This past month I have been thinking a lot about the kinds of content and resources I am being exposed to. When it comes to media today I am becoming increasingly convinced that popular culture in America is moving further and further away from promoting an intellectual life and instead focusing on what is easy and convenient. I find this very problematic.
To explore this idea I looked at Netflix’s movie streaming service. A couple years ago I was given a Netflix account as a gift. I found their distribution service to be fast and they had a great selection of films. At that point their business model was to offer three different options that allowed their customer’s to have 1 – 3 discs in process. With the 1 or 2 disc options the most movies a customer could watch was 2 or 3 movies a week while with 3 discs a customer could view 5 or 6. Either way the customer could choose between newly released blockbusters, classic films and even art house films and no matter the title there was little difference about the amount of time it took to receive the film in the mail.
Today Netflix has completely changed their business model from mail-focused distribution to online streaming. Their subscription options begin with a streaming-only option and then for $2 more you can add the mail service. The problem with this is that Netflix does not offer many high quality films to stream. They offer a handful of decent films and then supplement that collection with films of a lesser quality.
As a quick disclaimer I will acknowledge the fact that Netflix is not always responsible for the movies they are allowed to stream. I’m sure Netflix wants to offer all of their titles for instant streaming and that it is the studios who are getting in the way. Eventually all of the details and negations for allowing a movie to get viewed through a subscription based service will get worked out but until then I cannot fault Netflix for not streaming more movies. However, my problem with Netflix lies in the fact that they promote themselves now as a comprehensive movie streaming service, which they are far from.
To not come across as a complete film snob, I chose to evaluate their streaming collection against the top 250 films according to the Internet Movie Database (IMDb). I chose to use this list as it is compiled through user rankings and it also contains films from many different genres and time periods. Of these 250 films only 65 of them can be streamed. This means that only 26% of the films can be streamed. Of the top 100 only 22 can be streamed and of the top 25 only 4. Honestly, these numbers are higher then what I originally thought I would find.
Looking closer at the films that can be streamed I found some interesting trends. First, I found that Netflix only streams the theatrical release for Fellowship of the Ring. While I have not seen this film yet I have seen that most people who own this movie own the Extended Edition, which you cannot stream. Second, five of the films, Fellowship of the Ring, Toy Story 3, Aliens, Die Hard and Terminator, are films where only part of the franchise can be streamed. This is especially problematic for Toy Story 3 and Aliens where the prequels cannot be streamed. Finally, the films Seven Samurai, M, The Third Man, Rashomon, Yojimbo, Wild Strawberries, Ikiru, Diabolique, 8 ½, The Battle of Algiers, The 400 Blows, The Killing, The Passion of Joan of Arc and Fanny and Alexander are all films that are (or soon will be) licensed through The Criterion Collection which seems to be one of the larger supporters of streaming film. These films make up 20% of the list of 65 mentioned above. What all of this data tells me is that only a small percentage of films that people consider high quality are available to be streamed.
Another aspect to keep in mind is that Netflix streams the films only. For the most part the features included on a DVD are not really all that great but some features and commentaries add a lot of interesting information about film and film history that cannot be accessed elsewhere. Once again I imagine this has to do more with influences outside of Netflix who are trying to keep a separation between the DVD experience and the streaming experience.
So what does this all mean? My concern is that Netflix no longer cares about the quality of the films they stream, which seems like a total change in their business plan. By promoting themselves as a streaming service first and mail service second they are decreasing the number of quality films available to their customers. Not every film on the IMDb list is for everyone and I do believe that part of watching some movies should be escapism, but it is problematic if the movies we now get to choose from do not stimulate our intellectual side.
It seems to be a new trend in American business to gravitate only to the business practices that allow for quick money to be made. Netflix is at an advantage here because their brand is already a household name. Through Netflix’s streaming service we are only being exposed to a low number of quality films while being over exposed to poorly made cinema. We cannot allow this to be what we expect as normal because it will lead to decreased standards.
I’m not calling for a boycott against Netflix. Instead, I just want to kindly remind everyone to explore quality films. Netflix is making it easy to forget about the process of critically examining films. Do not settle for what is conveniently placed in front of you but instead take the time to explore films. There are many great films that are not available to stream on Netflix. Be sure to look into those films as well.
[This study was done during the middle of June. Both the IMDb list and the films Netflix streams are constantly changing. It is possible that the numbers would look a bit different if this study was repeated at a later date.]
