To all those who missed it – Ellen Page came out last night as a trans person quite publically on social media, and he has been trending all night long. He announced himself as Elliot Page in a beautifully crafted letter that he posted on all his social media handles. Very promptly, within hours in fact, Netflix did something cool – it updated its library and changed the name Ellen Page to Elliot Page on every one of his acting credits. Brilliant.
Transgender and transsexual people are one of the most discriminated people on the entire planet, not just in “progressive” countries like U.S., Canada, U.K., etc. As Elliot points out in his letter, nearly 40% of trans people attempt suicide, due to parental pressure, peer pressure, bullying, sexual assault, physical assault, etc.
So in a time where people of the trans community are looking for love and acceptance, Netflix just quietly changed all of their features which had the name Ellen Page to Elliot Page, immediately showing their acceptance to Elliot’s coming out. They even sent out a tweet saying that they were proud of their Superhero and couldn’t wait for him to return for Season 3. The “Superhero” comment was regarding the series Elliot is a part of called ‘The Umbrella Academy’ (where he portrays a superhero) and the season 3 comment shows that he will definitely be accepted back as a cast member on the show.
This is the second time in the past few weeks, that Netflix has decided to stand behind their collaborating actor. Yesterday it was Elliot; a few weeks ago it was Dave Chappelle. Dave Chappelle’s show, ‘The Chappelle Show’ was running on Netflix, which Dave Chappelle wasn’t getting royalties for (why shouldn’t he, he created the damn thing!). After conversation between Chappelle and Netflix, where the comedian said that he wasn’t comfortable with the show running on the streaming platform, they immediately got rid of the television series from their viewing archive.
We get that Netflix has been getting a lot of flak this year, and maybe they might have deserved some of it. But the fact that Netflix as a streaming platform and a production company has decided to back its artists, rather than spurn them, is really telling about the rest of the OTTs and production companies out there. We applaud Elliot for his coming out and making the world a more tolerable place and we applaud Netflix also for providing immediate support to their talent.
On a side note: This is a sensitive topic, and many companies like us will continue to report stories like these. We might make mistakes like using the wrong term or adding the wrong pronoun, so please be patient with us as we make our reports. If you let us know, we will immediately rectify the error we made (if it is an error that can be rectified), or we will get back to you saying why we stand behind the story. But please do not bomb our social media platform for these mistakes, instead point out these mistakes and we will do the necessary.