Netflix rules the Internet entertainment world. A recent study conducted by Sandvine revealed that 43 percent of peak-time U.S. Internet use comes from streaming video, and just under half of that comes from Netflix.
A quiet titan, Netflix seems content to change our media habits by word-of-mouth and positive reviews over flashy ad campaigns. What Netflix is doing for movies and television is largely good. The availability of instant streaming is every movie buff’s dream.
Netflix may also make superior films and television available to more people. If the Netflix model removes the supremacy of the movie studios in determining what films reach a wide audience, this could be a very good thing. Anyone who has thought seriously about films and television understands that the cream does not always rise and that some of the best films are ignored and some of the best shows get canceled. This is not always fair and perhaps Netflix can help by exposing quality shows to a wider audience.
Instant streaming could also make it possible for a smart filmmaker to bypass the traditional system entirely by making a movie cheaply and gaining exposure online. It seems likely that this model will gain strength in the next few years as more people become comfortable with instant streaming over movie theatres and live television.
Netflix may improve films and television, but what’s more pressing is the question of whether films and television improve society.
You don’t have to be a Luddite to be a little bit worried. Netflix is only part of the relentless media consumption that, in the words of Alice Gregory in a thoughtful book review in the online journal N+1, can lead to us “choosing not to be a certain sort of alive.”
There is a place for entertainment, of course. Stories help shape and explain our lives. Indeed, part of the appeal of Netflix is that it opens the catalogue of television and film to deeper and richer pages where the narratives that shape the way we view the world and ourselves are more nuanced and thoughtful.
It’s also true that communities have assembled around film and television, both on the larger level of fan communities and the more intimate level of family movie nights or “Lost” parties. These communities are real and should not be discounted simply because they have grown around entertainment.
But the danger is that movies and television on demand wherever we are will make it too easy for us to be passive instead of active in our relationship with culture. It’s easy to consume instead of create. It’s easy to fall into stale patterns of watching the same old shows and the same types of movies without ever venturing into new territory of entertainment — to say nothing of creating things and doing things ourselves.
It’s fair to say that entertainment can do tremendous good. A great film can ennoble us by examining life intelligently and wisely. A great television show can bring people together and give them something to bond over. This is a function art has always served, and movies and television can sometimes serve this purpose just as effectively as great literature does.
But we miss more than we know when we allow media to set our schedules and dominate our days.
Reach Will at wmunsil@asu.edu
