The Show That Made Elon Musk Say ‘Cancel Netflix for Your Kids’

This week, a resurfaced clip from the animated series Dead End: Paranormal Park reignited controversy around representation in children’s programming, leading to high-profile voices, including Elon Musk, calling for a boycott. 

The fallout reveals the tensions around LGBTQ+ visibility in media, and the deeper anxieties about who gets to shape children’s understanding of identity today.

How The Show Sparked a New Firestorm

The spark came from an old show. Dead End: Paranormal Park, created by British animator Hamish Steele, premiered on Netflix in 2022. 

The series follows Barney Guttman, a teenage transgender boy who takes a job at a haunted theme park and teams up with friends, human and supernatural, to battle demons. 

The show was pitched as a quirky fantasy adventure with heartfelt themes of belonging, difference, and family. However, after its cancellation in 2023, a short clip resurfaced online in which Barney explicitly states that he is transgender. 

Though it originally drew little mainstream attention, in September 2025, the snippet became viral fuel. The controversy escalated after Steele allegedly mocked the death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in a social media post. 

That post, paired with the resurfaced clip, made Dead End an easy target for critics who have long accused Netflix of smuggling ideology into children’s programming.

Then Came Elon Musk

Elon Musk’s intervention supercharged the debate. On October 1, he reposted a clip from the show alongside the words: “Cancel Netflix for the health of your kids.” 

Almost instantly, the message spread like wildfire across X (formerly Twitter), with conservative commentators and parents’ groups echoing the call.

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The timing coincided with a nearly 2% dip in Netflix’s stock price the following morning. While financial analysts stopped short of attributing the slide solely to the controversy, Musk’s cultural influence is undeniable.

When the richest man in the world links a company to what he frames as child endangerment, markets tend to shudder.

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What Critics Are Saying

Critics argue that the problem is not simply representation, but the age of the target audience. Dead End was rated for viewers as young as seven. For many parents, that crosses a boundary. 

Conservative commentator Ian Miles Cheong, a longtime critic of gender ideology in children’s spaces, put it this way:

“Kids don’t understand gender. Netflix knows it and pushes it anyway. That isn’t harmless storytelling. It’s an agenda wired into children’s shows.”

Others echoed similar sentiments, suggesting that the inclusion of trans identity in a show marketed for children amounted to social engineering. 


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For these critics, children are not equipped to process such topics, and introducing them through entertainment risks confusing them at best and indoctrinating them at worst.

On the far end of the spectrum, some voices described children’s media featuring LGBTQ+ characters as reprogramming or indoctrination. A viral post framed it in even starker terms:

“Seven-year-olds aren’t asking for this. They’re being offered a new identity before they know what a boundary is.”

The Other Side of the Debate

Supporters of shows like Dead End argue that representation matters, even in children’s programming. 

For trans youth, seeing themselves reflected on screen can be validating, especially in a society where their identities are often misunderstood or marginalised.

For many, Barney Guttman was not a symbol of indoctrination but a relatable protagonist navigating questions of belonging, something every child faces in different ways. 

Advocates contend that shielding children entirely from the realities of difference only reinforces stigma, leaving them ill-prepared for a diverse world.

Some also point to the role of parenting. As one commenter on X bluntly put it: “Maybe don’t let your kids watch whatever on TV without supervision and be an active parent instead.” 

The argument here is that children’s exposure to such content is not inevitable; parental guidance still shapes what kids consume, and outrage cannot replace involvement.

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So, Who Shapes Childhood?

At the heart of the debate is not merely about gender identity but the broader issue of childhood itself. Children are not miniature adults. 

They lack the emotional and cognitive maturity to fully grasp complex topics, whether about gender, politics, or religion. 

Critics argue that raising such themes in shows for seven-year-olds risks turning children into participants in adult culture wars before they can meaningfully understand them.

On the other hand, children are not blank slates. They encounter these differences every day, in schools, neighbourhoods, and increasingly, on screens. 

Questions about gender, identity, and belonging arise naturally, regardless of whether parents or institutions are ready to answer them. To ignore those questions is to leave them unanswered, and silence rarely serves children well.

This is where the tension lies: the balance between protection and representation, between preserving innocence and preparing children for reality.

The backlash against Dead End: Paranormal Park shows how entertainment has become a lightning rod for wider cultural anxieties. 

Whether one sees the inclusion of a trans protagonist as radical indoctrination or necessary representation, the reality remains: culture shapes children, inch by inch. 

Parents, corporations, and communities are all part of that process. The real challenge is ensuring that children are not pawns in adult battles but are instead given the tools, language, and guidance to grow into their own understanding, without fear, coercion, shame, or confusion.

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