Nathan Fielder Shows Paramount+ as Nazis, Antisemitic

In a 2015 episode of the reality comedy series “Nathan for You,” Nathan Fielder starts an outdoor apparel line called Summit Ice. It had come to his attention that the Canadian label behind his favorite winter jacket, Taiga, had published a tribute to the Holocaust denier Doug Collins. So Fielder, who is Jewish, started a competing brand, donating all proceeds to Holocaust education.

Hoping to sell Summit Ice jackets in stores, Fielder recruits a rabbi to help design a striking retail display that showcases the brand’s mission. As is the nature of “Nathan for You” — which aired on Comedy Central from 2013-2017 — their pitch is ridiculous, presenting their clothing behind a replica of the Auschwitz gate, swastika pennants and a fake skeleton in an oven.

As expected, the owner of the store rejects the pitch, and tells Fielder, “Find something else to do with your life, because you are not good at this.” Regardless, Summit Ice took off and became an inside joke among fans of Fielder, generating $300,000 in sales in the company’s first eight weeks, with profits donated to the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre. Ten years later, Fielder has likely raised millions of dollars toward Holocaust awareness.

In a new episode of “The Rehearsal,” his HBO comedy series that similarly blurs the line between fiction and reality, Fielder calls Summit Ice his “proudest achievement,” and uses it as an example of something “silly” that “can actually have an impact in the world.”

Apparently not everyone supports Fielder’s approach.

In Sunday’s episode of “The Rehearsal” (spoilers ahead), the comedian reveals that in late 2023, he discovered that the episode of “Nathan for You” featuring the Summit Ice story had been scrubbed from Paramount+, where the Comedy Central show streams. (“Nathan for You” also streams on Max, alongside “The Rehearsal.”)

Variety has confirmed that the “Nathan for You” episode in question is not streaming on Paramount+ following what a source describes as a “standards review.” The episode is available to stream on Max.

Fielder says he emailed his contacts at Paramount+ to ask why the episode was removed, and they confirmed that it was an intentional decision due to “sensitivities.” Presenting a recreation of his email correspondence with Paramount+, Fielder says the streamer went on to clarify: “A decision was made by Paramount+ Germany to remove the episode in their region after they became uncomfortable with what they called anything that touches on antisemitism in the aftermath of the Israel/Hamas attacks.”

Fielder goes on to say that Paramount+ Germany’s decision “triggered the attention of other European Paramount branches and they, in turn, pulled the episode too. Before long, the ideology of Paramount+ Germany had spread to the entire globe, eliminating all Jewish content that made them uncomfortable.” (He narrates this while showing a map of the ripple effect, likening the Paramount+ brand to the spread of Nazism.)

To add insult to injury, Fielder accuses the streamer of “erasing” Jewish people, showing that there are 50 search results on the platform for “Nazi,” 10 for “Hitler” and zero for “Judaism.” Testing this experiment, Variety likewise found 50 results for “Nazi” and 10 for “Hitler.” Many of the results are World War II documentaries, but a lot of random titles also pop up, including March Madness games and the A24 film “Minari.” There is one result for “Judaism,” a 2022 short film series from Showtime called “Spotlights.” A search for “Christianity” pulls up two documentaries, and “Islam” generates 50 results including “Love Island,” “Fire Island” and “Monkey Island” — presumably to account for typos. (It’s safe to say the Paramount+ search engine is wonky.)

Because the thesis of “The Rehearsal” is that people can prepare for life’s challenges by “rehearsing” them in elaborate, hyperrealistic simulations, Fielder builds a replica of the Paramount+ Germany offices and hires an actor to play a streaming executive. Fielder felt he was too deferential in his initial correspondence with Paramount+ because the streamer also carried his Showtime series “The Curse,” which has yet to be renewed for another season. So, he wanted another chance at confrontation.

“I didn’t know what the Paramount+ Germany offices looked like, so I sort of had to take a guess,” Fielder says in the episode, a hilarious comment from someone whose research goes to extreme lengths for even the most minute aspects of his television series.

Nevertheless, Fielder walks into his “replica,” a grandiose building with massive Paramount+ banners hanging from the ceiling. (Look familiar?) To understand why the Summit Ice episode was deleted, he sits down with the thick-accented “executive,” who explains, in dialogue written by Fielder, “In Germany today, we have no tolerance for any images that may evoke hate or incite violence toward any group of people.”

Fielder then tells the actor to improvise — although it’s highly unlikely this part was not also scripted — and the “Paramount+ executive” lays into Fielder for letting his preconceptions elicit an “insincere” approach to conflict resolution. “You designed this office to look like a war room, dressed me to look like a Nazi,” he says. “Pretending to want feedback, but you don’t actually want to get the Paramount+ perspective, or the German perspective.”

When the actor calls Fielder a “man with a grudge using his television show to smear us,” it serves as a built-in rebuttal to Fielder’s metaphor. (Sources indicate to Variety that Paramount+ was not given a head’s up about this storyline by the show or HBO. Presumably, the episode was cleared by HBO’s legal department before release, as is standard procedure with satirical content involving real corporations.)

Contacted by Variety, Paramount+ did not comment. A spokesperson for the company declined to address any further questions, including Fielder’s depiction of Paramount+ as Nazi Germany, why the episode failed to meet its standards or whether it will ever be put back on the platform.