Weekend Box 22/04: Macron debates, Netflix woes & more
Welcome to The Weekend Box, Audley’s weekly round-up of interesting or obscure political, business, and cultural news from around the world.
LE PRÉSIDENT VS LE PEN
On Wednesday night, over 15m viewers tuned in to the televised debate between France’s President Emmanuel Macron and the candidate who has emerged once again to challenge him for the top spot in French government: Marine Le Pen. While their sparring made for compelling viewing, there was little to make France feel secure ahead of Sunday’s decisive run-off.
Of course, this is not the first time the two candidates have faced off like this. In 2017, the infamous debate between Emmanuel Macron and Le Pen, leader of the far-right Rassemblement national (National Rally), damaged the latter’s reputation and is widely seen to have secured the president’s victory. This time, however, President Macron found himself up against a more formidable opponent. As Le Pen promised to address the cost of living crisis by reducing taxes and VAT, the transformation her public image has undergone was never more clear. The aggressive and openly bigoted candidate of 2017 was now presenting herself as the president’s sensible alternative, in touch with the ordinary French people he has left behind. It is this change in rhetoric and demeanour that has given her worryingly good odds for claiming victory.
However, President Macron was not prepared to let this PR overhaul sway viewers. He went on the attack, using the incident of a loan paid by First Czech Russian Bank to Rassemblement National in 2014 to accuse his rival of ‘depending’ on President Vladimir Putin. Le Pen countered that he was knowingly lying and claimed she was a ‘free woman’ and a ‘patriot’. This moment of Trumpian rhetoric was mirrored in her later vows to deal with immigration, close hundreds of mosques, and ban Muslim women from wearing the hijab in public. For all that she has toned down her public image, the Islamophobic, nationalist Le Pen has gone nowhere. The president rebuked Le Pen’s vow to ban the hijab, saying it would lead to ‘civil war’.
Following the debate, President Macron is still ahead in the polls. However, the gap between him and Le Pen is still far narrower than it was in 2017. Many have cautioned that the election could not go the way that is expected on Sunday. What is more, if President Macron claims victory for a second time, the question of how he will address the dissatisfaction in French society that Le Pen has capitalised on remains open. Look out for a BoxNote following the results next week…
NO EASY NET-FIX
In January the hedge fund titan cum streaming saviour Bill Hackman poured over $1bn into Netflix just days after a lacklustre forecast for subscriptions caused a massive collapse in share prices. At the time, it seemed Hackman had saved the platform from the brink. However, a mere 3 months later, Netflix has suffered a one-two punch of misfortune: not only did it lose 200,000 subscribers in Q1, with over 2m expected to go by the end of Q2, but the news has caused one-time hero Hackman to offload his stake for an eye-watering loss of approximately $400m for the Pershing fund.
Netflix has pulled every imaginable excuse for the losses out of the bag; from password sharing to Russia's aggression in Ukraine. These factors and more, the company said, had created “revenue growth headwinds.” Although, there may be another factor that Netflix doesn’t want to address: that its content just isn’t good enough to keep subscribers around.
Rewind to a few years ago and it was a different story. One could never have imagined the platform with smash hits such as The Crown, Stranger Things, and more for only £7.99 a month taking such devastating losses. If we look at what Netflix has on offer now, however, it is no surprise that it is shedding viewers: there’s Yummy Mummies (firm no), Serial Killers with Piers Morgan (probably not), or Five Star Hotel (no, thank you).
Faced with a catalogue like this, it seems obvious that viewers would want to drop their Netflix subscription for Apple TV+, for example, which is currently streaming what are considered to be two of the best dramas of recent years (Pachinko and Severa). According to Co-CEO Reed Hastings, Netflix is taking a leaf from Apple TV’s book to try to turn its fortunes around; though not one that everyone will like. Hastings claims the company plans to roll out an ad-supported tier of the streaming service “over the next year or two.”
Hastings argues that Apple TV and others have “figured out” how to make ads on streaming work, so why can’t Netflix? He seemingly forgets that the lack of ads was one of the main draws of his platform in the first place. If Netflix wants to revitalise its growth and reassert its dominance over the world’s entertainment industry, it would do well to follow Apple’s lead by focusing on the quality of its programming and recommendations, instead.
INSECURITY AGREEMENT
In March, an unverified ‘draft’ of China’s security agreement with the Solomon Islands was leaked on Twitter. According to the document, it could permit Beijing to send “the relevant forces of China” to the country and have naval ships dock at its ports for resupply and dock transfers.
Although the veracity of the leak was questionable, it nonetheless sparked a wave of diplomatic overtures as concern mounted over the balance of power in the strategic shipping region tipping in Beijing’s favour. Australia’s Pacific Minister Zed Seselja was sent to the Solomons last week to implore its leaders to “consider” not following through with the agreement. He was dispatched to Hoinara in the midst of Australia’s general elections; a period when diplomatic travel is typically suspended.
However, his mission and the flurry of diplomatic efforts from the US and its allies ultimately proved futile. On Tuesday evening, China’s foreign ministry announced that its first bilateral agreement with a country in the Pacific had been signed.
The agreement, Beijing and Hoinora say, will promote stability and harmony. Their pacifying rhetoric, however, has done little to ease the international community, as the secrecy shrouding the terms of the pact has left many fearing for the worst. Australia, New Zealand, and America fear that if the deal resembles the leaked draft - which it most likely will - it could open the door to a Chinese military base just 2000km from the east coast of Australia, placing the region’s security under significant threat.
Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare has maintained that the region has no intention of permitting a Chinese military base in the Solomons. Nonetheless, the US’ 1st National Security Council Coordinator for the Indo-Pacific Kurt Campbell has arrived in Honiara today to see if the agreement cannot be reversed.
DESANTIS DISMISSES DISNEY
On Wednesday, Florida’s senate voted 70-38 to revoke Disney’s designation as a special tax district. The Walt Disney Company was originally granted this status by the Sunshine State in 1967, permitting the entertainment conglomerate to self-govern its 25,000-acre theme park complex. The bill now heads to Governor of Florida and ‘Trumpist’ Ron DeSantis, who is all but certain to make the measure official.
The vote has been perceived as a form of aggressive retaliation after Disney, the state’s largest private employer, froze its political donations in the state and pushed to repeal the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, which DeSantis passed last month. The law forbids discussion of sexual orientation and gender identiy from in schools from the level of kindergarden to the third grade, with limits to discussion for older students as well. In a fund-raising email to supporters on Wednesday, DeSantis wrote: “If Disney want to pick a fight, they chose the wrong guy, [...] I will not allow a woke corporation based in California to run our state.” He added: “Disney thought they ruled Florida. They even tried to attack me to advance their woke agenda.” Earlier this month, Republican lawmakers in the US Congress vowed to oppose renewal of the company’s copyright on Mickey Mouse in 2024 after it defended LGBTQ+ youth.
The speedy push-through of the bill was met by outrage from state Democrats. Senator Tina Polsky described it as “an enormous decision based on spite and revenge governance.” Democrat state representative Fentrice Driskell highlighted that the dissolution of Disney’s special tax status could lead to $2bn of debt being offloaded onto taxpayers in the Orlando area, placing an “additional tax burden that’s estimated $2,200 to $2,800” on families.
UKRAINE: AT THE VENICE BIENNIALE
On Saturday, the Venice Biennale’s renowned exhibition of contemporary art, the Art Biennale, returns. The showcase of work from international artists has gained new significance this year, as Ukraine’s installation has drawn worldwide attention as a symbol of the endurance of the nation and its culture in the face of Russia’s invasion.
The Art Biennale 2022 will bring the contemporary art world to Venice in the form of an international exhibition hosted simultaneously at the gardens of the Venice Giardini and the historic Venetian Arsenal, with multiple other events scheduled to take place across the city. This year’s exhibition entitled ‘The Milk of Dreams’ will feature pavilions by 213 artists from 58 countries, with the aim not only of displaying each artist’s creativity but, according to curator Cecilia Alemani, of speaking to the present state of our ‘society’.
Ukraine’s pavilion at the Arsenal, featuring Kharkiv artist Pavlo Makov’s installation Fountain of Exhaustion, is a striking encapsulation of this on both a conceptual and contextual level. Transported from Kyiv by the pavilion’s curator Maria Lanko on a weeklong car journey, with stops to rest in abandoned houses on the way, Fountain of Exhaustion consists of 78 bronze-cast funnels arranged in a pyramid. Water trickles down the structure, diminishing in quantity and force as it does so. While evocative of a wide-reaching sense of exhaustion and anxiety at the state of geopolitics, the piece is also an act of defiance against Russia’s attempts at cultural erasure in its invasion of Ukraine. Makov and the pavilion’s curators, on behalf of their country, are showing that even in the face of President Putin’s bombardment Ukraine will not be prevented from asserting its identity.
Commentary on crisis, whether in an individual country or global, is common to a number of the international pavilions this year. Lebanon’s pavilion The World in the Image of Man encapsulates the precarious state of a country that, in artist Danielle Arbid’s words, is plagued by “many money problems.” Meanwhile, Chile’s pavilion Turba Tol Hol-Hol Tol is themed around the conservation of South America’s peatland marshes, both for their cultural significance to the Selk’nam people and for the role they can play in combating the climate crisis.
And that’s it for this week. I hope you found something of interest that you might want to delve into further. If so, please get in touch at cwilkins@audley.uk.com.
For now, that’s the weekend box officially closed.