This month streaming kingpin Netflix welcomed into its fold a new season for an animated comedy which tore through desperately needed boundaries like tissue paper. Nick Kroll’s show “gives zero f**ks,” and apparently, neither does Netflix.
Kroll’s “Big Mouth” is a banally lewd cartoon that follows a group of 6th graders coming to terms with puberty. It’s smutty sex humor, with what Kroll boasts as no attempt to “soften or dull the hard, big, crazy jokes.” The trailer alone contains multiple depictions of the series’ boy characters masturbating, and teases a conversation the female character Jessi has with her genitals in a mirror.
Netflix lacks any sort of meaningful content restrictions for minors, and has a history of flippantly promoting mature material: The company only affirmed the suicide-romanticizing 13 Reasons Why even when the multiple groups, including psychologists, expressed concerns about suicide’s prevalence in America.
Melissa Henson of the Parents Television Council criticized Netflix again on Oct. 17, noting that any way the platform advertises Big Mouth, it’s wrong:
“Either the writers are intending to put these highly sexualized images of children in front of an adult audience, or they are deliberately creating and marketing graphic, sexualized, TV-MA-rated content to kids. Which is worse?”
To make matters even worse, Facebook is lending a hand too: Henson reported that “Netflix is partnering with Facebook to deliver a new game called, ‘Hand Masters: Play with Yourself.’” The tweet and its accompanying video publicizing the game are unbelievably suggestive, sporting a salacious combination of emoticons:
It’s often said that “politics is downstream from culture.” If that is the case, Netflix is creating a toxic landslide and our children are standing in its wake.
