Spielberg vs. Netflix Is a Battle With No Winners

We place a lot of foolish pride and importance in institutions. It is inherent in nearly all of our social and political grievances. Since 2016, we’ve been in a panic about how The White House, Congress, The Supreme Court, the GOP, and the Democratic Party as institutions are being ripped of their “sanctity” by the influx of partisanship and disregard for standard procedure. We act shocked at how Ivy League universities, supposed nurturers of America’s brightest minds and future innovators, have been allowing children of ungodly rich socialites and celebrities to scheme and cheat their way to degrees.

Why we hold these institutions in such high regard requires a four-year course in philosophy. I can’t explain all that here. I can tell you, however, that our constant shock by what has been a perpetual state of institutional corruption reveals how naturally subservient we have become to the phantom powers that hang above us. Institutions gain their reputation through money. That same money is what buys their attention.

This shouldn’t be surprising to anyone, but it is. Steven Spielberg, Netflix, Hollywood studios, Cannes, and the Oscars are institutions of a film and television industry which have sparked a battle over the changing landscape of cinema. But these battles are, as film critic Ignatiy Vishnevetsky analogized it, another Alien vs. Predator. Neither Steven Spielberg nor Netflix is battling to save the future of movies. They’re only battling to save themselves. I hope we realize this before we’re shocked again.

Steven Spielberg

Spielberg is the filmmaker I grew up on. I, like many people, am emotionally drawn towards the pleasantries of his cinema. Even his harshest films like Schindler’s List whittle the gravitas of complex and unbearably horrifying moments in history into digestible morsels, giving the feeling that you’re watching and engaging with something important without having to do extraneous mental work for it. Spielberg believes in this brand because he has seen first hand that it works. It’s the reason why he has praised the political laziness of Green Book.

Capitalism in the film industry banks on that same baseline model; the ability to make a profit from a reliably efficient product that people are comfortable with and can become easily accustomed to. This has made Spielberg’s position in Hollywood one of near-indestructibility. He’s an ace-in-the-hole for financiers and he is talented and influential enough of an artist that he cannot be ignored by cinephiles.

Powerful industry people like him hold other people and institutions in power like concentric circles of a spider’s web. This is the reason why Spielberg fights so hard on behalf of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the Oscars). As I mentioned in my previous article, the Academy is only important because Hollywood believes it to be important. The recognition it gives to its nominees and winners is expected to be reciprocated by those same people in signing onto projects by the people who voted for them.

Spielberg’s fear of Netflix’s inclusion in the Oscars discussion is based on the belief that it will be disruptive to the traditionalist idea of cinema. He is both right and wrong. The definition of art becomes skewed with technology. Is a sculpture designed using CAD software and 3D printed with lasers still a sculpture? Is a book that is not physically in hand, but projected as a digital copy on an iPad still a book? Is a movie that is made to be viewed on one’s phone still a movie? I’m inclined to say both yes and no. The words we use for artistic mediums and devices must change in meaning with technological advancements, or at least be appropriated with the collective mental acknowledge of this transfer. I am typing out this essay on my computer, but I will tell everyone that I wrote it.

I understand Spielberg’s discomfort. I am someone who has always romanticized the idea of the movie theater. Good movies simply look better on a giant screen. The overall cerebral experience, the conjoining of darkness and sound, even the occasional rustling of popcorn bags, is a unique experience that can’t be replicated anywhere else. Seeing films in their original print is, nerdy sure, but also a living breathing communication with cinema’s history. But Spielberg’s love for cinema is not the only thing that has him chanting that “there should always be theaters”. It’s a business move, one guided by his understanding that the movies he invests in and finances are going to go through a serious overhaul with the inclusion of a disruptor like online streaming.

Netflix

Netflix’s desire to be a major player in the Oscars and Emmys is a play that the company wants to be taken seriously as a movie and TV studio. It knows that movies and shows generally get a bump in revenue right after receiving nominations and awards. Spielberg’s proposed rules change would force Netflix to have to screen their films in theaters for a four-week stretch to be eligible which is something that, in my opinion, would behoove of Netflix to do.

Amazon Studios already screens all of its original movies in theaters before appearing on their streams, so for Netflix, this wouldn’t be an unprecedented risk. None of this really bothers me. What does bother me is that Netflix’s tiff with Spielberg has conveniently and creepily allowed Netflix to behave like it is millennial fighting a boomer, and people are falling for it.

The Silicon Valley tech boom’s most terrifying achievement is how it has cleverly managed to transform the image of the traditional corporation into a believable human façade. The idea of corporate personhood is centuries old and has been upheld since 1886 when the Supreme Court case County of Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific Railroad set the precedent that corporations had the same protections under the Fourteenth Amendment that citizens do. In recent times with social media increasing engagement amongst people, companies have begun to embrace this personhood in literal everyday practice.

When whoever is behind Netflix’s twitter account sent out a tweet in retaliation to Spielberg, they addressed the company in the first person, including it in a collective “we” with the populace of marginalized folks in the industry who feel Spielberg’s generation has behaved as elitist gatekeepers in Hollywood. They also professed a love for cinema.

I have Netflix. I know its benefits. I know that every time I see that a film I’m hyped for was “picked up by Netflix” from Sundance or other festivals I feel a bit of relief that I won’t have to go walk several blocks in the cold of March to the theater and spend $13 to see it. I also know that Netflix is not providing me any of this convenience and low cost because it loves cinema and/or me. It provides this because the business model works.

Silicon Valley has become a disruptor to many traditionalist models because it embraces the use of technology for hyper-convenience. It allows someone to engage with the American economy without having to go anywhere. There is fear for the extinction of the theatrical experience because streaming services provide both convenience and affordability.

I want to stress that whoever sent out the tweet was a human person behind the brand of Netflix’s account. A corporation cannot love cinema. A corporation cannot love you. The recent cancellation of One Day at a Time and the burying of great films like Orson Welles’ The Other Side of the Wind from its front page, because they don’t perform at the site’s standards, proves that Netflix still runs on the same rules that Hollywood’s major studios run on.

The fact that Netflix taken on a greater proportion of projects from people of color (The 13^th, Mudbound, Hasan Minhaj: Patriot Act, Beasts of No Nation, Okja, Roma etc.) is great news and signifies that the company clearly understands that greater equity in who gets represented is a business model that is becoming more financially viable. But it is a business model, which means that the moment it stops turning up profit, we’re going to be in for a rude awakening.