The Age of Netflix
Page 12
To invent the future is a daunting task, and communities with few resources know they have more challenges in doing so or even imagining how to begin doing so. Communities are not entities that exist and then happen to communicate within themselves. They are constituted by their forms of communication.58 Digital communities free from the oversight of a moderating center have existed for years thanks to the openness of the Internet. The promise of the digital age as envisioned by Baran and those early engineers of a radically different mode of communication was that people who wanted to could live differently—“more co-operatively and less competitively or hierarchally.”59 If counter-political movements in the past decade have taught us anything, it is that alternatives are possible—alternatives that grow out of the very decentralized networks the Internet was built on. Therefore, in this case the most productive action we can take toward keeping the Internet open is to do nothing to it at all—sort of.
NOTES
1. There is an inherent challenge in writing essays about issues that are still under debate that the writing may come across as ripped-from-the-headlines. While the legal and popular discussion of the Netflix/Comcast deal is ongoing, this essay is meant to contextualize the debate within the context of the development of the Internet as well as larger discussions about Netflix’s current and potential role in maintaining an open Internet.
2. Johnny Ryan, A History of the Internet and the Digital Future (London: Reaktion Books, 2010), 7.
3. Jeff Sommer, “Defending the Open Internet,” New York Times, May 10 2014, BU1.
4. Ibid.
5. Lily Hay Newman, “Mark Zuckerberg: ‘It’s Not Sustainable to Offer the Whole Internet for Free,” Slate, May 4, 2015, accessed May 4, 2015, http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2015/05/04/zuckerberg_announces_changes_to_internet_org_responding_to_net_neutrality.html.
6. The Sunlight Foundation, a nonpartisan non-profit that has tasked itself with holding the government and corporations that control data more accountable and transparent, has developed a list of thirty-one policy recommendations for more transparency in data sharing and management by government agencies. See Sunlight Foundation, “Open Data Policy Guidelines,” Sunlight Foundation, accessed January 3, 2016, http://sunlightfoundation.com/opendataguidelines/.
7. Physics Department University of Virginia, “Centrifugal Force,” University of Virginia Physics Show, accessed January 2, 2016, http://phun.physics.virginia.edu/topics/centrifugal.html.
8. Ryan, A History of the Internet, 8.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. Ibid., 14.
12. Ibid.
13. Keenan Mayo and Peter Newcomb, “How the Web Was Won,” Vanity Fair, July 2008, accessed January 2, 2016, http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/07/internet200807.
14. Paul Baran, On Distributed Communication Networks (Santa Monica, CA, 1962), 40.
15. Ryan, A History of the Internet, 32.
16. Steve Crocker, “How the Internet Got Its Rules,” New York Times, April 6, 2009, A29.
17. Ryan, A History of the Internet, 92.
18. Lily Hay Newman, “ICANN Got Hacked,” Slate, December 18, 2014, accessed December 19, 2014, http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2014/12/18/icann_hacked_in_spear_phishing_campaign.html.
19. Thomas Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2014), 209.
20. “Protection for private blocking and screening of offensive material,” Cornell University Law School, accessed December 12, 2014, http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/230.
21. Craig Calhoun, “Public,” New Keywords: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society, ed. Tony Bennett, Lawrence Grossberg, and Meaghan Morris (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), 282.
22. William D. Nordhaus, “Paul Samuelson and Global Public Goods: A Commemorative Essay for Paul Samuelson,” speech, Yale University, New Haven, CT, May 5 2005, 2.
23. Michael Wines and John Schwartz, “Unsafe Lead Levels in Tap Water Not Limited to Flint,” New York Times, February 8, 2016, accessed March 10, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/09/us/regulatory-gaps-leave-unsafe-lead-levels-in-water-nationwide.html?_r=0.
24. Frank Webster, “Network,” New Keywords: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society, ed. Tony Bennett, Lawrence Grossberg, and Meaghan Morris (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), 241.
25. Gautham Nagesh, FCC Net Neutrality Plan Draws Fire from Within,” Wall Street Journal, February 10, 2015, accessed January 3, 2016, http://www.wsj.com/articles/fcc-net-neutrality-plan-draws-fire-from-within-1423610580.
26. Zachary Seward, “The Inside Story of How Netflix Came to Pay Comcast for Internet Traffic,” Quartz, August 27, 2014, accessed December 1, 2014. http://qz.com/256586/the-inside-story-of-how-netflix-came-to-pay-comcast-for-Internet-traffic/.
27. Ibid.
28. Warren Richey, “Supreme Court to Decide Case on Animal Cruelty and Free Speech,” Christian Science Monitor, October 5, 2009.
29. “How Netflix Is Changing the TV Industry,” Investopedia, November 3, 2015, accessed January 3, 2016, http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/060815/how-netflix-changing-tv–industry.asp.
30. Larry Magid, “What Are SOPA and PIPA and Why All the Fuss?” Forbes, January 18, 2012, accessed December 26, 2014, http://www.forbes.com/sites/larrymagid/2012/01/18/what-are-sopa-and-pipa-and-why-all-the-fuss/.
31. Jim Puzzanghera, “FCC Asking if Free-Data Plans from T-Mobile, AT&T, and Comcast Break Internet Rules,” Los Angeles Times, December 17, 2015, accessed January 2, 2016, http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-fcc-tmobile-free-video-20151217-story.html.
32. Greg Elmer, Critical Perspectives on the Internet (Lanham, MD: Rowan & Littlefield, 2002), 28.
33. Digital Agenda for Europe, European Commission, accessed December 1, 2014.
34. Center for the Digital Future, USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, accessed December 1, 2014, http://www.digitalcenter.org/.
35. HarvardX, “Digital Futures Consortium Meeting,” Harvard University, accessed March 10, 2016, http://harvardx.harvard.edu/event/digital-futures-consortium-meeting-1.
36. Malcolm Gladwell, “Does Egypt Need Twitter?” The New Yorker, February 2, 2011, accessed December 1, 2014. http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/does-egypt-need-twitter.
37. Reed Hastings, “Culture,” Slideshare, accessed December 1, 2014, http://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664.
38. “Netflix Prize,” accessed December 1, 2014. http://www.netflixprize.com/.
39. The Netflix Tech Blog, “Netflix Hack Day—Autumn 2015,” November 9, 2015, accessed January 2, 2016, http://techblog.netflix.com/2015/11/netflix-hack-day-autumn-2015.html.
40. Adam Epstein, “The Ideas for Improving Netflix’s UI were all invented by Netflix,” Quartz, November 12, 2015, accessed January 2, 2016, http://qz.com/548058/the-best-ideas-for-improving-netflixs-ui-were-all-invented-by-netflix/.
41. Alex Fitzpatrick, “Internet Access Is a Human Right, Says United Nations,” Mashable, July 6, 2012, accessed May 24, 2015, http://mashable.com/2012/07/06/internet-human-right/.
42. Ryan, A History of the Internet, 33.
43. “How Political and Social Movements Form on the Internet and How They Change Over Time,” Institute for Homeland Security Solutions, November 2009, accessed December 1, 2014, http://sites.duke.edu/ihss/files/2011/12/IRW-Literature-Reviews-Political-and-Social-Movements.pdf.
44. Marguerite Reardon, “Comcast vs. Netflix: Is This Really About Net Neutrality?” CNET, May 15, 2014, accessed May 24, 2015, http://www.cnet.com/news/comcast-vs-netflix-is-this-really-about-net-neutrality/.
45. Ibid.
46. Ibid.
47. Reed Hastings, “Internet Tolls and the Case for Strong Net Neutrality,” Netflix, March 20, 2014, accessed May 24, 2015, http://blog.netflix.com/2014/03/internet-tolls-and-case-for-strong-net.html.
48. Ibid.
49. Bridgett Shrivell, “15 Predictions for t
he Future of the Internet,” PBS Newshour, March 11, 2014, accessed December 1, 2014, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/15-predictions-future-Internet/.
50. Ibid.
51. Ibid.
52. John Dilley, “Internet and Inequality: The Digital Divide Gets Personal,” betanews, October 8, 2014, accessed December 1, 2014, http://betanews.com/2014/10/08/Internet-and-inequality-the-digital-divide-gets-personal/.
53. Mark Graham, “The Machines and Virtual Portals: The Spatialities of the Digital Divide,” Progress in Development Studies 11.3 (2011): 211–227.
54. Colleen A. Reilly, “Teaching Wikipedia as Mirrored Technology,” First Monday 16.1–3 (2011), http://www.firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2824.
55. Ibid.
56. Digital Divide, ICT Information Communications Technology—50x15 Initiative, March 21 2014, accessed April 13, 2014, http://www.Internetworldstats.com/links10.htm.
57. Denis Keseris, “Net Neutrality: The Struggle for the Future of the Internet Has Only Just Begun,” The Telegraph, May 23, 2015, accessed May 24, 2015, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/11624917/Net-Neutrality-the-struggle-for-the-future-of-the-Internet-has-only-just-begun.html.
58. David Morley, “Communication,” New Keywords: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society, ed. Tony Bennett, Lawrence Grossberg, and Meaghan Morris (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), 50.
59. Richard Johnson, “Alternative,” New Keywords: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society, ed. Tony Bennett, Lawrence Grossberg, and Meaghan Morris (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), 4.
Part Two: Netflix as Producer and as Distributor
* * *
Doing Time
Queer Temporalities and Orange Is the New Black
MARIA SAN FILIPPO
Part of what has made queerness compelling as a form of self-description in the past decade or so has to do with the way it has the potential to open up new life narratives and alternative relations to time and space.—J. Halberstam1
I’m scared that I’m not myself in here, and I’m scared that I am.—Piper, “Bora Bora Bora” (2013)
Breaking Out of the Primetime Prison
The two-minute, 40-second trailer used to promote the first season of Orange Is the New Black (2013–; subsequently referenced as OITNB) explicitly voices the word “time” no less than five times and invokes time’s passage throughout. The first utterance comes when WASP-y Smith College graduate Piper Chapman (Taylor Schilling) and her Jewish writer fiancée Larry Bloom (Jason Biggs) break the news to Piper’s family about her criminal past and encroaching incarceration on drug-related charges. Swayed by her 22-year-old self’s infatuation with, as Larry describes, “her lesbian lover who ran an international drug smuggling ring,” Piper admits to having “carried a suitcase full of drug money once, ten years ago.” In the first of her many inappropriate responses throughout the series, Piper’s haughty mother Carol Chapman (Deborah Rush) responds, aghast, “You were a lesbian?!” “At the time,” Piper stresses. The scene from which this dialogue is taken appears early into OITNB’s pilot episode (“I Wasn’t Ready” [2013]) and immediately signals the conflation of criminality with lesbianism that will be voiced throughout the series by characters such as Piper’s mother who represent normative values. Though omitted from the trailer, the remainder of this exchange has Piper questioned further, this time by her brother Cal (Michael Chernus), who asks, “Are you still a lesbian?” Piper replies, firmly, “No, I’m not still a lesbian.” This prompts still another, only half-sarcastic, rejoinder from husband Larry: “Are you sure?” Tellingly, we do not see Piper reply; her sexuality, as we will see, is subject to logic irreducible to a single moment or label. Piper’s grandmother Celeste (Mary Looram) chimes in conspiratorially, “I once kissed Mary Straley when I was at Miss Porter’s School. It wasn’t for me.” This cheeky exchange also announces the crucial relationship that binds both criminality and sexuality to time, wherein Piper’s imminent detention stems from a long-ago infraction (she was charged with the crime two years shy of the statute of limitations expiring), while her self-identity as lesbian remains similarly rooted in another time—a sexual past that, like her criminal past, re-emerges in the present. Their combined re-emergence will have resounding effects on Piper’s future, foretold by two additional lines spoken in the season one trailer: the first, issued by the formidable Russian-born inmate known as Red (Kate Mulgrew), gives voice to the terrifying possibility that Piper cannot herself acknowledge: “You’ll leave [prison] in a body bag.” The second line, spoken through a cell phone, has Larry responding to the news that his now-imprisoned fiancée has reconciled with former partner (and partner-in-crime) Alex Vause (Laura Prepon) by saying, “I think I need some time.” Again, the last bit of the exchange is omitted, when Larry clarifies that what he needs is “time away from you [Piper].” As an upper middle class, 30-something white American woman engaged to be married, Piper’s two seemingly assured futures—of a long life and of marital union—are abruptly cast into doubt.
This shattering breakdown in Piper’s secure recognition of herself as a “straight” citizen, in both the legal and the heteronormative senses, is signaled by the trailer’s audio track sounding the plaintive opening lyrics to “A Better Son/Daughter,” musician Jenny Lewis’s paean to bipolar disorder: “Sometimes in the morning, I am petrified and can’t move…. And [I] hope someone will save me this time.”2 Lewis’s plea for salvation stands in for that of Piper, whose entrapment initially appears merely physical—15 months’ confinement within the fictional Litchfield Federal Penitentiary in upstate New York—but soon reveals itself to be psychical as well, both for the toll prison takes on her mental well-being as well as for the mindset of white normativity that encloses her. In using Piper—who fits conventional norms of characterization (i.e. white, young, attractive, and upwardly mobile) for a “relatable” television series protagonist—as a “Trojan horse,” OITNB enfolds viewers within an underrepresented world of disenfranchised American women whose collective entrapment reveals Piper’s relatively lenient sentencing to be far more predicated on privilege than punishment.3 In so doing, OITNB reveals how temporality is subject to a logic governed by sexuality as well as race and class, one which uses time’s binds as mechanisms of discipline and punishment to delay and deny certain citizens their pursuits of happiness.
Writing in 1990, Mary Ann Doane claimed, “The major category of television is time…. [T]ime is television’s basis, its principle of structuration, as well as its persistent reference.”4 Television has undergone radical ontological, structural, and discursive shifts since the time of Doane’s writing, but temporality remains persistently part of the discussion on, of, and in television. Certainly “time,” as OITNB’s season one trailer indicates, is on these characters’ minds–and on the minds of the series’ creator Jenji Kohan and its distributor Netflix. In addition to the freedom, also enjoyed by cable series, from FCC content restrictions, Kohan and her writing staff enjoy temporal freedom in the form of flexibility in length. Says Kohan, “We could be anywhere from 54 minutes to an hour, depending on the episode.”5 In releasing all of OITNB’s first season at once, Netflix delivered a binge-watched, Emmy award-winning hit that reinforced the media platform’s growing success with digitally distributed original content when it gained a reported 1.3 million U.S. subscribers (plus another 1.4 million international subscribers), thereby topping HBO’s American customer base, in the financial quarter of OITNB’s initial release.6 OITNB’s second season release in July 2014 again proved potent, pushing Netflix’s customer base past the 50 million mark and boosting its international users by over a million.7
Echoing Doane’s assessments of television’s pre-millennial power, Amy Villarejo notes, “Television ushers in worldwide calendarity, a general economy of social time. Television is … the implantation of social time of the twentieth century.”8 In an effort to refresh its brand since its ill-advised and short-lived 20
11 attempt to bifurcate its by-mail and streaming services, and to pave the way for its entry into original content programming, Netflix in 2013 issued as part of its annual “Long-Term View” mission statement a proclamation that “‘the linear TV experience’ with its programs offered at set times … ‘is ripe for replacement.’”9 Tellingly invoking the prison-like hold over viewers that primetime scheduling long maintained, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings characterizes the system as one of “managed dissatisfaction”: “a totally artificial concept” that keeps viewers waiting—for a new episode, for a new season, and for an opportunity to discuss any given show with others.10 In touting its ability to transform reception practices and liberate viewers from temporal mandates, Netflix ostensibly is poised to dismantle what Gary Needham calls television’s power to “schedule normativity” through its authority over the “temporal coordination of the nuclear family”—alongside, I would add, that of the corporate workplace, as the proverbial water cooler that invites communal discussion of television shifts to the online realm.11 Time-shifting capabilities have challenged this normative television schedule’s corralling of what Needham calls “the marginal audience: the un-familial, the singleton, the childless couple, queers” into the “marginal zone” of post–10:00 p.m. programming.12 But to what degree has liberation from the tyranny of time-contingent viewing, cord-dependent shared consoles, and multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs)—i.e., cable operators like Comcast, satellite carriers like DirecTV, and fiber-optic network providers like Verizon FiOS—in favor of time-shifting, personal/mobile devices, and online video distributors such as Netflix actually freed viewers, temporally or otherwise, from normative family and corporate values? Does Needham, writing in 2009, need to reevaluate his claim that “it still holds that television, mass medium and commercial entity, imagines that the family audience is the ideological glue that holds it together”?13