Netflix is being lashed for its new drama series The Accident, which bears a painful similarity to the Hillcrest Primary School bouncy castle incident in Tasmania in which six children died in December 2021.
As in the real-life tragedy, the controversial new show depicts a bouncy castle becoming airborne, killing multiple children and shattering the tight-knit community where it occurred.
Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff has demanded the global streaming giant to apologise to the community.
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He said in the state’s House of Assembly on Tuesday that a “massive insensitivity was on display” and called the “distasteful” series “enormously regretful”.
“Netflix should apologise to the community.”
Hillcrest Primary School students were celebrating the end of the year when a jumping castle at the school in Devonport was lifted into the air by a strong wind gust, killing six children who fell from the castle.
The jumping castle operator charged with workplace safety breaches has pleaded not guilty, as investigations continue ahead of a two-week hearing in November.
But the backlash over the series was not limited to those familiar with the Tasmanian tragedy.
There are also similarities to a real-life incident in the US, during which a five-year-old boy fatally fell from an airborne bouncy castle at a baseball game in Maryland in August.
Netflix asserts in its official companion site, Tudum, that The Accident, set in Mexico’s Santa Cruz, is fictional and was not based on a true story.
It also cited American Meteorological Society statistics that 28 people have died, and 479 people have been injured in the US between 2000 and 2021 due to wind-related bouncy castle accidents.
The internet was divided over the series, with some arguing it was in “bad taste to exploit real child death scenarios for entertainment purposes” while others responded that dramatic depictions of real life tragedies were common.
“A lot of horrific events have happened throughout history. That does not mean you cannot make films based on similar things,” one person commented on a Netflix social media post promoting the series.
But a common critique of the series was that the production value lessened the seriousness of the recent real-life incidents.
“An extremely exploitative (series) … so terribly done to the point of seeming comical,” one person said.
“The cinematography, acting, and production value is so bad it makes (the) tragedy look hilarious,” another said.
“This scene plays like a parody instead of something based on real life tragedy,” said another.
“They haven’t done it well. If you are going to base something off a real life tragedy, there should be a modicum of respect,” another said.
Others noted a distasteful extrapolation of subsequent events within the narrative.
“I turned it off when a couple of the parents were setting fire to the groundskeeper’s house with his children inside,” one person said.
“It’s gross and trauma porn,” another said.