Joe Rogan and Netflix have received a flurry of backlash following the premiere of Rogan’s new comedy special Burn the Boats, and rightfully so. The hour-long episode, Rogan’s first on the platform in six years, was immediately the center of frustrations for its barrage of misinformed, homophobic, transphobic, and generally discriminatory content.
Rogan, filming in Austin, Texas, says things like he’s “not homophobic” and “wishes (he) was gay,” immediately before saying that he misses saying the f-slur. He also makes comments that enforce the age-old stereotype of gay men being predatory by comparing them to “mountain lions.”
“They’re a bunch of dudes who fuck dudes. I don’t like my chances,” Rogan says.
The 56-year-old podcast host also fires off at trans people, saying that he believes in freedom and love (uncertain, when one reflects on past comments of his) but he also believes in “crazy people.” Rogan goes after trans women specifically, attesting to his lack of knowledge of the inner workings of being trans by saying, “It’s almost like a pervert wizard waved a magic spell on the whole world. ‘With a wave of this wand, you can walk into the women’s locker room with a hard cock, and anybody who complains is a Nazi. Abracadabra.’”
Unsurprisingly, comments like these are neither new for Joe Rogan nor for Netflix comedy specials. In the past, Rogan has attested to similar homophobic and transphobic beliefs in addition to spouting anti-vax rhetoric during the COVID-19 pandemic and being an open and proud conspiracy theorist (which he also shows some of in his special).
Netflix is facing backlash similar to when they released Dave Chappelle’s transphobic The Closer (2021) and Matt Rife’s misogynistic Natural Selection (2024). After this release, it appears that the multi-billion dollar company has no interest in stopping the production of discriminatory comedy specials. They also faced backlash for LGBTQ+-insensitive programs, such as Dahmer (2022), which featured the queer speculations and reality surrounding the horrific killings of serial killer, Jeffrey Dahmer.
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