(BroBible)
A petition with thousands of signatures is demanding Netflix take action over a George Floyd joke Tony Hinchcliffe made during the Roast of Kevin Hart. The backlash has grown large enough that Hinchcliffe’s animated character was reportedly retconned out of an upcoming project after he tried to claim it as intellectual property.
A petition is never the scary part. Thousands of people signing a petition is the internet’s version of a strongly worded letter it accomplishes nothing and everyone feels better about themselves for doing it. Fine.
The scary part is what happened on the way to the petition. Tony Hinchcliffe, watching the walls close in, reportedly tried to legally claim his animated character as his own intellectual property. Protect the asset. Smart move in theory.
The studio retconned the character out of existence.
Just deleted him. Didn’t negotiate, didn’t settle, didn’t send a cease and desist back. Opened up the timeline and erased Tony Hinchcliffe from the universe like he was a mistake in a rough draft. The character is gone. Tony stood up to claim what was his and the response was “actually, nothing is yours, including this cartoon.”
That’s not a PR problem. That’s a Greek tragedy with a Netflix budget.
Look, roasts are roasts. Dark jokes exist. That’s the whole contract. But when the fallout from your bit ends with you legally demanding ownership of a cartoon version of yourself and the studio just deletes the cartoon instead — you have lost. Not the argument. The whole thing. You are now the guy who tried to negotiate with people who had the delete button and they just pressed it.
The petition is the least of his problems.
