When looking in a broad sense at the world and at various different cultures, I don’t see any one culture being above any other. When learning about different walks of life that people take, it seems that each culture has some exceptional traits, some big lessons from its past and its evolution that it can share with the world. Excitement or curiosity for a broader view of life that comes with taking a peek into those lessons is what makes me a fan of stories, and also a fan of movies.
Having this view, however, appeared to be quite a target. I am speaking about a situation here in Slovenia, when I say that for long TV content was simply saturated with movies produced in American film industry. What this means, is that American way of life, American view and values are supported and promoted more than any other. In a way, in how I experienced it at least, this tries to force you in believing in a superiority of a particular culture.
I don’t have anything agains American culture, but I don’t like that attept of an image of superiority. That I simply don’t believe and don’t agree with. … That is where Netflix came in for me – establishing that balance. Delivering something that changes this picture significantly.
Global production
Netflix began as a rental-and-sales of DVDs in 1997, but is now a global provider of movies and series. What I notices first, was that very diversity in the content that it offers. It brings stories from many countries of the world with diverse styles of production and diverse languages. It also introduces many new actors and actresses (as well as the personnel in the backstage).
I have done many checks of companies for my work, so I did the same in this case and went to check the identity of Netflix as a company. With a brief look I noticed the following:
Company’ mission is encapsulated here: Stories move us. They make us feel more emotion, see new perspectives, and bring us closer to each other.
They seem to be a company that heavilty leans on their mission statement to glue the personnel together and to aling their efforts well. One of the things they emphasise is that they have “no rules rule”. They give a lot of freedom to the people who work there. They want people to be able to express themselves and to show who they are, how they think, and so on. (Which is, if you read previous content, a characteristic of a transformational model of leadership.)
We want more people and cultures to see themselves reflected on screen – so it’s important that our employees are as diverse as the communities we serve.
This is the statement that responds specifically to my experience with Netflix’s content. It seems to be one of the main guidelines of the company to produce this diverse content or to not give superiority to a particulat chosen one. So … my instinctive thought and observation is definitely not (just) a coincidence.
Conclusion
I didn’t go too deep into analysing Netflix as a company, because this is not what this post is about. It is rather about and idea and a project that is their movies and series platform, and about what it brings. I think in at least two terms, i. e. global production of movies with representing diverse cultures and walks of life, and additionally also with presenting many new actors, actresses and personnel behind the stage, this is a project with a very positive tone.
Paradim 