The Heart is Human

Carrie Fisher hiding in the trash cans on the backlot of the Star Wars set, 1976

It’s not mainstream. It’s not cookie cutter. Strong female leads. Compassionate male leads. Heroic poc leads. Multiple healthy lgbt relationships. Cultures around the world being respected and celebrated. Without a doubt, we should see these things regularly in media, but we don’t. And that’s why Sense8 was set up to fail.

It was exploring stories most shows wouldn’t dare touch. Those of us here on tumblr see the need for that. We crave that. But Amy from down the street doesn’t like change. Greg from work likes detective shows. Diane from church is telling everyone to boycott that show because it’s from the devil. And those are just the people who heard of the show… It doesn’t get promotion ads during The Walking Dead. It doesn’t come on directly after Grey’s Anatomy. It doesn’t even come on a channel so that people might accidentally switch over and be captivated by its beauty.

The burden of promotion fell on Netflix. They want to claim it was too expensive. That there weren’t enough viewers to offset the cost of production. And I’m sure that’s true, but whose fault was that?

I learned about Sense8 through friends from here, where a show like Sense8 is accepted and even celebrated. Unless I actively sought out information about the show, I didn’t see anything about it on any other social media sites. I’ve seen people talk about Stranger Things, OitNB, Making a Murder, etc. all over the place, but silence when it came to Sense8.

When I think about why, the answer is pretty clear: Netflix didn’t bother to promote their own show. I don’t have cable, which means I spend a decent amount of time on Netflix, but I never saw Sense8 on the main screen. It wasn’t in my suggestions even though it is very much in line with my “type” of show. It didn’t pop up in the new arrivals sections. Hell, after I started watching it, I would often have to dig for it in my recently watched section. Even when it was the last show I watched, it would get booted to the end of the line.

Netflix took a show with the odds stacked against it from the get go and did absolutely nothing to promote it. With this type of show, word of mouth is key. It has to be promoted enough not just to pique interest but to demand viewership. They needed to shove that show down everyone’s throats the way they do with OitNB or Stranger Things or even shows that aren’t even their own like Riverdale. But they didn’t.