Online streaming giant Netflix pulled an episode of Bob Odenkirk and David Cross’s 2015 sketch comedy show off the platform over the use of blackface in a skit.
The 2015 episode of W/ Bob and David features a white character supposedly part of a group called “Citizens Against Unlawful Abuse,” who is seen attempting and repeatedly failing to evoke violence from police officers. The character ultimately resorts to donning blackface after the officers remain unperturbed. The skit ends with an officer pepper-spraying and tasing the white character wearing blackface.
The creators of the show found the removal of the episode a case of PCism run amuck. “Hey all, Netflix is going to pull this sketch from With Bob & David because the ridiculous, foolish character I play puts on ‘blackface’ at one point. The point of this was to underscore the absurdity…well, here’s your last chance to figure it out,” Cross tweeted.
For his part, Odenkirk tweeted: “We considered every choice we made doing our show, and always aimed to make you laugh and think, and never make an obvious or easy point…that very much includes this sketch. Our comedy is always about the human element, never about making a political point.”
Netflix has been cleansing its programing to satisfy the newest demands for leftist purity. The streamer has deleted other shows, episodes, and movies, including Chris Lilley’s Summer Heights High, Angry Boys, We Can Be Heroes and Jonah From Tonga.
Netflix is only one of the many entertainment services deleting and canceling shows that are suddenly considered gauche. A&E cancelled its live-action police series Live PD, in another case, the Paramount Network dumped the long-running series Cops, and the 1939 Civil War classic and Oscar-winning movie Gone With The Wind has also ended up blacklisted, at least temporarily, by WarnerMedia’s HBO Max.
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