How Netflix turns data into dull
There’s no doubt that Netflix has changed film as we know it. The company completely decimated the movie rental industry, essentially driving a multi-billion dollar powerhouse out of the market entirely.
Netflix is an example of what is possible with innovation, with seeing the forest instead of the trees, with listening and responding to your customers. It’s a success story as American as Ford Motors and Walmart.
Not only has Netflix changed the way movies are distributed and seen, it’s begun to change the way movies are made. Every part of the Netflix streaming service collects and analyzes data. It knows what people are watching, how long they are watching, where they are pausing, what they watch next, etc.
All of this data is pored over and deconstructed, looking for patterns and streams, all with the end goal of allowing Netflix to tailor entertainment directly to their audience. It not only informs the content they create, but also the content they distribute.
In theory, this sounds great. Everyone wants their entertainment to reflect their values. We want to see ourselves reflected back to us from the screen. At least, we think this is what we want. However, there’s cynicism in to this approach. It creates an emptiness in the art. A blankness. Art that doesn’t challenge is mostly a waste. This can’t be more clear than in one of Netflix’s recent acquisitions, a coming-of-age story entitled Dumplin’.
There is nothing in Dumplin’ we haven’t seen a before. A plucky heroine trying to fit in. A mother who just doesn’t understand her daughter. A loss. A discovery. An unlikely friendship or two. The screenplay is as paint-by-numbers as they come.
Briefly: Willowdean Dickson (Danielle Macdonald) is an overweight but confident teen whose mother (Jennifer Aniston) is a former beauty pageant queen. Willowdean loves her mother, but believes her obsession with the pageant has kept their relationship strained her entire life. Luckily, her Aunt Lucy was around to pick up the slack, teaching Willowdean about loving herself and loving Dolly Parton.
Unfortunately, sometime before the beginning of the film, Aunt Lucy passes away, leaving Willowdean alone. While going through some of her aunt’s things, she discovers an old entry form for the same pageant her mother won when they were young. Willowdean decides to enter the pageant in order to complete a dream her aunt never could.
If any of the above description had you rolling your eyes, you aren’t alone. The film seems to go out of its way to choose the path of least resistance for its characters. The only real conflict is in Willowdean’s head—almost everyone in the film is perfectly nice and pleasant to her.
This isn’t to say that internal conflicts don’t have a place in storytelling—far from it. It’s just that it causes Willowdean to come off as completely out of touch with the people around her, sometimes making the audience wonder how she has friends at all.
Beyond that, this film was clearly cobbled together from the best parts of better films. Netflix highlights this by adding a strange, annoying new feature into their app that displays a button during crucial or emotional scenes asking viewers if they want to what that scene again, as if Willowdean’s argument with her crush is so poignant that audiences need multiple viewings to grasp the subtleties that have been woven into the narrative.
Except clearly Willowdean thinks boys won’t like her because she’s fat. She says it out loud. Why on Earth would anyone need to see that again? Did Netflix have its AI watch the film, compare it to the massive troves of data they’ve collected, and decide which parts of the film are the most emotionally impactful and thus needed highlighting? If so, why did they do that? Do audiences really need these things telegraphed so plainly?
Truthfully, the central conceit of the film is somewhat unbelievable as well. The story takes place in Texas, where according to PolitiFact, some 61 percent of people are obese. If more people look like Willowdean than her mother, it’s unlikely that weight is going to have the same stigma it once had.
Dumplin’ is a film outdone by many other films of its type. As much as I like Dolly Parton, her music isn’t enough to save a film like this one. If you want a film that does coming-of-age well, check out Eighth Grade.
Throw off the Netflix algorithm. Watch something else.