Community has become the latest television show to reckon with its own racism, with Netflix pulling an episode off the streaming service due to blackface use. The comedy has seen a rise in popularity recently, as it's now available to stream on both Netflix and Hulu. With that resurgence in popularity, however, comes a renewed push to right one of the wrongs of the series as the critical eye trained on racial injustice on the entertainment industry continues to grow.
The Community episode under fire is "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons," the fourteenth episode in season 2 of the show; it originally aired on NBC on February 3, 2011. In the episode, Ben Chang (played by Ken Jeong) arrives to play a game of Dungeons and Dragons wearing black makeup all over his skin and a white wig, referring to himself as a "dark elf or a drow." Yvette Nicole Brown's character refers to this as a "hate crime," but it is mostly ignored for the rest of the episode as Chang is allowed to play the game.
As TheWrap reports, the episode was pulled from the streaming service. The service has virtually erased "Advanced Dungeons and Dragons" from existence, with the previous 15th episode of the season, "Early 21st Century Romanticism," now showing up as season 2, episode 14, and so on. As of Friday afternoon, however, the episode is still available on Hulu.
Many shows - particularly NBC comedies - have been dealing with the fallout from episodes featuring the use of blackface over the past week. Tiny Fey successfully requested streaming and purchasing sites to remove four episodes of 30 Rock from their respective platforms. Hulu removed three episodes of Scrubs from streaming due to blackface use. And The Office has made plans to edit an old episode of the show that featured the use of blackface.
Because of Hulu's removal of a Scrubs episodes, it's only a matter of time before the streaming service removes the Community episode from their service as well. Still, this is not likely to be the last change on streaming services as shows continue to reckon with their racist pasts. As for Community, there's still hope of achieving its "six seasons and a movie" goal. While show creator Dan Harmon hasn't spoken about Netflix's decision yet, Community may be able to move forward now as it looks back at its troubling history.
Source: TheWrap