Bad Times

Netflix Good Times reboot backlash

By Nayaba Arinde
Editor at Large
Armchair activism has a new meaning.
Television viewers are being encouraged by Dr. James McIntosh and Betty Dopson’s Committee to Eliminate Media Offensive to African People (CEMOTAP) to Netflix and dial by picking up their remotes and their phones and cancel Netflix for over the new ‘Good Times’ animated reboot.

“The trailer was so bad we urged people not to look at any of the episodes,” activist and WBAI’s radio host of Mindfield, Dr. McIntosh, told Our Time Press. “However, people who watched tell me the episodes are diabolical and disrespectful. We are asking people to call in to cancel their Netflix subscription.”

An energetic CEMOTAP Zoom on Saturday afternoon, May 18th, had dozens of participants condemning the cartoon’s content.

The people who control the portrayal control the narrative.
The trailer itself shows the drug-dealing baby, a buffoon of a father, a mother portrayed as a little simple, an overly unintelligent son, a daughter who is a Black activist-type caricature, and there appears to be an overlying theme of celebrated ignorance.

To a barrage of criticism by groups like the NAACP, and New York and Ohio-based CEMOTAP, Netflix rolled out the ‘Good Times,’ last month. Rebooted 50 years after the original, the NAACP-panned animated version is still set in the Chicago projects.

“This show is the most embarrassing depiction of the worst racist stereotypes you can think of,” former Assemblyman Charles Barron told Our Time Press. “Voicing a character Wanda Sykes, and producers Steph Curry and Seth McFarlane should be ashamed of themselves, but they are not.” Councilman Charles Barron said that the focus should be on the real decision-makers.

“They are using Steph Curry as a flack-catcher; he doesn’t make cartoons; he is a basketball player. McFarlane and Ted Sarandos do make shows. Anybody who has Netflix should cancel it and tell them why in a letter.”

The showrunner Ranada Shepard told The Hollywood Reporter, “Just watch the series, please, just give it a chance. Because there’s so much good there.”
Omowale Clay, Chairperson of the December 12th Movement Human Rights organization, told Our Time Press that Black people should never allow dehumanizing depictions of themselves, which have a deeper intent and focus.

“Whenever we are attacked, we must fight back. This is sanctioned. Black elected officials can get on this. It is safe for them. Netflix has already produced all the episodes, so the City Council Black, Latino Asian Caucus can easily say something about this because it is such a blatant attack on Black people.

“It is not a question of if we can fight back. We must. The first wave of genocide is to dehumanize a people. And that is what they are doing.”
Brooklyn City Council Member Crystal Hudson, co-chair of the Black, Latino, and Asian Caucus, did not respond to Our Time Press by press time.
‘Good Times’ fan faves include the late Esther Rolle, Bernadette Stanis, Ralph Carter, Janet Jackson, J.J. Walker, and John Amos.

The cartoon characters’ voice-over actors include Wanda Sykes, Marsai Martin, Jay Pharoah, and J.B. Smoove.
Bernadette Stanis (Thelma Evans) told TV host Sherri Shepherd that she was asked to voice a character, she was told that the new show is about the grandchildren and the great-grandchildren of the original cast, “Jimmy [J.J. Walker] and I, did a tiny little because we thought it would be something else… But when I saw the trailer, it was totally different because the two generations were so positive.

I was going to be a doctor. Jimmy was going to be a famous painter, and [Michael] was going to be a mayor or a judge. But, when we saw what the second and third generations were going to be, it was nothing like what we thought.”
There are thousands of cable, network, streaming, and internet options. At any given hour of the day or night, anti-Black community content can be viewed or heard.

Meanwhile, Black media is already under assault in New York. The local and national golden age of Black media with Black newspapers and radio has been somewhat decimated, and so having mainstream media feeling comfortable to disparage a culture so blatantly is what is inspiring the campaign to cancel subscriptions.

Dr. McIntosh said that the ‘Good Times’ reboot is just not funny. Not incisive. It is not empowering, and despite all the pronounced Black involvement, it is racist in its delivery, if not its intent.
In an open letter to Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos, CEMOTAP Co-Chairs Dr. McIntosh and Sister Dopson expressed outrage at the “ill-advised and ill-named release of the Netflix ‘Good Times Reboot.’”
They slammed the “superficial and negative relationship to the original ‘Good Times’ TV series.”

They further critiqued Sarandos and Seth McFarlane as “ridiculing” African people, which historically “has often preceded actual violence against the people ridiculed.”
With meticulous detail CEMOTAP listed points of concern, including portraying Black people as ugly and stupid; violent, and criminal from birth; rude, crude, lewd, and hypersexual.

CEMOTAP concluded in the letter, “Since you have released all ten episodes of this atrocity, there is no room for negotiation. We are going …to withhold our dollars from your enterprise.”
Dr. McIntosh and CEMOTAP are encouraging folk to call Netflix and cancel their account, circulate their open letter published (pro bono) in Our Time Press (May 16th, 2024), participate in their Zoom on Saturday, June 1, 2024, and attend their Wednesday, June 5, 2024, demonstration at the Netflix Corporate office on Broadway in Manhattan.