‘Netflix Is A Joke: The Festival’ Adds More Shows Including Billy Eichner To Host ‘Stand Out: An LGBTQ+ Celebration’
deadline.comWith less than four weeks until the festival begins, Netflix Is A Joke: The Festival has added new shows to its lineup, including top stand-up performances, Netflix series cast events, as well as a free outdoor fan experience.
The festival, which now boasts over 250 live shows across over 30 venues covering Los Angeles, is produced by Netflix in association with Live Nation.
One of the added highlights of the event is the Billy Eichner-hosted Stand Out: An LGBTQ + Celebration. The celebration is happening in the wake of the October 2021 Netflix controversy that saw LGBTQ employees stage an office walkout due to what they considered to be transphobic content during Dave Chappelle’s Netflix comedy special, The Closer.
Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos received backlash due to two internal emails — sent out on the same day and leaked days apart — in which he defended Chappelle and argued that content like The Closer does not “directly translate to real-world harm.”Emmy winner Hannah Gadsby took her fellow comedian Chappelle, the streamer and Sarandos to task for the executive listing her in a memo to staff as one example of Netflix’s commitment “to ensure marginalized communities aren’t defined by a single story.” In what was Sarandos’ second unsuccessful attempt to smother the outrage over Chappelle’s hurtful and repeated remarks about the trans and LGBTQ+ communities, the exec later admitted he badly handled the responses as trans staffers and more publicly protested The Closer and the company.
