Netflix
On Wednesday, Netflix quietly dropped Snowflake Mountain with little promotion within the lead-up to its arrival. And it solely takes watching the primary 30 seconds of the reality-television sequence to know why.
For those who hadn’t already guessed, the “snowflake” in Snowflake Mountain refers back to the pejorative time period largely utilized by the suitable—and infrequently preceded by the phrase “liberal”—to explain somebody who's overly delicate. The eight-episode sequence follows a gaggle of younger adults who're purportedly “overly emotional, simply offended, and dramatic.” Their dad and mom, whom all of them nonetheless reside with, ship them off to the wilderness the place two army veterans train them survival abilities that can one way or the other switch into maturity and accountability as soon as they return dwelling. Afterward, it’s revealed that they’re additionally competing in a Survivor-fashion competitors for a $50,000 prize.
The present’s authenticity instantly comes into query as we’re given a short overview of the solid. You sense that the members are both actors or non-professionals who have been instructed to look overly narcissistic and lazy by producers. As an example, a 19-year-old girl named Devon, who “events 24/7,” tells us that her solely contribution to society is being a vegan. A British white man named Liam childishly asserts that cleansing is “not for me, hon!” And a Black man named Carl tells us, whereas taking part in basketball, that he dropped out of school with none additional details about his life.
General, Snowflake Mountain has a well-known, early-to-mid-2000s Fox sensibility concerning its material, blended with the kind of overtly wacky tone of different Netflix packages like The Ground Is Lava and Is It Cake? The sequence lacks the stakes it tries to determine given how clearly scripted all of it feels. And the challenges are as riveting as watching your neighbor lower down a tree, which is actually certainly one of their assignments. (Though, there's one significantly surprising, unflinching scene the place Devon, the vegan, has to butcher a deer carcass).
The depictions of the solid members turn into extra bearable over time, treating them much less like one-dimensional caricatures and extra like recognizable human beings with backstories. In the meantime, the survival consultants, Matt and Joel, a former Military fight engineer and a former Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal technician, respectively, are purposely disarming and approachable in order to purport a message that individuals who commit mass destruction for a residing are literally innocent. Towards the tip of Snowflake Mountain, you notice it touts the identical centrist messaging of Netflix’s Emmy-winning unique sequence Queer Eye, solely this time aimed toward progressive, city millennials and Gen-Zers.
At a time when Netflix’s inventory is plummeting because of a serious loss in subscribers this yr that’s solely projected to worsen, Snowflake Mountain reads as a determined try by the streaming service to courtroom conservatives viewers who could not see themselves represented of their present slate of programming. Netflix has already taken a right-wing stance in our present tradition conflict by permitting transphobic comedians to thrive on its platform, so why not invite bigoted subscribers to mock a decidedly various group of younger folks launched in probably the most stereotypical vogue?
One can think about Netflix executives defending Snowflake Mountain by claiming it pokes enjoyable at younger folks broadly versus the folks of shade and queer folks which might be solid within the present. However viewers who already make uninformed generalizations about youthful generations—like the concept that they don’t work, are too delicate, and are economically privileged—and earnestly use the time period “snowflake,” usually maintain bigoted views in regards to the demographics on show within the sequence. Even because the present turns into extra grounded and sympathetic, it’s already completed the work of confirming any biases conservative viewers could have of Black girls and homosexual males, for instance.
All in all, Snowflake Mountain is one other occasion of Netflix, which likes to applaud itself on having progressive values and embracing range, desirous to have it each methods. It’s additionally one other reminder that tech firms, significantly ones as massive as Netflix, don’t even have morals, and we shouldn’t actually look to them to have any. If their latest actuality sequence turns into a hit, we must always solely count on extra of this kind of bootlicking, conservative rubbish sooner or later.