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Trash Humpers Too Trashy For Netflix ?
A press release from distributor Drag City today claims that Netflix has apparently dubbed Harmony Korine’s latest, Trash Humpers, to be beyond the pale for its automated DVD service centers. From Drag City:
America’s video rental service of choice has all the previous Korine films – Mister Lonely, julien donkey-boy and Gummo. They offer the film he wrote the script for, Kids. They’re also making available the following films: Antichrist, Irreversible, Emmanuel in America, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer and all the Jackass films. What do all these films have in common? They all feature more full-frontal nudity, on-screen sex, violence, rape and/or murder than is featured in Trash Humpers. Some of them are in as “poor taste” as Trash Humpers. Or at least they wish they were!
Yet Netflix has deemed the content of Trash Humpers to be too inappropriate for their subscribers to make it available to them. From their perspective, they may be right: they certainly know their subscribers and their tastes, and might have a better awareness of their breaking point (we thought that might have been fuckin’ Avatar). So it’s hard to fault them. But we do love a challenge! We don’t expect Netflix to carry anything they don’t want to, for whatever reason, but it reminds us that this is the price paid when we allow one entity to control the lion’s-share of content distribution. For a list of actual-factual mom-and-pop DVD sales-and/or-rental stores still fighting the good fight and carrying Trash Humpers for sale and/or rent, click here.
As Netflix carries other Drag City titles — Silver Jews, Ghost-Metamorphosis, and The World’s Funnyman — there does seem to be some judgement specific to Korine’s title at work here. If you’re interested in viewing Trash Humpers, click on the retail link above. And, you can make your protest known to Netflix with one simple action: ADD TO QUEUE!
