When Meritocracy Meets Diversity: Lessons from a Jewish Pirate Film’s Removal from Amazon

A Fraught Conversation

I’ve been hesitant to wade into this contentious sociopolitical territory for all of the obvious reasons. But a recent turn of events has got me thinking about the way we think about both diversity and meritocracy (and the relationship between the two). It is, perhaps, a useful framing that might reveal some common ground between the two seemingly divergent priorities.

The Story Behind The Pirate Captain Toledano

Here’s what happened:

In 2017, I released a short film about Jewish pirates in the 16th century Caribbean. The Pirate Captain Toledano did exceptionally well, screening at over 50 film festivals around the world and earning praise for its groundbreaking depiction of a very different kind of Jewish character.

In July, 2018, I made it available on Amazon Prime through a service that used to be called Video Direct. For a year or two, the film was free to Prime subscribers, and non-subscribers could rent or purchase it to stream on their TVs and devices.

Three years later, July, 2021, Amazon decided to pull the film from Prime, but kept it as a streaming rental/purchase option. For about a dollar (the minimum price point that I could set), anyone with an Amazon account could see the movie.

I should be very honest here: I was never going to get rich off of this. The film generally earned enough to buy me a cup of coffee every month. This added up over the years (yes, I keep track). $199.05 from streaming purchases and rentals. Roughly 1% of the film’s budget.

But I loved having the film on Amazon. It’s a platform everyone knows, so there was very little friction to prevent a viewer from clicking the “buy” or “rent” buttons. And there was a degree of real validation to having the film available on Amazon. Unlike, say, YouTube, where anyone can post anything, Amazon had strict guidelines and quality controls. Most of my earlier films could not meet Amazon’s strict technical and quality requirements. Having the film on Amazon meant something.

The Silent Removal

Last week, I discovered that after seven years on the platform, Amazon decided to take The Pirate Captain Toledano down. In true big-tech fashion, they did this without so much as a notification. I had to dig through my account dashboard to figure out why my monthly coffee money hadn’t shown up. There was no explanation, either.

I contacted the company to find out why they had taken the film down, only to receive a boilerplate email in reply. Here’s the first sentence:

“Since this title has been live on Prime Video, it has not compiled enough total hours, unique customer streams, and/or a high enough completion rate.”

Metrics. Data. The cold, hard currency of the algorithm.

Where Meritocracy and Diversity Intersect

Here’s where I began to think about things like meritocracy and diversity.

First of all, I like the idea of meritocracy – the idea that our work can be assessed on its merits, not based on the accidents of our birth or upbringing. I certainly would love for better work to be rewarded, and for shoddier work to fall away. I recognize that this hasn’t been the way meritocracies have actually functioned, but as a philosophical ideal, it resonates with me.

Much ink has been spilled about the way racism (particularly, the kind of racism we aren’t even aware of in ourselves) puts a thumb on meritocracy’s scale. Although the scale is certainly tipped, often along identity lines, I’m not sure that identity is the primary culprit here. If anything, the accusatory focus on racism might have distracted away from what’s actually wrong with the way we approach meritocracy.

Popularity ≠ Merit

This isn’t a new idea, but my experience with The Pirate Captain Toledano offers a clear example of it. Amazon uses its viewership metrics as the data point that determines the “merit” of a work. The numbers for Toledano didn’t meet their standards of “merit,” so they pulled the film. But why weren’t there enough “total hours” viewed? Why weren’t there enough unique customer streams?

The film was very well received, spun off a popular graphic novel, and is still of interest, particularly among Jews, who see in it a refreshing rebuttal to Hollywood’s preferred Jewish stereotypes. That sounds plenty meritorious to me!

But Amazon falls into the trap that most of the world falls into, conflating popularity (or the related profitability) with merit.

The Minority Audience Problem

Sure, my film has been predominantly (but not exclusively) popular among Jewish viewers. But Jews make up a tiny fraction of the global population. In the US, we’re a whopping 2% or so. If 10% of the US population sees a movie, that’s a HUGE audience, and the movie is considered a major success. If 10% of the US Jewish population sees a movie, the metrics barely register.

A film may be critically important for a small community, and still not meet the data-driven definition of “merit.”

Why I Made The Pirate Captain Toledano

A different side of this problem is the reason I made The Pirate Captain Toledano in the first place.

In the mid-2010s, I had written a Jewish-themed sci-fi action-adventure screenplay. The project had some momentum. A producer eager to shepherd it, and, eventually, a big production company that wanted to make it. But they wanted it to be “less Jewish” – or not even Jewish at all.

When I pressed for an explanation, they expressed an all-too-common concern that if audiences perceive the film to be “too Jewish,” they won’t want to see it – and the Jewish market is simply too small to justify such an expense.

The Hollywood Bias

First of all, this is patently false, and has been disproven nearly every time a major studio has taken a major swing at an overtly Jewish project. It’s also disproven by other successful films that don’t shy away from their minority connections. The Godfather is overtly Catholic. Moana is deeply rooted in the island cultures of the South Pacific.

For various reasons (that I may explore in a separate blog post) Hollywood has a harder time allowing for the possibility that a Jewish story can “translate” to a broader audience. I made Toledano with that explicit goal in mind. I made a movie whose climactic scene is a dramatic recitation of the Friday night Kiddush, and I submitted it to festivals everywhere… and it was selected to festivals in Morocco, Macedonia, Italy, India… big cities and small towns where Jewish populations are almost nonexistent.

Popularity’s Effect on Minority Narratives

But this conflation of market viability with “merit” has another strange effect. It nearly eliminates the possibility of minority narratives altogether. Here’s how that works:

In 2024, 122 films got a wide release in the US (600+ screens). Of these, only one, White Bird, tells a Jewish story – but it’s a Holocaust story. (“Between the Temples” got close, releasing to over 500 screens, but did not hit the 600-screen threshold.)

With Jews making up 2% of the US population, you might think that 2–3 of those wide-release films would tell a Jewish story. And with Jews overrepresented in Hollywood, you might think that the meritocracy would allow for the possibility of even more Jewish stories rising to the top.

The Investor’s Dilemma

But imagine you’re an investor, and you’re told your money could go to a film that (lies!) would only appeal to 2% of the population, or to a film that would appeal to 98%. Where would you choose to put your money?

In the world of popularity = merit, it’s a wonder that minority stories get told at all.

And when they do, the algorithmic definition of “merit” limits their ability to remain available to the audiences that care about them—and discoverable to everyone else.

Diversity Initiatives as a Meritocracy Boost

For this reason, I think that often-lambasted diversity initiatives—when carefully designed and judiciously applied—are not a disruption of meritocracy, but an improvement of it.

I’m not talking about diversity pushes that weigh identity over quality. A person’s identity should not be taken as part of the measure of that person’s value. But programs that disrupt the popularity = merit equation by funding authentic, niche entertainment help maintain the ideal of meritocracy while redefining merit on a more granular level.

Netflix’s Niche Strategy

I’ve seen this play out with some of the acquisition choices of subscription streaming services. When Netflix picks up an Israeli TV show for the US market, it’s not because they think a meaningful portion of American viewers will care for it.

For Netflix, providing for the niche audience is as important as providing mass-market stuff. They can gauge a viewer’s interests and feed that viewer content that is of specific interest. It’s why, when I browse Netflix, it looks like there’s a ton of Jewish content there… but when my Indian friend browses, it looks like half of Netflix is Bollywood.

Amazon’s Missed Opportunity

This all comes back to Amazon’s decision to pull The Pirate Captain Toledano from their video offerings.

It’s a befuddling move. The streaming deal has Amazon keeping 50% of the sale price, so they earned as much as I did off of the film—enough to cover the cost of that tiny bit of server space.

It seems to me they are still stuck in the fallacy of conflating popularity with merit. It’s their loss, sure, but it’s our loss, too. It makes it that much harder for the smallest minorities to get their voices heard, or to get their stories told.

Moving Forward

Of course, the internet is a big place. I’m going to find another good home for Toledano somewhere, and I’ll share that link when I have it.

In the meantime, I’ll have to turn to other creative sources for my monthly coffee money. Something has got to fuel the creative work, right?