I don't know if you've heard but Netflix is struggling right now. Between the fact that their contracts or agreements with Disney and Fox are expiring which will result in a great deal of their content disappearing overnight and the fact that they just can't seem to come off of their social justice soapbox, they are losing a ton of customers. Their stock is dropping in value and there is already talks about how they are going to eliminate account sharing - which is the only reason why I have a Netflix subscription. If I had to actually pay for it, I would just walk away.
A major reason for this is that Netflix just can't help themselves when it comes to their programming. They can't just entertain us, they have to lecture us on social issues and also promote a bunch of unrealistic character paradigms such as having people of color appear throughout historical pieces when in actuality, this is extremely different from how those times actually were. I guess I don't really have a problem with that because I can just roll my eyes and walk away but I have a weakness for documentaries and this one at first, sounded like it was going to be interesting because Abercrombie and Fitch (which is what this documentary is about) was a huge part of the culture when I was growing up and I kind of wondered what happened to them as well.
It starts out interesting enough but then quickly spirals down a path that Netflix has been doing entirely too often and that is to turn this into a social justice issue for minorities and alternate sexualities. I don't even know if those words I used would be considered PC enough in this day and age and like most normal sane people, I don't really care enough to find out.
In White Hot they take about 20 minutes before the show stops being about overpriced T-shirts and starts to become about how Abercrombie and Fitch was a racist company. Oh for god's sake can we just have some normal programming for once Netflix?
They bring on a string of experts to expose the racist, Islamophobic, anti-anything not WASP-oriented, with very little evidence other than their own opinions to back this up.
They LOVE to showcase a couple of people in their lineup, which is Dr. Treva Lindsey and Dr. Anthony Ocampo.
There's Dr Ant right there and while they do state over and over (and Anthony shamelessly self-promotes through the entire thing) that these people are doctors, they are extremely stand-offish about what kind of doctors these two are.
This is Dr. Treva Lindsey. They are both connected to Abercrombie and Fitch in some capacity and yes, they do have PhD's. Would you care to venture a guess as to what KIND of PhD they have? I'll give you a hint, it isn't medical or scientific in nature.
Ocampo has a PhD in sociology - which is one of the most useless things to study in college. I know a couple of people that majored in this and they had two choices upon graduation: Work at Starbucks or go on to get graduate degrees so they can become teachers to pass on this useless knowledge to future generations.
Lindsey is sadly even worse as she has a doctorate in.... wait for it.... gender studies. I've always thought that this academic focus was a myth but I'll be damned, here's a doctor in it!
I didn't shop at A&F because I am not going to pay $50 for a t-shirt. It is pretty noticeable that those stores used to be everywhere though and now you barely see them anymore. I'm not even sure if it is still a company.
When the store was around I don't recall it being some sort of "white power" something or other and maybe this was because we were all a lot less insane in the 90's than we are now. These days, it seems like anytime that someone can find a problem with something and blow it up that this is exactly what they are going to do in order to benefit themselves.
In the documentary they frequently talk about the class-action lawsuits that were placed against Abercrombie and Co. but they kind of glance over the fact that these cases were all settled out of court which in my mind kind of suggests the the plaintiffs probably weren't all that interested in justice, they just wanted money.
They talk about how A&F didn't have plus-sized clothes for sale and refused to stock them as well. For me, this is a pretty obvious thing: They had a certain demographic they were aiming for and this was young, fit people. It is completely absurd that the social justice machine feels as though they can compel a private company to accommodate everyone regardless of how fat they are just because a few squeaky wheels out there like to make trouble for anyone that they can.
The company was sued by plus-size activists and yet again, this was settled out of court and again, the plaintiffs were after money and they got it! Well done!
I found this documentary extremely frustrating to watch because they were connecting dots that don't fit together such as stating that the upper management of the company were all white people. Well, before all the meddling and of course the death of the shopping mall this company was wildly successful - which to me suggests that the upper management was probably selected because of something other than skin color... maybe, I dunno, because they were good at their jobs?
Should I watch it?
Despite the fact that I completely disagree with the conclusions and the overall motivation behind this thing I think that yes, you should watch it. However, this is not because of the reasons that the producers of this doco probably intended. I think that you should watch it so that you can see how absolutely insane our society has become and how we will dig up literally anything in the name of social justice and fake racism. Honestly, it's an absurd claim to suggest that this company was racist: They wanted everyone's money just like every other business that has existed ever.
