Netflix’s Quest to Conquer the World (Subtitles Available)
Leon Galan Marquez/Netflix
When Netflix released all 13 episodes of its original series House of Cards in February 2013, there was little doubt that the company was, to use start-up lingo, aiming to disrupt television consumption as we know it. And while binge-watching remains the streaming service’s most obvious cultural legacy, its global approach to TV production and distribution may be its most lasting one.
Since that David Fincher-produced political series, Netflix has developed hundreds more, including 126 new series in 2016 alone. Considering that staggering statistic, it may seem unwise to try and suss out any mandating principle behind its TV brand. But there’s no denying that as Netflix further muddles its status as both a streaming service and a channel, a producer and a distributor, it has in sight a global strategy that challenges our notions of what an American television network looks like. Shows like Sense8, with its globe-trotting ensemble; Orange is the New Black, with its sprawling, immigrant-filled cast of characters; and Narcos, with its bilingual sensibility, gesture toward a model of TV production that aims to break down needless national borders. Now, with series in French, Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese and Norwegian, including both those developed in-house and those acquired from third parties yet branded as “Netflix Originals,” the company is openly nurturing a new kind of audience.
Scroll through to the end credits of any episode of Netflix original series and you’ll see a long list of translators responsible for allowing viewers around the world to catch BoJack Horseman or Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt with Italian, Portuguese or even French subtitles. Just last month, in a press release in which Netflix announced it was looking for more translators, the company noted that it was “quickly approaching an inflection point where English won’t be the primary viewing experience on Netflix.” Considering the service expanded to more 190 countries last summer, that assertion didn’t signal a change in strategy as much as a consolidation of it. Netflix is a global enterprise, and while English-language culture may appear to be the norm, especially to many Americans, it is by no means the totality. True to its global aspirations, the California-based company has begun aggressively acquiring and developing series that better reflect and attract its polyglot subscriber base. Netflix’s latest UX design tweak—which allows viewers to customize their closed-captions—suggests that it is committed to making reading and embracing subtitles an integral part of its user experience.
At a time when the Toronto Film Festival Primetime lineup makes way for shows made in Kenya (Tuko Macho) and the Czech Republic (Wasteland), SundanceTV makes big bets with its international pickups (including Italy’s Gomorrah and France’s Les Revenants), and there’s an entire streaming service dedicated to finding foreign TV shows worth binge-watching (Walter Presents), it’s curious that, at least within North American circles, Netflix’s international projects remain all but absent from the critical conversation. Perhaps it’s the inherent populist spirit that drives the streaming service’s mission. When choosing to develop its first Spanish-language series, Netflix partnered with director Gaz Alazraki, responsible for some of the biggest box-office hits in Mexican cinema history. Its Japanese series, Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories, is adapted from a best-selling manga. And in wading into Spain’s market, Netflix courted Bambú Producciones, the production company behind two of that country’s biggest period dramas (Gran Hotel and Velvet).