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Aziz Ansari Praises Netflix for Diversity and Token White Guys

Netflix has really become a safe place for us in the last couple of years since the streaming service took it online and the brand became a verb synonymous with watching a movie. Even when I’m not watching something on Netflix (it might be on Amazon Video, Xfinity On Demand or HBO), if someone asks what I’m doing, I reach for the one-word response, netflix.

In its ubiquitous nature, Netflix has brought love to shows like Arrested Development and the cast of Full House out of retirement, become a hub for the best of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and really hit home with Love and Master of None, which otherwise might not have found a space on the air. Aziz Ansari, creator and star of Master of None, prides himself on the show’s diversity of cast compared to typically whitewashed Hollywood. So in his acceptance speech with showrunner Alan Yang, Ansari took time to call out Netflix for its good behavior in paving the road for more diverse casts.

I want to thank Netflix and Universal for believing in us, and letting us tell our stories. I think they really seem to get what diversity really is. It’s not, ‘Hey, let’s give this white protagonist a brown friend!’ No. It’s ‘Let’s have a show where there’s a token white guy.’

Oh no, that’s racist against white people. He thanked Yang who was standing beside him for his importance to the show and how it is important to continue to project Asian-American visibility to Hollywood.

You know, Alan works behind the scenes, and sometimes people confuse him for the Asian actor Kelvin Yu on our show. And so I feel like I can’t overstate how important he is to the show.

Everyone with a brain this year lied down to binge watch Master of None and reap its wisdom on the world to follow. We know it’s good this time around. It was marketed so that we knew to watch it.

The Peabody is great because it seems like you guys actually watched all our s**t, and decided it was good! There was no schmoozing, no weird-ass dinners.

Seeeeeeee #OscarsSoWhite isn’t dead.

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Ian Atkinson
Ian Atkinson
7 years ago

I assume Netflix is merely the outlet. I mean Aziz directed it, not sure the production studio he used but it seem like he had a lot of control in his show. This may change over time or not hopefully. It’s going to be hard to try and keep the Hollywood greed from manipulating things like Netflix or creating their own…..