Jaclyn Moore is standing up to Hollywood’s nonsense
25 anti-trans bills have been rolled out so far, many of them attacking the rights of trans kids—she finds herself in the important position of having to educate everyone around her.Last October, Netflix—the company Jaclyn Moore was employed with while working on four delightful seasons of “Dear White People”—released Dave Chappelle’s hour-long comedy special “The Closer,” a monologue that never strayed far from its central themes of transphobia and transmisogyny.“After the Chappelle special, I can’t do this anymore.
I won’t work for @netflix again as long as they keep promoting and profiting from dangerous transphobic content,” Moore wrote on Instagram the day Chappelle’s special dropped.
A post shared by Jaclyn Moore (@jaclynpmoore)It was the clapback heard ’round the world: or at least, around Hollywood. For every trans actor, screenwriter, and hopeful TV worker who dreads the inevitable day the industry will make the choice to hang us out to dry rather than protect us from transphobia, Moore’s bravery in stepping away from Netflix represented an important shift.
Sure, we can get high-powered jobs at Netflix and work to create better representation. But if we don’t stand behind our words, if we don’t stand up for ourselves, what is all that representation really for?“[Chappelle] doesn’t see what the messages of these jokes do to people,” Moore told Variety after leaving Netflix. “He talks about our feelings being hurt.
