Can you guess which of these quotes came from a politician and which came from a show for three-year-olds?
“There are at least three [genders].”
“I say to all trans and nonbinary people: We see you. We love you. We will never stop fighting for you.”
“I’m nonbinary … And I also use ‘they’ and ‘them’ because calling me a ‘she’ or a ‘he’ doesn’t feel right to me.”
Can you guess which one does not belong? As it turns out, these quotes are from former President Joe Biden, former Vice President Kamala Harris, and Netflix’s Ridley Jones, respectively. When TV shows for children start sounding like politicians rushing to embrace the identity crazes of the day, something has gone terribly wrong.
Yet, this is what parents are increasingly facing when they turn on the TV for their children. Anyone with a cursory familiarity with Netflix and its children’s programming will not be surprised by a new report, which suggests that 41% of children’s shows on the streaming service include LGBT content. In other words, if you sit 10 children down in front of 10 different children’s shows on Netflix, four of them will be exposed to LGBT programming, according to Concerned Women for America.
This does not mean every one of these shows, such as Ridley Jones, has a central plotline as absurd as a bison coming out as nonbinary to his grandmother. The report explains that “representation was categorized as ‘Explicit’ (characters clearly identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, or nonbinary), ‘Implied’ (non-primary characters or ‘queer-coded’ characters), or ‘Meta’ (gay families or participants in reality programming).”
But this still represents a huge leap from the actual “representation” a child is likely to experience in real life. “Our own analysis, focusing on children’s programming specifically, shows that LGBTQ themes present in Netflix’s children’s programming far outpaces real-world demographics and accelerated dramatically after 2021,” the report says.
As Netflix attempts to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, creating a behemoth in the streaming world, parents should be wary of what the company is willing to platform. Netflix has already weathered several programming-related scandals, from the Cuties controversy of 2020 to Tesla CEO Elon Musk publicly canceling his Netflix account this fall, partly due to the transgender characters in the show Dead End: Paranormal Park.
Millennial parents who think the shows of their youth are safe should think again. “It is also worth noting that ‘reboots’ of older series, or later seasons of longrunning series frequently introduced LGBTQ characters where none existed before,” the report says. “In addition to The Magic School Bus, this was observed with Power Rangers, The Baby-Sitter’s Club, She-Ra, and The Fairly OddParents, among others.”
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Students of revisionist history may argue that some of these shows have always been “woke,” as Little House on the Prairie star Melissa Gilbert said of the show that aired in the 70s. But even “woke” back then was nothing like what it means now, when creators for Rubble & Crew partner with a group known as Queer Kid Stuff to sneak a nonbinary character into a show for toddlers. If you are in the business of making preschoolers question their gender, then, sorry, you are the baddies.
As parents continue to fight to opt their children out of public school discussions of identity and sexuality, there are still areas over which they have complete control. They should be hyperselective about what shows they let their children see on Netflix — that is, if they keep using the streaming service at all.
