Netflix Replaces White Investigators Who Took Down Purdue Pharma With Fictional Black Woman

Once again, Netflix is under fire for accusations of “race swapping” following the release of the new series Painkilller.

Painkiller uses fictional events to dramatize the true story of the real Sackler family and the lawsuit filed against Purdue Pharma over opioid manufacturing and the subsequent opioid crisis.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Owen Foster and Michael Drescher, in addition to other staff members at the Vermont U.S. Attorney’s office, were some of the real-life investigators who were critical to the case.

While Painkiller includes a character based on real-life US Attorney John Brownlee, the series introduces a composite character to represent the other key staffers.

Actress Uza Aduba is the fictional champion investigator Edie Flowers, who brings the case against Purdue Pharma.

Screenrant reports the decision to create a composite character was  “..for the sake of their story,” and that the show’s creators  “…needed to ensure that the hero of the television series had one singular face, and that is where Aduba as Edie came in.”

“Saw a preview for the [Netflix] show Painkiller about Purdue Pharma and noticed the story’s intrepid, wily hero Edie Flowers is a black girlboss Fed prosecutor who single-handedly takes down the Sackler family, and thought it was weird that I’d never heard of this person and that she’s not a more prominent public figure since she perfectly ticks every lib fantasy box–strutting, cunning, courageous, sassy, and who outsmarts her evil Big Pharma antagonists–but of course, when I looked up, it turns out Edie Flowers isn’t real. They just made her up.”

Saw a preview for the Netlfix show Painkiller about Purdue Pharma and noticed the story’s intrepid, wily hero Edie Flowers is a black girlboss Fed prosecutor who single-handedly takes down the Sackler family, and thought it was weird that I’d never heard of this person and that… pic.twitter.com/rOZzpVRO7j

— Lomez (@L0m3z) December 8, 2023

The Gateway Pundit reported that the Netflix series about Cleopatra courted controversy for changing the race of the title character from Greek/Macedonian to African.

It is such an obvious rewrite of history that even the government of Egypt objected to the series.