like in 1970s mainstream supernatural horror cinema (1973’s The Exorcist or 1976’s The Omen), the plot revolves around a Judeo-Christian worldview in which the clergy works as a conduit for heavenly battles on Earth. The line between good and evil is complicated as pre-colonisation Mesoamerican cosmovision and even Korean mysticism (via a pair of migrants) get tangled up with divine creatures and fallen angels. The 2018 production was pioneering in Latin America as, for the first time, a local story was commissioned by Netflix. The streaming service launched a publicity campaign akin to its US counterparts. As Mexican newspaper El Universal highlighted when the second season was released in 2020, Diablero’s international appeal in the first season led to an increased budget (El Universal, 2020). Diablero was the first Latin American Netflix show to have an original song, ‘Futuro’ from Café Tacvba, a Mexican band that combines rock music and traditional genres such as cumbia and ranchera, and in doing so “mirrors the historical transformation of the Mexican national character” (Dillon, 1997: 76). Even though the show takes generic cues from supernatural television horror, showrunner J.M. Cravioto added a stronger sense of stylistic localism by referencing 1980s Mexican horror, luchador movies, and the grim, violently striking work of painters such as Daniel Lezama and Arturo Rivera (El Universal, 2020).

From the opening shot of the first episode, ‘The Demons Are Among Us’, it is clear that Diablero was shot on location in Mexico City. An elaborate long take starts with an aerial shot of the city’s nocturnal skyline and then moves into a room in one of Mexico City’s iconic apartment blocks, where a young child is kidnapped by a ghastly creature. We then follow one of the main characters, Elvis Infante (Horacio Garcia Rojas), as he takes a walk in the crowded streets of the city’s downtown area, where modern, colonial, and even pre-Hispanic architecture collide. We see dancers in Aztec attire entertaining tourists, and glimpses of the city’s Metropolitan Cathedral, which dates to 1573. In this first episode we see multiple signifiers of Mexico City’s cultural identity: the national team (la selección) playing soccer on TV, a pulquería (a traditional bar where pulque, the fermented sap of agave, is made), the city’s iconic subway, and a Catholic neighbourhood church. Netflix builds on the ‘cosmopolitan cultural capital’ signalled by this ‘conspicuous localism’ (Havens, 2018), by harnessing rich pre-Hispanic traditions concerning death and dying in Mexico, as well as a Catholic worldview with clear-cut distinctions between good and evil.

The plot, based on the novel El Diablo me obligó (2011) by F.G. Haghenbeck revolves around a group of misfits who hunt and trap demons, a hot commodity in the Mexico City black market. The show’s premise also spans a comic book spin-off, Mundo Diablo, released by Virus, an imprint of Heavy Metal in 2020 (Damore, 2020). In Diablero’s universe, demons are part of an underground economy that includes UFC-like battles between possessed humans. The dorky, theatrical tone of these battles draws, of course, from the long tradition of luchador movies in Mexican B-Movie culture, dating back to the glorious days of El Santo and Blue Demon, and their on-screen quarrels with mummies, werewolves, zombies, and many supernatural vermin. These luchador movies to which Diablero pays homage were key in the formation of cult-cinema audiences in Mexico, as well as in the establishment of a lowbrow aesthetic (Rauber Rodriguez, 2020).

In its global expansion, US telefantasy inserts itself into existing local assemblages of culture and televisual styles. In Diablero, former teenage heartthrob Christopher von Uckermann plays Father Ramiro Ventura, a young priest whose faith is tested when he learns that he has a daughter and that she has been taken by an evil entity. The show critiques the secrecy involving the Catholic Church and the power it holds in everyday life in Mexico, and Father Ventura’s secret romantic attachments are at the core of this critique. Through trying to save his newfound daughter, Father Ventura meets Elvis Infante and his group of demon busters. Von Uckermann plays his character with perpetual uneasiness, particularly as Ventura confronts Church authorities. Casting Von Uckermann could have been an attempt by Netflix to appeal to Spanish-speaking audiences in Latin America, Europe and diasporic Latinx communities in the United States, because of the international celebrity status that he earned through the teen telenovela Rebelde (Canal de las Estrellas, 2004-2006) and its tie-in music group, RBD.

When it was released, US critics compared Diablero with its English-language counterparts because of their generic similarities. ‘There are moments where Diablero is nothing more than a Mexico-set take on Constantine’, writes Kristen Lopez in IGN (2018). She concludes: ‘Diablero has some serious bumps, but if you enjoy any of the countless demon-based television shows out there, this one will similarly appease you’. However, what most reviews missed was the cultural specificity that connected with local audiences while ‘appeasing’ international viewers with its generic conventions. Shows like Diablero need to serve two masters. The comic book Mundo Diablo digs deeper into the local folklore built into the narrative. The co-writer of the graphic novel adaptation, Homero Ríos, said: ‘A quasi noir setting where angels, demons, and in general Judeo-Christian mythology combined with pre-Hispanic creatures such as the powerful naguals, sorcerers who can adopt the form of animals, Mundo Diablo is a very good example of the scope of the Latin American magical realism’ (Damore, 2020). With most US content drawing on cliches to construct caricature versions of Latin America, showing cultural mestizaje (a mixing of Mesoamerican and European traditions) in a non-solemn way is refreshing and escapes cultural over-appropriateness, which can be as pernicious as insensitive representations.

Actor Horacio García Rojas, who plays Elvis Infante, told Mexico News Daily: ‘Foreigners like this part of Mexico, the relationship that Mexico has with the mystical that no other country has, I think. Mexico has the fortune to have so many indigenous cultures and each one has their magic, and Diablero works with that’ (Riggs, 2018). Even though US shows such as The X-Files (1993-2018) and later Supernatural included Latin American folklore in their plotlines (with the mythical creature of El Chupacabras, for example), Diablero makes more explicit connections to the duality of postcolonial culture, where Indigenous and European worldviews and mythologies collide. This ambivalence is part of everyday life in contemporary Mexico (Lafaye, 1987) but is seldom shown on screen.

It is important to note that there is already a rich legacy of genre TV in Mexico, with the show La hora marcada (1998-1990) an important precedent as it was the testing ground for directors Alfonso Cuarón and Guillermo Del Toro, who would go on to become Hollywood power players (Aragón, 2010; Bouchard, 2018). Rather than a cookie cutter adaptation of a proven Hollywood TV genre, Diablero tapped into the traditions of Mexican horror film and TV, and the generic conventions of televised Mexican melodrama or telenovelas. This was done via one of the series’ directors, Rigoberto Castañeda, who established himself as a precursor in the industry with his Km 31 franchise (2006, 2016), in which he merged the legend of La Llorona with influences from J-horror, a stylistic and discursive move that bridged traditions of Mexican horror movies (and folklore) with more globally appealing trends. Km 31 was the second feature film by production house Lemon Films, which released the pioneering action flick Matando Cabos (Alejandro Lozano, 2004), which attempted to bring Hollywood production values to Mexican action cinema. With Matando Cabos and Km 31 Lemon Films tried to subvert the status quo in Mexican cinema and go beyond the arthouse trend of the early 2000s by making profitable, unashamedly ‘commercial’ films by infusing proven formulas with a local flavour, a tendency that transpires in Diablero.

The Brave Ones (2022-present): South African lore reimagined

As with Diablero, the South African fantasy/superhero series The Brave Ones draws from Global South folklore to deal with the otherworldly in a generic package intended for simultaneous global distribution. Like in Diablero, it is evident that The Brave Ones is shot on location in Johannesburg. The first episode begins with an animated prologue in which the story of The Tree of Life, which connects the worlds of the dead, the living and the unborn, is told. The story is told through a community elder, which puts an emphasis of the importance of oral cultures in South African indigenous lore. The visual style of this prologue, in 3D animation, has the dark, mystical look and feel typical of fantasy blockbuster franchises. We then move to a drone shot of the struggling neighbourhood in which the story takes place. The ‘cosmopolitan cultural capital’ (Havens, 2018) of shooting on ground level is quickly established by cinematography that showcases the hustle and bustle of Joburg.

It is worth noting that African film and TV is idiosyncratic and highly developed, with the production powerhouses of Nigeria/Nollywood and South Africa leading as two of the biggest entertainment epicentres in the world. As has happened in other Global South territories such as Latin America, Netflix has found that following genre conventions is a strategy that allows for both local appeal (Hollywood genres are finally being produced here) and international expansion (it is a known formula, but with a local twist). This is a strategic priority for Netflix. As Dorothy Ghettuba, Netflix’s director of local language series for Africa told Variety: ‘Our investment in Africa continues to grow and we just continue to do more and more shows. We believe that Africa is one of the major creative centres for great storytelling that resonates around the world, so it only makes sense for us to increase our investment with our slate, with an even more exciting slate’ (Ferreira, 2022). Ghettuba’s quote reveals how Netflix’s strategy relies on harnessing storytelling traditions from around the world and packaging them for global consumption. Generic labels aid in achieving resonance in international markets.

The Brave Ones is not the first genre-based Netflix incursion in South Africa. As TV scholar Bradfield (2023) has argued, Netflix used the spy genre to discuss women’s issues and gender power imbalances in contemporary South Africa through the series Queen Sono (2020), which ‘builds on the legacy of the professional female spy, like Sydney Bristow of ABC’s Alias (2001-2006) or Elizabeth Jennings of The Americans (2013-2018)’ (2023: 8). Netflix’s global telefantasy shows are ‘shifted 45°’ from US formulas, and their appeal, both locally and globally, resides in that ambiguity (Lotz, 2022: 148).

In The Brave Ones, Nigerian director Akin Omotoso delves into the political troubles of contemporary South Africa. Omotoso, who is now based in Los Angeles, is well-versed in Western generic conventions, having directed the sports drama Rise (2022) for Disney, about three Nigerian-Greek brothers, the Antetokounmpos, who find success in the NBA. Omotoso has stated that it was only through Netflix that his African telefantasy, which has hints of Afrofuturism, was possible, which speaks of the platform’s expanding influence on local markets: ‘I’ve always wanted to do this but there was just never the outlet to do it […] That dream met the platform, and you get to see more’ (Neophytou, 2022). Omotoso shows the tribulations of everyday South Africans (corruption, land rights, police brutality) while telling the story of a young woman who is the reincarnation of an ancient goddess (Sthandile Nkosi), a protector of the lands and its people, which makes it clear that this is as much telefantasy as it is veiled political critique. The Brave Ones follows the tradition of the wave of high-budget TV superheroes that culminated with Marvel TV properties first distributed via Netflix (Daredevil (2015-2018), Jessica Jones (2015-2019)) and later through Disney+ (see Lynch, 2022) but started with shows such as NBC’s Heroes (2006-2010), which heralded a diverse cast with storylines from around the world. The Brave Ones’ engagement with political issues also reminds us of the South African cinema of the 2000s, particularly Gavin Hood’s drama Tsotsi (2005). Omotoso brings together social realism and fantasy, with mixed but culturally relevant results. What matters here is not necessarily critical reception of shows like The Brave Ones, but how the conventions of US telefantasy are imported, remixed, and subverted by cultural specificity that also showcases local struggles on a global distribution platform.

Omotoso has emphasised how he uses telefantasy to invoke oral traditions emanating from African countries: ‘I wanted to create a show that harked back to my childhood and harked to that sort of spiritual, African god space, but also grounded in Johannesburg in this modern time’ (Mphande, 2022). African folklore was and still is silenced by decades of colonial oppression, and cultural and linguistic erasure. African cultural industries have largely existed in the periphery or are seen regionally (rather than nationally) by global entertainment companies. The fact that Omotoso, a director born and raised in Nigeria, was put in charge of a show that delves into South African mythology reveals how Netflix in particular, and the US entertainment complex in general, think in terms of regions, rather than countries or local cultures, when developing their production and distribution strategies.

In its global expansion as a distribution platform and content producer Netflix plays an ambivalent role in terms of its impact on local cultural industries and storytelling in a broader sense. On one hand, it offers an avenue for projects such as The Brave Ones that might never see the light of day. These projects include the 2023 series of dark fantasy short films African Folktales Reimagined. Co-produced by Netflix and UNESCO (the United Nations’ cultural body), the series includes entries from Uganda, Nigeria, Kenya, Mauritania, Tanzania, and South Africa. The stories were selected through a competition that received more than 2000 entries from Sub-Saharan Africa (Kimeu, 2023). On the other hand, it brings cookie-cutter formats, such as telefantasy, that could put a damper on the sustainable development of local production that has formats and stories that are unique to each culture.

1899 (2022): a sinking global event

Though global in focus, with a multinational, multilingual cast of characters, 1899 is by some measures a distinctly German series. It was created by German filmmakers Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese, who had previously released the sci-fi mystery Dark. Dark was Netflix’s first German-produced original series, and gained considerable critical clout. Given it ran for three seasons, we can intuit it met Netflix’s own internal metrics for success. Dark’s three seasons chronicle the past, present and future of the fictional German town of Winden and its nearby nuclear reactor. Though Dark begins with a familiar police procedural premise, it quickly blossoms into a vast web of narrative connections across several time frames and alternate dimensions (Holt, 2022). Despite being commissioned by the US-based Netflix, Dark is identifiably and ‘conspicuously’ from Germany (Havens, 2018), especially to global non-German audiences. Its landscapes, locations and architecture all reinforce its sense of place, and were captured by shooting on location in Germany, specifically, just outside of Berlin. Dark’s majority-German cast of actors and characters delivering German dialogue reinforce its status as German. In contrast, 1899 locates its narrative in several transnational settings, including Germany, but also Lebanon, China, Algeria, Denmark and the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. This kind of high-end, diverse, transnational narrative has been tried by Netflix before, in Sense8 (2015-2018). Sense8 was shot across nine different countries, an expense ultimately deemed too high by Netflix, which cancelled the series after two seasons (Holloway, 2017). Perhaps hoping to avoid such a situation again, 1899s diverse settings are achieved through virtual production techniques, rather than on-location shooting. We argue the seeds of 1899s presumed (given Netflix cancelled the series) failure to capture audiences can be found within the artifice of its narrative world, which speaks to the limits of its engagement with the global. It tries to be from everywhere but is ultimately from nowhere. 1899s status as ‘global’ telefantasy is artificial, both on and off the screen.

1899 was an attempt by Netflix to repeat Dark’s success but expanding its narrative scope beyond Germany. It follows a multilingual, multinational assortment of passengers aboard a cruise ship at the turn of the twentieth century who begin to experience paranormal events. First, they encounter an uninhabited ghost ship, then several people are mysteriously killed, and finally the ship is teleported to the middle of nowhere. These larger events are exacerbated by several peculiar people on board who are part of some larger conspiracy, able to access hidden areas and systems of the ship. Though a group of protagonists attempt to unlock the mysteries of the vessel, the larger reveal is much grander and stranger than they or the audience could have imagined: the entire experience is a computer simulation in which everyone ‘on the ship’ is trapped, and the series is actually set in the distant future.

1899s complex narrative and time/space spanning mystery suited the involved (but ultimately unfulfilled) multi-season plan Netflix had for the series but undermines its own internal stakes and efforts at global worldbuilding. Through flashback, each of the main characters’ histories are revealed via scenes set in their respective home nations. For example, Ling Yi (the aforementioned geisha) is given a complex and fascinating backstory which engages with specific regional histories of Asia. However, we argue the cleverness of this narrative feint is undermined by the ultimate revelation that none of what the audience has learned about these characters, or their backgrounds is diegetically ‘real’. In flashbacks Ling Yi Li is revealed to not be Japanese but a Chinese peasant, who had been recruited to travel to the West as a sex worker. The geisha ruse was a tactic to exploit Westerners’ sexual fascination with Japan, or what Yoko Kawaguchi calls ‘…a western image of oriental femininity based upon reports (some more accurate than others) of the Japanese pleasure quarters’ (2010: 1). The fact that this plan works on the majority of the Kerberos’ passengers (and presumably some Netflix audiences) could be considered an effective indictment of Western orientalism’s homogenisation of Asian culture and people (Said, 1978/2021). Netflix is, after all, a US-based company with global ambitions, that has itself been credibly accused of homogenising whole regions in its productions. One of its earliest and most successful global originals, the Colombia-set and partially-shot Narcos (Netflix, 2015-2017) was described as a ‘Global North assessment of a Global South reality [that] often lacks empathy and cultural nuance’ (Albarrán-Torres, 2021: 128). In Colombia, audiences were ‘irritated and amused by the show’s hodgepodge of accents’ from across South America (Brodzsinsky, 2015), especially given the cultural and linguistic specificity of the Colombian setting in general, and Medellín and Cali in particular. A generous reading of bo Odar and Friese’s intentions would be that 1899 and Ling Yi’s story is a self-aware critique of Netflix’s global production strategies, and the series’ own virtual production. That Ling Yi’s past and present are revealed as (diegetically) a sci-fi technological fiction created by a Westerner (Maura’s father Henry Singleton, played by British actor Anton Lesser) weakens the radical potential of the series to truly confront Asian cultural specificities and Western (particularly Netflix’s) cultural chauvinism. 1899s ‘global status’ is as artificial as the simulated world in which the Kerebos’s passengers are trapped.

1899s artificial rendering of the global extends to its production. As Guardian journalist Gwilym Mumford highlights, Netflix hoped that 1899 ‘would be a model for how planet-conquering series would get made: amassing a global cast on a revolutionary virtual production stage, and slotting it into a moreish puzzle-box mystery series’ (2023). Diablero and The Brave Ones were primarily filmed in the regions in which they are set, using local cast and crew. Despite its globe-hopping flashbacks and international cast, 1899 was filmed in the UK and Germany, with the majority of shooting occurring on an innovative 360-degree Volume virtual production stage, operated by series creators bo Odar and Friese’s sister company Dark Bay, at Studio Babelsberg. Virtual production ‘makes it possible for filmmakers to mix live footage and computer graphics interactively while filming on set’ (Ilmaranta, 2020: 321). The newest type of virtual production stages consists of LED (light-emitting diode) walls which are ‘used to plan or directly enhance imagery to portray impossible situations or settings with veracity’ (Pires et al., 2023: 24). In other words, these virtual stages combine longstanding filmmaking practices like green screens and matts that, whether in-camera or post-production, give the sense of space behind actors. Using virtual production to create believable facsimiles of actual global locations, Netflix is attempting to the achieve the ‘conspicuous localism’ that so appeals to cosmopolitan audiences (Havens, 2018), but without the on-location shooting which grounds this effect in an authentic way. This virtual production is not an entirely new concept, just one further streamlined by technological innovation. Certain locations have long since stood in for other places in film and television production. The uncanny rock formations of Vasquez Rocks, Southern California have been used to represent countless alien landscapes and Budapest, Hungary, has become a production hub in Europe because it can effectively stand in for ‘most major European cities from Moscow to London’ (Havens, 2023: 540). However, we argue this traditional ‘stand-in’ strategy for representation global location does not usually attempt to achieve the ‘conspicuously’ cosmopolitan aesthetic that comes from on-location shooting and local on-screen talent. In contrast, we argue that 1899 does attempt to achieve an illusory sense of ‘conspicuous’ localism by combining well-known transnational acting talent with virtual locations. Mirroring 1899s series villain Henry Singleton’s attempt to recreate the world and its diverse peoples and places via technology wizardry, 1899s virtual localism can be read as Netflix unsuccessfully attempting to present an ‘authentic’ sense of the global via a streamlined, artificial production process that keeps the West at its centre. This production strategy further complicates ‘Netflix’s [already] ambiguous position between a dominating US platform, and its role in increasing content diversity through its transnational offerings’ (Iordache, 2022: 2).

Conclusion

As we have argued, Netflix’s high-end global telefantasy commissions tend to follow one of two strategies: (1) local productions that engage with or reflect local folklore, myths and themes, or (2) productions centred in the West, where international talent is brought in to create cosmopolitan ‘global’ TV events. We argue that the first strategy offers more than copycats of its largely US and UK telefantasy counterparts: it brings together local storytelling traditions with a packaging that is palatable for global audiences. This is evident in two of our case studies: Diablero and The Brave Ones. However, the second strategy risks reducing ‘global’ production to a few tokenistic stars, and narratives which are ultimately from everywhere and nowhere at the same time, as in the ambitious German virtual production Experiment 1899, our third case study.

Through the analysis of our three case studies, we can identify a new and generative interplay between local production storytelling and US platforms and genres. Diablero and The Brave Ones in particular seem formulaic but fresh at the same time; conflicts and characters are stereotypical; but introducing Mesoamerican and African lore and cosmologies is novel. In these series, there seems to be limited innovation in how stories are being told, both structurally (narrative/genre) and formally (mise-en-scène), but plenty of barrier-breaking in what and whose stories are told, and at what scale of production. Contrarily, 1899 was an attempt to create a global event by combining established local (German) talent and production capability with a global cast and narrative. In attempting to be plausibly from everywhere, it was ultimately from nowhere.

The mix of proven genres and local idiosyncrasies makes for more authentic content, shows that are ultimately more likely to pique the interest of international audiences for different reasons. For Global North audiences, those situated in what Argentinian philosopher Enrique Dussel has called ‘culture of the centre’, which is ‘the culture that all other cultures are measured against’ (2003: 91), the storytelling at the heart of Diablero and The Brave Ones provides a window into the cultures of the ‘periphery’, albeit with a familiar packaging that renders the Other more approachable, opening avenues of critique on the commodification of said otherness.

On the flipside, for audiences in the Global South, in the ‘cultural periphery’ (Dussel, 2003: 91), Netflix’s global telefantasy provides a bridge to other forms of personal and collective storytelling that have been historically globally marginalised. Telefantasy is a fertile ground to do this as notions of the supernatural escape Judeo-Christian essentialisms and the imposition of colonial worldviews that have attempted to repress or change local religious and spiritual practices (see, e.g., Ekechi, 1971). There are points of contact, for example, between the colonised modern-day Mexico and South Africa in how pre-colonisation religious and spiritual practices resurface through telefantasy, providing entertaining material but also an avenue for cultural and often religious representation.

We must be cautious in misjudging Netflix’s attempts at multi-nationalism as an overhaul of US domination in entertainment media ecologies. As Lobato reminds us: ‘The dominance of U.S. media is still an empirical fact that must be reckoned with’ (2019: 142). Decisions to renew or halt the production of a show are not dependent on its local or regional flavour, but rather on global viewership and completion numbers, which in turn are dependent on the service’s recommendation algorithms (Van Es, 2023). US-based executives base their decision on whether to renew a show on data produced algorithmically and in real time. Until very recently (see Mass, 2023; Netflix, 2023), this data has been a tightly held secret. Netflix is ambivalent as a commercial, capitalist entity: it is both a data company and an entertainment company. As Karin van Es acknowledges:

To differentiate itself and add value to the market, Netflix needs to uphold their image as innovative company, leading the datafication and algorithmization of society. They therefore continue to celebrate data and algorithms, but now also create room in their narrative for humans and their creativity and expertise. (2023: 668)

Netflix is creating a network of audiences, industry professionals and talent that should be sustained if the company wants to be perceived as something more than an entertainment sweatshop. There are truly transnational chains of creative and professional labour that are being generated, and local industries can become increasingly dependent on streaming services. As has happened with other local screen entertainment industries when they rely on US-centric genres of commissions/productions, Netflix-dependent industries globally could face an existential crisis when a specific genre or content from a specific location is no longer deemed to be viable and Netflix’s capital is no longer invested (see Toonkel, 2023). For example, the Italian film industry faced an existential crisis after the craze over Hollywood genres such as the Western or the sand and sandal epic was over (see Robé, 2014). As evidenced by our examples, Netflix’s high-end global telefantasy has the potential to harness the creative energy and cultural richness of well-established but underfunded TV industries.