The Trouble With Streaming

Image description: Eleven, one of the main characters in the Netflix original series Stranger Things. Stranger Things itself doesn't really feature into this particular post too much, but because the post is about streaming services like Netflix and others, the picture nevertheless felt appropriate.

 

One day, when thinking about my television viewing habits, I realized something that I know many people can probably relate to. I realized that most of my television viewing – and certainly the TV that I enjoyed the most – was made possible thanks to the magic of online streaming services. Whether that meant getting British shows I couldn’t otherwise see on network television, or shows exclusive to streaming platforms like Netflix, streaming quickly became my preferred method of entertainment. And how could it not have? From Netflix original shows of great caliber like Stranger Things or The Crown, to being able to binge watch favorite shows from my childhood quickly and easily (like various Star Trek series), to seeing those old favorites become new again and continue through different online networks, streaming gave me a treasure trove.

But it also presented me with a whole host of new issues. One of the most common real-world hurdles I face when interacting with people as a sex-repulsed AroAce is the fact that I often can’t connect with people through usual methods. For instance, think about how often you’ve been able to connect with a friend, a family member, a coworker, or even a relative stranger over the mutual love of a TV show or movie. In recent years, there seems to be a trend where most of the buzzworthy shows have been on alternate networks like HBO, AMC, Showtime, and others – pay networks that have far fewer restrictions than cable TV. The unfortunate result of this for me has been that I can’t comfortably experience most of the shows on these networks because the freedom their alternate status gives them often means they can include graphic sexual content.

Despite the fact that I often feel very awkward because I can’t share the cultural experience most people have with these shows, it was always somewhat easy to navigate all the same because not everyone pays for these networks and that is a generally accepted excuse for not having seen the shows. But as streaming has gotten more and more popular and the shows on these platforms more beloved, this same issue is back again, but worse. In many ways, streaming platforms operate under the same type of system as the pay networks – you pay for them, and thus, not everyone has them. And thus, because they are separate and apart from mainstream cable networks like ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, etc., they have more freedom to do whatever they want. While this means creative freedom and diverse storytelling, the downside is that this often means sexual content, even where none need exist. And for me, who is far more eager to have a streaming service than I might have been to have an alternate network like HBO, it means that I am now navigating treacherous waters the likes of which I have not often had to face.

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For a quick example of what I mean by this, I would like to point to a show called Designated Survivor, which actually began its life on ABC. The show was a political drama centered around Tom Kirkman (played by Kiefer Sutherland), the secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the United States government. During the annual State of the Union address, Kirkman is picked as the event’s “designated survivor,” a real-life precaution wherein one person in the hierarchy of the government doesn’t go to the event so that, on the off chance something cataclysmic happens, there is still someone alive to step into the role of president. For Kirkman, it indeed seems like just a precaution… until the unthinkable actually does happen. A terrorist attack strikes during the speech, taking out the president, the entire cabinet, and everyone above Kirkman in the line of succession. Suddenly, Thomas Kirkman is the president of the United States, trying to build back the government and keep the country safe amid chaos and uncertainty.

The show was admittedly a bit sugary. Every political challenge President Kirkman faced was often solved with kindly compromise that kept everyone happy, and the political mystery at the center of the plot – who was responsible for the terrorist bombing in the first place? – unfolded in a very network TV drama style. But despite that, I found myself really quite enjoying it. The performances were great, the characters were likeable on the whole, and the mystery did nevertheless manage to be interesting. The topic of a president who ascends from a low rank amid a calamity is something that’s interested me ever since Laura Roslin did it in the 2003/2004 remake of Battlestar Galactica. And beyond just that, I admit it was kind of therapeutic watching a fictional version of America where problems could be solved so non-divisively. The show survived (no pun intended) for two seasons on ABC when the disappointing announcement was made that it had been cancelled. But then Netflix appeared and decided to pick the show up for a third season exclusively on the streaming platform.

My excitement for this announcement almost immediately backfired, however. Because the show was on Netflix rather than ABC, it became clear very quickly that it now seemed to operate on an “anything goes” type of mentality. The show’s rating, which had always been TV-PG with the occasional TV-14 rating, jumped up to TV-MA the minute it came to Netflix, and I knew I was in trouble. Sure enough, a show that had once been pretty squeaky clean on the whole (I mean, honestly, I nicknamed President Kirkman “President Sweater Vest” because the man wore sweaters and was so darn wholesome) changed almost instantly. The show now started to push boundaries, but in some of the weirdest ways possible. Being on Netflix meant the characters could now curse more severely, for instance, but when more severe profanity was peppered throughout the dialogue, it often felt ridiculously stilted, as if the writers were trying to fill a quota. They could also show things they would never have been able to get away with on ABC… including a scene of the president sitting on the toilet trying to solve a Rubik’s cube? Yeah. That happened. I don’t quite know why it happened, but it did.

But of course, the thing they could now include most predominately was sexual content. While it could have been far, far worse than it ultimately was, the sex scenes included are, in my opinion, completely gratuitous. Moments of nudity, the likes of which are unacceptable on network television, suddenly began appearing seemingly out of the blue, and it became far more common to see some of the main or secondary characters having conversations about their sex lives. None of this is inherently a bad thing, of course; in some cases, it allowed the show to create representation it hadn’t had before, and to explore important topics regarding sex and sexuality. But other times, it was clear the show just wanted to show sex or nudity for one reason and one reason only – because they could, which is ultimately what disappointed me the most. We’re on Netflix now, the third season of the show seemed to say, and if you don’t like that, too bad.

Image description: A promotional poster for Designated Survivor. Like some sort of weird necromancy magic, Netflix saved the show for a third season, but resurrected it as a very different version of itself.

When it comes to Designated Survivor, I may not have been alone in my dismay; Netflix’s save of the show only lasted one season and it was soon cancelled yet again. But even if this formula didn’t work for this particular show, the phenomenon is not limited only to Designated Survivor, but can also be found in Netflix’s own original programming in shows such as The Crown. A British period drama following the life of Queen Elizabeth II is not something I would expect to have to dodge sex scenes during, and yet there is an episode in the show’s second season that includes a fairly graphic sex scene. While this episode does reveal some important plot-related things (chiefly that the future husband of one of the characters is a serial philanderer), there is no reason why this particular piece of information has to be shown in such an overtly explicit manner. In fact, the scene is such an outlier among all the other episodes of the series that it truly makes me scratch my head and ask the question, why include it at all?

Just like in Designated Survivor, it feels like The Crown didn’t actually need to include this scene; they simply did it because they can, completely ignoring the old adage that just because you can doesn’t always mean you should. In my case, as someone who is sex-repulsed, these scenes go beyond just “one-off” moments that can be easily ignored. Rather, they actively make me go into each subsequent episode of a show with a level of dread and dismay. And I wish I could say this was limited just to these two examples, but unfortunately, it is widespread among shows on streaming services, and the notion of being on a streaming platform often seems to be taken as carte blanche to do whatever. In some ways, I feel like online television, for as wonderful as it is and as much as I love it, is like the wild west – untamed, unpredictable, and for me, a little bit dangerous.

For instance, when Paramount Plus (formerly CBS All Access) announced new Star Trek shows for their platform, such as Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard, I found myself unable to approach them with anything other than unease. Would there be graphic sex scenes or nudity? Would the characters suddenly be having long drawn-out conversations about their sex lives? Of course, Star Trek itself is not devoid of sexual content, even in older and more mainstream series (the second episode of The Next Generation featured quite a few members of the crew getting amorous, after all, including the “fully-functional Data” (cringe)). Because of that, sex and sexuality are not inherently out of place in the Trekverse, but I worried about the potential increase in severity even so. And, although I was mostly lucky in the early seasons of the streaming shows (I can’t vouch for the most recent season of Discovery), there was nevertheless enough content that made me feel uneasy. For instance, did we really need to show the decadent Orion outpost on the planet Qo’noS in living color? For me, the answer to that question is no, but that’s not an opinion that seems to find a lot of purchase when it comes to streaming, and that in and of itself is disappointing. It once again means I find myself in a landscape where it feels like I’m not welcome.

Now, of course I am not expecting to be able to watch every single show on every single streaming platform. That would be absurd (and also impossible, there are only twenty-four hours in the day and sometimes I actually do need to sleep). And I’ve discussed on the blog before about learning to embrace that certain things are not meant for me, which is something I frequently do when it comes to television shows or movies on any platform that I know will inherently contain a lot of sexual content as part of necessary plot points or character development. That’s fine. But in my eyes, it’s not necessary in every show, and feeling like I’m pushed out of everything is a bit harder to accept. As mentioned earlier, all it takes is one gratuitous and graphic sex scene to make me stop trusting a show entirely and approach every scene by watching it through the cracks in my fingers. It also means I often have to spoil the plot for a show or movie before I even watch it by looking at the advisories on websites like IMDB just to see if there’s anything graphic I have to avoid. It’s embarrassing, and kind of exhausting.

As with a lot of things I discuss on the blog, I honestly hesitate to even bring these topics up. Although I have done a lot of maturing over the years and have come to embrace my identity more than I ever did, discussing these things still often makes me feel immature. It takes me back to times when, as a young aspec person, I was often sidelined or humiliated by both people around me and people on the internet alike for objecting to sex scenes, and was called a prude for expressing my discomfort with things of this nature. In other ways, it feels like I’m whining – like I’m making a mountain out of a molehill and ruining a good thing for everyone. I think the temptation exists to ask why this is a big deal, and I’m almost tempted to ask the same thing of myself. The answer I keep coming back to is longevity.

I think it’s pretty safe to say that streaming is the “next big thing.” At the 2021 Emmy Awards, shows on streaming services took the top awards in five out of the seven main categories, including best comedy and best drama. In that same year, Netflix boasted the most nominations of any network at an impressive 29 – slightly down from the previous year’s total of 37. All told, all the streaming services represented at the 2021 ceremony shared a total of 97 nominations across the acting and technical awards. And I would argue that now more than ever it’s appropriate to talk about the massive popularity of streaming, especially as I write this amid the global popularity of the South Korean series Squid Game on Netflix, which became the network’s biggest hit on debut. Therefore, I think it’s important to discuss the ways our beloved streaming services are both breaking some boundaries and upholding others, because streaming is here to stay and I believe the media we see through these formats is going to become more and more influential in culture and in representation. This has the potential to be wonderful; think, for instance, of Todd Chavez from Netflix's BoJack Horseman being something of an aspec pioneer. But it also has the potential to put those of us who are searching for safety or representation – especially aspec representation – into a Squid Game scenario of our own.

As I stated earlier, not every show will be safe for people like me and that’s okay. Not every show will feature representation for people like me and that’s okay. But as streaming continues to rise in popularity and the shows on these services continue to become global phenomena, I think more people should be thinking about the longevity and legacy of these platforms as well. These shows do not exist in a vacuum, and the more popular they become, the more they will become entrenched in the fabric of our culture, and the more they will even seek to do new things with franchises such as Star Trek on Paramount Plus or Star Wars over on Disney Plus. While many times these new networks allow fans to boldly go into new places and new stories they’ve never been able to experience before, it sometimes also means people like me lose the ability to interact with media free of worry.

Another clear example of this can be found in the 2019 reboot of The Twilight Zone for CBS All Access (as it was called at the time). If you’ve seen my second Ace Safe Space list, you’ll know that the original series of The Twilight Zone is included as some of my safe haven media because it gives me the sci-fi chills I crave in a way that is accessible. Unfortunately, a modern-day streaming version of the show by its very definition did not do the same. The first episode centered on a failing comedian who unknowingly enters into a dark deal to be successful – when he jokes about people or things, the jokes are a hit, but it means the things he jokes about are erased from existence entirely. Very spooky, very keeping with something I could see happening in the original series, and not something that seems like it has to have a sexual element, right? For the most part, you would be correct; but imagine my surprise when the comedian’s friend assures him that, were she straight, she would gladly have sex with him, but puts it in a bit more graphic terms than I just did. Not a severe example at all, but it was definitely a turn-off for me, especially when I was trying to watch the series with my father.

Image description: A promotional poster for the 2019 reboot of The Twilight Zone

So once again, I find myself asking why these moments are necessary. Why are lines of dialogue like this in shows like The Twilight Zone or Star Trek? Why does The Crown contain sex scenes or sexual jokes? Why did Designated Survivor feature random nudity? Yes, all of these shows can do those things, but must they? Should they? In some cases, I almost find myself wondering if these things are actually doing more harm than good – not just to viewers like me, but actually to the shows themselves. Earlier I mentioned how Designated Survivor only lasted one season on Netflix; likewise, The Twilight Zone reboot was canned after only two. These things may not have contributed to the cancellations at all, but it does make me curious. While there are plenty of shows where the sexual content is an important and valued part of the show, I have to wonder if there are plenty more where it isn’t just unimportant but also part of the reason why people stop watching these shows altogether. The quality of a show is not predicated on the level of sexual content – good shows can have a lot or none, and bad ones can likewise have a lot or none. But there is a time and a place for everything, which is something I think streaming platforms can sometimes forget.

I have no illusions that writing this post will make anything better. After all, the major streaming networks are never going to see it. But in many ways, that’s not really my goal; like many times on this blog when I bring up these issues, my hope is instead to get allosexual people – and people of all kinds – to think about these issues. I’ve had friends who, through me discussing these and other issues, have started to approach their streaming through this lens and have started to dub certain graphically sexual scenes they encounter as gratuitous too. I also have many friends who, as the utterly amazing allies they are, give me warnings of sexual content before I begin streaming shows so I know what to avoid and when. This is primarily what I hope comes from discussions like this one and analysis like mine.

I don’t kid myself to think this is something that will change just because one aspec person points it out; but I do hope that people of all kinds begin to become more aware of the trouble that can occur with streaming for people like me, and can help us to combat moving forward. In an episode of Stranger Things, Hopper tells Eleven about compromise – “it’s kinda in-between,” he tells her. “Something like half-way happy.” And that’s what I long for when it comes to streaming. I don’t need to have it all, but I’d like to have a few things, and feel comfortable and secure when interacting with those things, not fearing what might come next. I love streaming and I’d love for it to love me back. Maybe by being mindful of what it’s like for some of us to interact with this content, we can find opportunities to compromise and be happier with our media, even if it is only half-way happy.