BoJack Horseman creator shares ‘controversial’ David Fincher joke Netflix made him remove
He questioned streaming service’s decision in light of its response to the Dave Chappelle controversy
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Your support makes all the difference.BoJack Horseman creator Raphael Bob-Waksberg has shared a scene Netflix asked him to remove as bosses were afraid it would “upset David Fincher”.
Bob-Waksberg said he would post the contents of the scene as Netflix didn’t edit Dave Chappelle’s stand-up special, which featured controversial jokes about trans people, but rejected BoJack’s Fincher joke as Fincher was “concurrently producing a different show” with the streaming service.
However, he said he would only share the scene if more than 100 people replied proving they had donated to Trans Life, a non-profit supporting trans people in crisis. When they did, he thanked his followers and shared the script for the unaired scene.
“Still mystified that apparently Dave Chappelle’s deal is that he says whatever he wants and Netflix just has to air it, unedited. Is that normal, for comedians?” Bob-Waksberg asked, adding: “Because Netflix once asked me to change a joke because they were worried it might upset David Fincher.”
He levelled that “Netflix was right to note it’s a dumb scene”, but added: “My point was it’s silly for a network to pretend their hands are tied when it comes to the content they put on their network.”
Find the Twitter thread below.
Fincher has made his last three projects – Mindhunter, Mank and visual essay series Voir – for the streaming service.
The BoJack Horseman scene in question, which Bob-Waksberg called “controversial”, would have arrived in the seventh episode of the first season .
It featured Seven director Fincher as a character. Among other things, the scene saw him call Princess Carolyn (Amy Seimetz) a “slut”, explain that he “just got kicked off my movie” due to a rumour that he was a “crack addict”.
The Independent has contacted Netflix for comment.
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