All The Ways Russia Is (Probably Not) Weaponising Netflix In Its New Propaganda Push
So, it turns out that there's no area of Western culture which the Russian state isn't in the business of subverting: the Washington Post's Luke Johnson has pointed to Trotsky, a historical drama picked up by Netflix which follows the famously ice pick-knacked intellectual architect of the Russian Revolution, as an example of how the Russian state is starting to weaponise the platform as a means of pushing its worldview to the West.
He suggests the show "at times, seems to be speaking in the Kremlin's language of contemporary events": the revolution is dismissed by Lenin as a "coup", mirroring how Russia span the ousting of Ukraine's pro-Russian president in 2014. Trotsky has also been accused of using antisemitic tropes to discredit Trotsky - incidentally, something that happened at the time too - and taking an extremely liberal approach to the facts of Trotsky's life.
He didn't order the murder of the Romanov royal family, he didn't know his assassin was a Stalinist, he wasn't the megalomaniac who devised the whole revolution on his own. As Johnson points out, the fact that one of Trotsky's producers is Konstantin Ernst, the head of the leading pro-Putin propaganda channel Russia-1 on which Trotsky originally aired, should give you pause when you're flicking through Netflix. But which other shows have been secretly undermining democracy and shaking the Western democratic consensus?
Queer Eye
Beneath the life-affirming power of the Fab Five's warm, loving refits of ordinary peoples' lives, there's a sly pro-Russian message here. Bobby's design makeovers tell us it's absolutely fine to steamroll into someone's gaff, turn it upside down and have them squat in the house they don't truly own any more. It's a bit Georgia 2008.
The Staircase
A subtle one: it wasn't included in the series, but if you were even mildly invested in Michael Peterson's case, you probably came across the owl theory. Basically, it states that Peterson is innocent because his wife was actually murdered by a gigantic owl landing on her head. Gigantic owl? Or an eagle? An American eagle. A great big bald American eagle, swooping out of nowhere with its arrogance sense of moral authority, killing an innocent bystander? Symbolism, yeah?
Russian Doll
Obviously.
The Good Place
Forget the moral quandaries and spiritual enlightenment - the adoption of Janet, the advanced AI interface, as a fan favourite character is very clearly an attempt to soften us all up to the idea that hey, maybe those Twitter bots aren't so evil after all.
The Crown
It's not that it's about the slow decline and apparent moral disintegration of the British Empire and its human vessels - that's one of our culture's favourite subjects anyway - it's the attempt to use John Lithgow's extremely good Churchill to erase the memory of John Lithgow in Daddy's Home 2. We can't function as a democracy without that shared horror informing everything we do.
Tidying Up With Marie Kondo
Classic undermining of capitalism at large here: the consumer goods you have always been told will make you happy are in fact destroying your soul. Say thank you to them, then burn them in a skip.
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