When the writers went on strike I really couldn’t muster a fart. Like everyone else, they gotta do what they gotta do. And in the end, it wasn’t going to amount to anything permanently worthwhile because that’s how America rolls. America is not a society of proactive action. We don’t like to prevent disaster; we like to wait for it to happen to us, bitch about it, throw around blame, and go back to regular programming without ever changing course. Sometimes we duct tape and silly string together a “new plan” to protect certain vulnerable groups from repeat disaster, but it’s always half-hearted and never well thought out. It’ll be the same for writers in Hollywood. Studios will give in a little. There will be a New Deal that’ll last a couple years and be full of loopholes, but no one will care because the big names in the Writers’ Guild will call it a win at election time and the senior writers will get theirs before retiring in a few years giving no figs for the up-and-coming writers, cuz screw them, we got ours!
Nothing the writers get producers to agree to is going to affect my life one tiny iota. If streaming costs go up to offset new earnings scales while maintaining profit margins for the studios – I’ll just cancel my subscriptions. I can easily live without Hulu. I already live without Netflix. And Amazon Prime is on its way out because it’s not paying for itself in shipping costs OR streaming content. My relationship with writers – Hollywood or otherwise – is like the one I have with the people I went to high school with – they don’t give a furry rip about my life, and I don’t care about theirs. They don’t care if I lose a job due to layoffs stemming from my employer’s use of Artificial Intelligence or gross incompetence. They may write an episode for Season 52 of NCIS: Mars about a woman who killed herself but tried to frame her AI CEO (yeah, AI is coming for C-Suite jobs too) for her death to expose its master plan to blow up Earth and protect its cyber nest on Mars from humanity…but there isn’t a single script, novel, or media writer who would show up if I needed better pay from MY job or if MY job was eliminated because of AI, because MY job isn’t interesting or part of the entertainment monster. They don’t care about me, I don’t care about them. I can live without “new” entertainment – I’ve got used CDs, DVDs, and books I pick up for couch change at thrift stores, and I’ve got my imagination…I can create characters in my own head to amuse myself. You all go your way, I’ll go mine.
Then the teamsters supported the writers. Well, okay, that’s nice for the writers. I mean, it reeked of opportunism – truck drivers deciding to ride the wave of clickbait journalism being pumped out by desperate “journalists” hoping to boost their follower count on twit-o-gram by writing about poor actors who had to shut down production on lame superhero flicks…That’s what gets truckers fired up? Do they honestly think that when the writers and actors all have their shiny new short-term contracts that those same writers and actors will rally to support truckers – ever? If the teamsters go on strike, the media will paint them as cruel grinches ruining Christmas for the sons and daughters of the very same writers that the teamsters are supporting now. ‘Oh dear, how will we put gifts under the tree this year? Those mean teamsters won’t deliver our set materials so we had to shut down production. Those nasty teamsters won’t deliver e-bikes to stores – now we can’t buy our 10-YEAR-OLDs a bicycle that goes 25mph and send them out to play in traffic! How dare they!’
But whatever. Not my concern. Teamsters don’t care about me and my family, they don’t even know I exist. They gotta look out for their own and I’ll do the same. It’s the American way. Apparently.
And then SAG-AFTRA went on strike. Whatever. No skin off my nose. Maybe they’ll help pull off a better negotiating position – power in numbers and all. Maybe they’ll even slow down the toxic slither of Artificial Intelligence. I don’t really have a car in this race so I’ll just wait and read the final result someday.
But THEN…SAG-AFTRA started issuing waivers to actors who wanted to keep working. And there it was – the true colors of America laid bare. Greed, hypocrisy, and turds.
SAG-AFTRA leadership tried to spin it. ‘It’s a negotiating tactic! We’re going to show that THESE studios CAN work within our demands for higher wages, better royalties, blah, blah, blah and that there’s no reason the other studios can’t do the same.’
ROAD APPLES! GREAT BASKETS OF HORSE CRAP BEING ADVERTISED AS JUICY, REFRESHING, HEALTHY FOOD!
Let’s get real here. With the writers on strike there will be no new fall shows and no new movies. There’s a vacuum to fill. The writers and actors know it’ll be filled with “reality” garbage – which apparently the American public is all too happy to consume for some reason – if they don’t produce something else. What better way to keep the entire void from being filled with eleven different Kardashian spinoffs than to offer up independent projects. It makes you feel all warm and fuzzy just thinking about it. Some little film maker in their garage using an iPhone 4 and a glue gun is gonna get Matthew McConaughey to star in her film about rescuing endangered owls in Canada’s over-harvested forests? What an opportunity! Matt is a hero! NOT!
These independent entertainment producers are backed by wealthy, connected, opportunistic businesspeople. They busted out their platinum and red-emerald abacuses, did the math, and realized chaos = opportunity to make money.
To wit: They know Americans are easily manipulated into spending gobs of money (as
evidence, see all media coverage of the truckloads of money raked in by Taylor Swift’s
tour and the Barbenheimer nonsense);
If there is a scarcity of product, bidding wars occur between distributors which
generates mo’ money and mo’ buzz;
And finally, a lack of competition means high profile awards wins for these
“independent” production houses which translates into mo’ money later.
My bet would be that there are a lot of SAG-AFTRA members who stand to profit from being invested in and working with these “independent” film houses to which they are granting these waivers. But that’s not my beef. If Americans are dumb enough to spend their limited time on Hollywood flimflam and funnel wads of their hard-earned cash money to already obscenely wealthy people – that’s their right.
What I take umbrage with is the near-total silence on the whole scam from the very community that claims to be hurting the most. The writers and actors getting shafted by 20th century contracts in a 21st century world. I’m a known idiot, I can provide references, so I asked my husband to explain the entertainment income system to little ol’ me – he threw up his hands and said he’d rather wax his sack. From the outside it appears to be a Byzantine Escher-esq flowchart weighted heavily in favor of already wealthy schmucks who get off on financially sodomizing everyone from cast and crew to the general public. Nearest I can tell there are hundreds of people involved in making a show or film. Some of them – writers, actors, music creators – get paid a set fee or hourly wage for an episode of a TV show or a film AND they get residuals or royalties for life? if the episode or film meets certain criteria involving net profits and syndication and DVD releases and streaming and international distribution? Like I said, I’m an idiot, I don’t know how this works and I’m sure I’m too dumb to comprehend an explanation. But I do have a lot of questions. Do makeup artists, costumers, lighting professionals, stunt actors, editors, and prop masters get residuals? Who gets to decide if a show gets distributed outside of a standard first-run network deal? Prime example – Human Target. Some group of people made that show. Some group aired that show. Some group produced a DVD of Season 1 and released it digitally for purchase (I know because I bought both). But Season 2? Nothing! Why not at least release it digitally? It would cost virtually nothing and you’d make $15 off of me immediately. It was streamed for a few weeks on the DC App but then disappeared into the crap-sucking vortex of Max. Or how about JAG which airs on Paramount’s App. Mostly. There are at least a dozen missing episodes. Why? One hears rumors of the folks who provided the music not wanting to re-license their tunes. Maybe it’s the guest actors holding things hostage? Maybe it’s the streamers not wanting to pay the fees necessary to re-air the episodes? Whatever the answer, the bottom line is – it’s stupid. Zero percent of zero is zero. There is no reason that every show, every film, ever made shouldn’t be available to a public willing to pay for it. Whomever is refusing to release entertainment until they get “their price” is getting nada. It’s like the fools who decided to only release Mafia Mama in theaters then trickle it out digitally for sale and rent at asinine prices before putting it into a streaming app. If that movie had been available Day 1 to rent for $5.99, you’d have had my money. But you made me wait and now I don’t even want to watch it ‘for free’ on my streaming app because I’m sick of this Only in Theaters protectionist bullshit. I haven’t sat my ass in a theater in nearly 10 years because they’re expensive, filthy, smelly, and full of rude jerks diddling their phones for two hours. I’d rather re-watch my DVD of Hackers for the 75th time, on my own couch, with my pause button handy for toilet breaks. By alienating me from the New Film cycle, the whole industry loses out on my money. I’ll never go back to movie theaters, but I’ll pony up $5.99 for a new flick every weekend if it’s even mildly entertaining. But give me time to think about it? Tell me it’s only for theater goers, then only for digital purchase, then only for Blue-ray purchase, then only for rent at $19.99 before finally, six months to a year later, hitting my $5.99 limit? Pfft, I moved on a long while ago.
So how do the contributors feel about this? How do actors who can’t get residuals because a composer refuses to re-license the music for a show feel? How do writers who can’t get royalties feel when the film they worked on didn’t reach net profit benchmarks because some tool in the C-suite decided not to make the film available on Apple Movies?
And where are the 99% (my estimate) of writers and actors who aren’t getting to benefit from SAG-AFTRA’s waivers? Where are the support crews who aren’t working on waivered productions, and the teamsters who support them? Why are you all buying this carefully-worded spin from your leaders? Why are you allowing them to undermine your position by standing silent while they allow content to be created to benefit a handful of A-list actors and well-funded production companies?
Isn’t it funny how We’re All In This Together…until we aren’t?
SAG-AFTRA and any scabs who go make these “independent” productions are in the same league as the people who enabled decades of Harvey Weinstein’s abuses. They’re the same type of cad who covered for Gavin Newsom, Neil Gaiman, Steve Adler, and other entitled assholes who granted themselves waivers to defy and carve out exceptions to COVID lockdown rules while regular people sat at home trapped by the same four walls.
Take a stand and stick to it or sit down and shut up. We don’t need any more of your half-assed revolutions.
You want to make an actual difference in the entertainment world and by extension the whole world? Put up or shut up.
Let’s break it down. Let’s define entertainment as Books, TV/Film, Stage, Radio/Podcasts, & Music.
Within each category, there are contributors – writers, editors, graphic artists, researchers, musicians, performers, directors, technical experts (lighting, wardrobe, makeup, camera, etc.), and more. Instead of hundreds of little groups amongst all the categories, what if they all banded together? Instead of just fighting over AI protections and wages for writers, what if they all banded together to get those protections for everyone in entertainment and by extension set a precedent for the world about worker protections and unity?
When one tiny group decides they want something, they make a bunch of noise until they get it or lose their voice. Anyone remember the hubbub over American Dirt? There was a whole bunch of shouting, a couple half-assed apologies, and a quick flurry of attention on a few Latino authors. Nothing has changed in the publishing world as evidenced by the popularity of some book called Meet Me At The Lake and the news that Harry and Meghan have optioned - just OPTIONED the story for a reported THREE MILLION DOLLARS and plan to produce it for Netflix. It’s written by a well-connected, straight, white Canadian. That’s the best they could do? That’s the best story they could find to turn into a Netflix project? All the complaining they do about racism and they couldn’t find ONE story written by a woman of color? Give me a break!
Since I’m on the topic of authors, I’m gonna keep going. Full disclosure, I’m a failed “author”. I’m such a lame writer that I couldn’t even get BAD reviews – and in the era of the Internet Troll, that’s saying something. I won what I call The Keno Prize for shitty writers – I suck so bad I couldn’t get a single person to read my book much less make a comment, negative or positive, about it. None of my numbers came up. Not one!
In January of 2020 I tossed my decade-long project out into the world. I tried some stuff to generate “buzz” – sent copies to family and friends, seeded Little Free Libraries with copies I paid to have printed, and uploaded a FREE digital version to Apple Books and Internet Archive. I even sent a “query” to a literary agent who represents an author my husband likes and who announced he was open to submissions – I felt nauseous for the two weeks it took him to reply and pass on my project, and then I felt yucky for another two weeks because he said I suck. (He actually didn’t say that, but it felt like it was implied when he very professionally said my project was of no interest to him. Rejection never feels good.) And of course, I had a Twitter account. I tried to join in with Book Twitter – wow, that’s a clique of cold shoulders. I learned all about #MSWL (ManuScript Wish List – more on that later), pitch parties, Pitch Wars, Follow Fridays, and a whole bunch of other terms I wish I could erase from my memory. And when all that didn’t work, when even my family and friends went silent on the topic, I gave up and just tweeted to some authors something to the effect of ‘I wish we could go back to the old days when big, fat books could still make it through the gauntlet of agents and publishers’. (Did I mention my beast is like 800 pages long?) I bemoaned the days long gone of writers organically developing stories instead of being constrained by publishers’ word counts and writing to appeal to agents’ Manuscript Wish Lists.
What is a Manuscript Wish List you ask? It’s something agents create to allegedly inform would-be clients of what they’re looking for in a saleable work, but what it really does is create a menu from which writers choose their topics and characters to best position themselves for hooking an agent – the Golden Ticket to getting a publisher.
The “lists” go something like this:
I’m Aardvark the Agent. My pronouns are Zee/Zim/Zir. I’m a Hufflepuff and my favorite food is bubblegum. I attended a liberal arts school in New England and got a degree in dead languages but hate dusty old libraries. I’m looking for stories that include BIPOC LGBTQ+ characters sightseeing in space in unexpected vehicles (think a VW Van and a Tesla!) while exploring their relationships and bodies. YA and Middle Grade only.
Hi! I’m Sandi! I’m a recovering real estate agent with two sons. I enjoy camping and leather tooling. I’m looking for adult fiction that gives me the tingles. I’d love to see a story about a vacationing Prince who finds his perfect mate working in the sweaty bowels of his holiday yacht in Greece and has to convince his father, the King, to let him marry, gasp, HIM! The Prince is GAY! And I want the Prince to have to overcome the heartache of losing the love of his life – will his dark-skinned commoner loverman die after a long illness, cheat on him with his sister, or go missing on a hiking trip? You decide! Manuscript must be no longer than 90,000 words!
You get the idea.
Anyway, I also Tweeted about the specter of AI. At the time there had already been some background noise about Artificial Intelligence and book publishing for a few years (since at least 2016). Tor had released a novel selected by AI, in Japan a novel co-authored by AI had made it to a second round of a national literary contest; and journalists were asking if robots would make the next big bestsellers, and exposing the fact Google was feeding romance novels to its AI to make them “conversational”.
I was concerned that literary agents, the gatekeepers of publishing, would soon be dominating the entire industry, churning out endless 200-page, tripe-loaded “books” written based on their #MSWL prompts. And that people would buy them because either A) they actually like offal, or B) in the absence of anything else they just accept that what’s in front of them is “good” because either they’re told it is by “influencers” or because they simply don’t know what they’re missing out on, or both.
I wrote my Tweet, included a photo from my personal bookshelf of big, beefy books of yore, tagged the authors of said books, and hit Tweet, or Send, or whatever the button is…it’s been a few years since I’ve used Twitter, because that was the night I quit Twitter. Why? Because one of the authors I included in my ‘I wish we could still have great books like these.’ Tweet, retweeted my post and said something to the effect of ‘That’s so wrong, in so many ways.’ which awoke his legions of rabid flying monkeys who spent the better part of the night calling me a loser. When I begged the author to call off his minions – he blocked me. When I begged his writing partner to step in, he ignored me. When I asked their publisher to step in – crickets.
There I was, a buyer of books (this is back when I still bought new books which supports authors and publishers and agents and to some extent the TV and Film industry since every one of the books I tagged had been made into a series on Amazon Prime, HBO, and SHO well after my husband and I had read them); and I was a n00b writer sad that her chock block of a book was too big and too lame to be of interest to anyone, and desolate that the next generation of “authors” was likely going to be a bunch of “literary agents” using software, fattened by gorging on the human-written novels of yesteryear, to “write” their septic pulp. I was under attack by the fans of the very person I’d financially supported because I was bummed that his job was quite possibly going to go away, and that my book baby never had a chance. Why did the author in question do this? Who knows. My guess is this author, his writing partner, their publisher, and their fans just like bullying people from the safety of their own homes. I sincerely wonder if I’d met this author, his writing partner, their agent, editor, or fans at a book fair, Sci-Fi convention, or randomly in a restaurant and said, ‘Hey! Bought your books. Good Stuff. Too bad it feels like the days of big books is over and that AI is coming for your job.’ – would they have verbally thrashed me in person, face-to-face, in public, about how dumb I am and said I must just be a butthurt, rejected writer who should just go kill herself? Gotta love Twitter, er, I mean, X.
But THAT is why I say Screw You to Hollywood. THAT is why I say take your waivers and shove them up your AFTRA, SAG! You have the voice, the power, to strike a blow for all Americans, hell, even the world, against Artificial Intelligence and for fair compensation. You could have stood strong for writers, actors, book narrators, illustrators, bank tellers, teachers, and everyone else for whom AI is coming simply because it will mean cost savings for corporate executives and governments, and profits for investors. You could have drawn a line in the sand to protect creativity, uniqueness, collaboration, and humanity; but you chose money.
Hollywood writers, SAG-AFTRA actors, and the Teamsters had a chance to really make a difference and they pussed out. Turns out they’re only united up to a point and that point is opportunity for personal gain. What a surprise.
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