Public Statement from Bob Ross Inc

I wasn’t even aware of the Netflix show and I don’t intend to watch it (we canceled our subscription anyway, as we can with a little patience borrow DVDs from the public library). I was going to nitpick dismissal of children as not painters (when the “free child” state of flow may well be essential to art), but I’ll leave it at that and highlight this instead:

> We enthusiastically support the public television system, a true American treasure

Along with public libraries, PBS was and is a mainstay in my learning and growing. Without the injection of distracting advertising that pushes for indulgence in materialism (I already struggle with over-valuing control over things), I find it easier to attend to the topic of the show, be it Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, Reading Rainbow, Wild America, Bob Ross, NOVA, Nature, or the recent series of shorts about small-scale life. I fully support my and our US tax money going to public libraries. I grew up with limited resources, as do so many others, and libraries are one of the best schools we have as an investment in our future selves and culture.

Either they did the things they are accused of doing or they didn't. I am not seeing much in the way of direct denial in this statement. They seem to want to add "context" which I know as a PR weasel word for we did it, we aren't sorry, but we want to muddy the waters as much as possible about our guilt.

> While the producers of the Netflix film did contact Bob Ross Inc. twice, in late August and October 2020, each request arrived replete with a confounding lack of transparency. At no time did they pose specific questions to Bob Ross Inc. or ask for any form of rebuttal to specific assertions they had decided to include in the film. Nor was it stated that they had a distribution deal with Netflix.

"They asked us to provide our input, but we snubbed them assuming they were nobodies without an audience"

> After seeing media reports about the film’s summer release, Bob Ross Inc. attempted to reach out to the filmmakers in May 2021 to offer comment. They did not return calls or emails

The hubris shoe is on the other foot now, eh?