This article contains spoilers for Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal, and Greed
It wouldn't be 2021 if the culture gods weren't arriving on horseback, clomping through the happy little forests of Bob Ross to muddy his legacy. At least that's what it felt like when the ominous anti-trailer for Netflix's Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal and Greed came out a few weeks ago, just a quick flash of Bob at his canvas in black and white as the words "we want to show you the trailer...but we can't" flitter across the screen over an eerie soundtrack. Our collective stomachs groaned as we feared one of our few cultural icons of true purity and positivity might be ruined forever. What was revealed in the film itself, though, was perhaps more depressing: the truth that even our most precious cultural exports aren't safe from exploitation.
