Netflix Synthesis Essay

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Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer fled Germany during the Second World War, where they were exiled in America. Once there, they were exposed to American entertainment, and generated the now famous theory of the ‘culture industry’. The pair saw the media products of 1940s America as identical, all built around similar ideas with no individual creativity to distinguish them from one another. This is what constituted the culture industry, a production line in which media products are sent out one after another, none of which challenge the status quo, instead simply supporting it. When we look at this theory in our current media climate, it is clear that the revolutionary works of online streaming services such as Netflix have fundamentally challenged notions of what we know as the culture industry, through …show more content…

A program such as ‘Orange is the New Black’ (2013) which features a diverse cast of transgender and queer people of colour set in a women’s prison falls wide outside the status quo of 21st century society. This program instead encourages its viewers to challenge the dominant ideologies of now by placing a spotlight on those emerging ones. This includes the treatment of transgender women in prison, America’s growing rate of private penitentiaries and the overrepresentation of black and Hispanic women in the prison system. Additionally, Netflix produced ’13 Reasons Why’ (2017) is another series that brings stories of those underrepresented to the main screen. The program follows a teenage girl who commits suicide, exploring the impact of topics rarely, or not effectively, discussed in the media landscape including sexual assault, mental health and bullying. The belief that the culture industry, of which Netflix is now a significant part of, aims to uphold the status quo is challenged by programs such as

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