Will Ferrell’s Trans Documentary Will & Harper Landing At Netflix Is A Double-Edged Sword

There’s a quote from Desmond Tutu that gets parrotted a lot during times of political unrest, but one that feels extremely relevant here. He said, “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.” What this means is that when dealing with situations of inequity, playing both sides in the interest of “staying neutral” is not neutral at all.

This is the equivalent of a teacher not holding a bully accountable because “they’re entitled to their opinions,” even if their bullying causes legitimate harm to another person. Netflix is an epicenter of this behavior of bothsidesism, often platforming incredible transgender documentaries like “Disclosure” (which should be viewed as mandatory film education), “The Dreamlife of Georgie Stone,” and “The Dads,” as well as trans-affirming narrative works like “Nimona,” “Mutt,” and “Sense8.”

At the same time, Netflix continues to platform stand-up comics like Ricky Gervais and Dave Chappelle, who are so weirdly obsessed with dunking on trans people that it even inspired a company-wide walkout from the transgender employees at Netflix. You can’t tell someone you love them and support them on one side of your mouth while praising (and paying exorbitant amounts of money to) people who will hurt them with the other and think you’re doing the “right” thing.

“Will & Harper” deserves to be seen by as large of an audience as possible, and it’s a bittersweet pill to swallow by admitting that Netflix is the way for this to happen. Yeah, yeah, there’s no such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism, but trans people deserve to have their stories elevated by the largest powers at be without having to also sit at the same lunch table as people who make a living punching down at them.