Ted Sarandos Insists He’d Pass Netflix’s ‘Keeper Test’ to Retain His Job Despite 67% Drop in Stock Price This Year

Mo'Nique and Netflix have settled their years-long legal battle. In court documents obtained by ET, on Tuesday Mo'Nique Hicks and Netflix agreed to dismiss the lawsuit she brought against them on Tuesday, «including without limitation all claims alleged therein, with prejudice, with each party to bear her or its own costs, expenses, and attorneys' fees.» No further details of the settlement were disclosed.In 2017, Netflix and Mo'Nique began discussions for the comedian to film a comedy special to air on the streamer.

EXCLUSIVE: Casey Benesch, a former Netflix executive who helped build up the streaming giant’s stature in comedy, is moving to rival Prime Video to head up comedy marketing.

Mo’Nique has settled her discrimination lawsuit against Netflix.

2ND UPDATE, 9:45 AM: Mo’Nique and Netflix have settled the lawsuit she filed against the streaming company in 2019 claiming racial and gender bias, Deadline has confirmed. Details of the deal weren’t disclosed. Read about the case below.

Selome Hailu Billy Eichner and Mae Martin have called out Netflix’s support of Dave Chappelle’s jokes about queer and trans people — in a comedy special released by Netflix itself.Both comedians appear in “Stand Out: An LGBTQ Celebration,” which debuted on June 9 after being taped at Netflix Is a Joke Fest in May. The event, hosted by Eichner, was the largest-ever gathering of LGBTQ+ comics in one stand-up special, according to Netflix.“We all know how backwards and dangerous the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ laws are,” Eichner says in the special. “Queer people, and especially trans people, are under legislative attack in this country.

Selome Hailu Netflix has greenlit “Stand Out: The Documentary,” which examines the history of LGBTQ stand-up comedy and will debut in 2022.The film is written, directed and executive produced by Page Hurwitz, who was recently named one of Variety‘s 55 Queer Artists and Decision-Makers to Know in 2022.Intended to complement Netflix’s recent comedy special “Stand Out: An LGBTQ+ Celebration,” “Stand Out: The Documentary” will combine original performances, interviews, archival materials and backstage vérité footage to explore themes like comedy as activism, diversity in stand-up, new queer culture and mainstreaming the alternative. The film focuses on the importance of LGBTQ stand-up as an instrument for social progress over the past five decades, changing the world one joke at a time.

A sweet — but funny — moment. John Stamos read his final text exchange with friend Bob Saget at an upcoming tribute to his late costar.

Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos is sticking behind his decision to back Dave Chappelle. Chappelle, whose comedy special lives on the streaming site, has received backlash over his use of transgender jokes in his set. Netflix employees walked out of the Los Angeles headquarters in protest of "The Closer." Sarandos told The New York Times he was surprised by the employees' reaction, but stood behind his decision to put Chappelle on the platform.

Netflix released the comedy special Norm Macdonald secretly filmed before his death on May 30. The one-hour special features the last stand-up material Macdonald wrote and a discussion about the comedian from David Spade, Dave Chappelle, Conan O'Brien, David Letterman, Adam Sandler and Molly Shannon.

David Letterman, Dave Chappelle, Adam Sandler, Conan O’Brien, Molly Shannon and David Spade shared memories and reflected on the death of their friend Norm MacDonald at the end of the late comedian’s new Netflix special, “Norm MacDonald: Nothing Special.”After watching a screening of MacDonald’s performance, which was recorded in his home, friends of the late “Saturday Night Live” star, discussed his impact on the comedy world. During their conversation, several of them admitted they didn’t know the star, who died in September 2021 after a nine-year battle with cancer, was sick.“I don’t know how everyone else felt here, but Norm was sick for quite a while, and he got sicker and I didn’t know and I talked to so many people who I was sure knew,” O’Brien said.

Netflix has exclusive comedy specials with big stars like Dave Chappelle and Ricky Gervais, but the streaming service has faced backlash for working with them due to transphobic jokes included in the specials.

J. Kim Murphy Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos has offered further defense for the streamer’s curation of stand-up comedy specials from Ricky Gervais and Dave Chappelle, both of which have been criticized for including language that is considered transphobic.In an interview with Maureen Dowd at The New York Times, Sarandos reaffirmed his stance on airing the specials, saying that the way comedians figure out where the line is is by “crossing the line every once in a while.”“I think it’s very important to the American culture generally to have free expression, Sarandos told the Times.

Multiple liberal media outlets are having a hard time dealing with taboo-breaking comedian Ricky Gervais' new Netflix comedy special because of its jokes about transgender people. Gervais’ new special, titled "SuperNature," debuted on the streaming platform Tuesday and has already received multiple scathing reviews for containing several outrageous jokes about trans people and the activists who aggressively insist that the public respect their pronouns.  Hollywood magazine Variety, and British outlets Metro and The Independent clutched their collective pearls over the special.  Variety's opening salvo skewered it for trying to "score points off of a marginalized group of people." The Hollywood outlet slammed the special as a "collision between two malign forces," namely Gervais and Netflix.

Ricky Gervais’ new comedy special SuperNature was released on Netflix just hours ago, but he’s already getting a lot of heat over his graphic jokes mocking the trans community.

Daniel D'Addario Chief TV CriticIn his new comedy special on Netflix, Ricky Gervais mocks “the new women […] with beards and cocks”; he urges trans women to “lose the cock” towards the end of a long tirade about trans people’s anatomy. It’d be easy to call this shocking.

are ladies — look at their pronouns! What about this person isn’t a lady?’ ‘Well, his penis.’ ‘Her penis, you f—ing bigot!’ ‘What if he rapes me?’ ‘What if she rapes you, you f—ing TERF whore?'”Gervais marks the second comedian in recent months to have a special on Netflix with jokes about trans people, following Dave Chappelle. During his special, Gervais addresses recent reactions to insensitive jokes, referring not to Chappelle, but to Kevin Hart dropping out as Oscars host in 2018 for his own past homophobic tweets. And in that joke, Gervais doubled down on his comments toward trans people.“You can’t predict what will be offensive in the future,” Gervais said.

Netflix employees should leave the company if they take issue with its programming, the streaming giant has said in an internal memo obtained ahead of its publication this week.Within the platform’s ‘Artistic Expression’ section of its corporate culture memo, which was due to be shared publicly on Thursday (May 19) although was obtained in advance by Variety, employees are advised that they should leave the company if they’re offended by the streamer’s “content breadth”.The anti-censorship drive comes months after Netflix aired Dave Chappelle’s controversial stand-up special The Closer, which prompted LGBTQ+ employees and supporters to walk out in protest over his transphobic and homophobic jokes.At the time Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos defended Chappelle, saying: “We don’t allow Netflix titles that are designed to incite hate or violence, and we don’t believe The Closer crosses that line.”Now, the ‘Artistic Expression’ of Netflix’s updated memo states: “Not everyone will like — or agree with — everything on our service.“While every title is different, we approach them based on the same set of principles: we support the artistic expression of the creators we choose to work with; we program for a diversity of audiences and tastes; and we let viewers decide what’s appropriate for them, versus having Netflix censor specific artists or voices.”The section concludes that employees’ “personal values” about what they consider “harmful” will not be taken into consideration.It continued: “As employees we support the principle that Netflix offers a diversity of stories, even if we find some titles counter to our own personal values. Depending on your role, you may need to work on titles you perceive to be harmful.

A Rhode Island dog whose inspiring story of going from shelter dog to lifesaving police K-9 which became the subject of a recent Netflix movie has been euthanized.