The series re-creates the glee with which people seized upon words such as wildin’, common slang for any range of boisterous behavior, as evidence of the boys’ inherent criminality. In its early installments, When They See Us implicates New York media, and the ensuing frenzy of the public, in spurring along the boys’ wrongful verdicts. (Trump is referenced often, particularly in the second installment he is depicted as the most powerful of the boys’ zealous detractors, not the sole purveyor of racial animus.) In rendering their journeys, DuVernay pays careful attention to the terrifying power of language, especially the animalistic rhetoric with which prosecutors and journalists referred to the teens. In When They See Us, the Ava DuVernay–helmed miniseries now streaming on Netflix, the director lays out the all-too-common process by which the five black and Latino teens were convicted of a crime they did not commit. “If they had their way,” Salaam told CNN in 2012, 10 years after a man named Matias Reyes confessed to the crime and two years before the Central Park Five received a $41 million settlement from the City of New York, “we would have been hanging from one of those lovely trees here in Central Park.” The boys eventually became known as the “Central Park Five,” a pithy moniker picked up by local and national media outlets that served as much to undercut their humanity as it did to free up copy space. Trump, then a local real-estate mogul, purchased full-page ads in four New York publications calling for the return of the death penalty so that the boys could be executed. They were “ just baby boys.” But in the days following the rape of Trisha Meili, the teens-ages 14 to 16-transmogrified into a “ wolf pack.” They became “ savage.” Meili, who became known as the “Central Park jogger,” was often characterized as their “ prey.” The flurry of media attention reached a galling crescendo when Donald J. Before their arrest, the teens crested through their city with youthful ebullience. Their world was one of concrete and cookouts, basketball and barber shops. The boys, who were all arrested in 1989 after a 28-year-old white woman was brutally raped and abandoned in Central Park, called the sweltering metropolis their home. He said it was important to keep in mind not just how many people watch, but “how often and how long” they watch, too.The New York City teenagers Yusef Salaam, Korey Wise, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, and Antron McCray were not born in the wild. He pushed for an “apples-to-apples” comparison, where Netflix’s statistics were not only verified by a third party, but also used the industry viewership standard instead of proprietary metrics. In February, FX chief John Landgraf laid out why unsubstantiated figures shouldn’t be accepted at face value from any company. “When They See Us” could move into that slot with the right campaign, and the big viewership numbers - real and/or perceived - could give them an advantage. Older shows are fading from consciousness, more recently released programs haven’t made as much of a dent, and there’s no dominant leader. The streaming giant has yet to win one of the major categories - Best Drama Series, Best Comedy Series, or Best Limited Series - and the limited series race is wide open. Limited Series Tempt Movie Stars to Television, But Who Will the Emmys Embrace?Įven without verification, the Netflix announcement of “When They See Us” viewership could be a boon for its Emmy campaign. Those announcements were met with dubious reactions from journalists because there is simply no way to verify the numbers are true. In December 2018, the company released internal data on “Birdbox” viewership, followed by more viewership claims regarding, “You,” “Sex Education,” “Triple Frontier,” “The Highwaymen,” and more. Company practice is not to release viewership statistics, unless it really wants to, and there’s no possibility of third-party verification. IndieWire has reached out for comment, although history suggests Netflix won’t supply much transparency on this topic. In stating that it’s “the most-watched series on Netflix,” the implication is it’s even more popular than Netflix reruns of “Friends” and “The Office,” which would be extraordinary. We don’t know exactly what “most” means, or even “watched” (how much of it? how long?). To be clear as we can, Netflix is saying that Ava DuVernay’s four-part limited series about the falsely accused boys who made up the Central Park Five has been the most watched series on Netflix for the last 13 days. When They See Us has been the most-watched series on Netflix in the US every day since it premiered on May 31 /jS8IXIh03g Wednesday afternoon, the streaming service posted the following to its U.S. Netflix wants you to know “ When They See Us” is a hit.
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