This must be how the forty-niners expecting to find gold but came up empty-handed felt...
I won't lie – my expectation was a wealth of material that lent itself to mockery and ridicule. Maybe it's still too early.
Here we are on Day 5 of the double strike in Fantasyland Hollywood, and some of the more absurd is beginning to surface.
I’m an influencer. Can I promote movies and TV shows?
Here’s where it gets tricky. Most influencers are non-union and are not subject to any strike rules. But some of them do work under the SAG-AFTRA Influencer Agreement, or may want to someday. And those influencers have been asked not to promote struck work (i.e. movies and TV shows), either for pay or “organically.” However, if an influencer already has a contract to promote something, the union advises them to fulfill the obligations of the contract. They are also free to influence on any other subject.
This remains a mystery, to me…I always thought influence was a by-product of the respect derived from superior performance, exercising exceedingly sound judgement over a long period of time, or demonstrating extraordinary expertise. It was something that the one doing the influencing was unaware of – someone who claims to be an influencer is not, really.
To my way of thinking, they’re in the group photo with those who declare themselves alpha males. If you have to announce it to whoever might be within earshot, it’s likely that one: It isn’t obvious to everyone else; and two: You’re probably the only one who thinks you are whatever you’re claiming to be. You’re simply revealing yourself to be a little too self-important – your narcissism is showing.
As this is a result of social media, it’s just one more reason social media needs to be vaporized from orbit.
‘It comes down to commerce versus art,’ says Michael Greene, who runs a boutique talent agency whose clients include Frances Fisher, a member of SAG-AFTRA’s negotiating committee. ‘What’s happening right now is the commerce doesn’t really understand how the artist thinks. They think they can do this without the artist, or they can do it with AI. They’re thinking in numbers. Commerce wants to win out for their bottom line, and they’ll never fully win without the artist. It’s David versus Goliath.’
Not only is it not David v Goliath, it’s not even David and Goliath
If the battle echoes the Book of Samuel for some, Fran Drescher, the sitcom star turned actors union leader, preferred to evoke the French Revolution, likening SAG-AFTRA’s struggle to the proletariat’s rebellion against an out-of-touch monarchy. ‘Eventually the people break down the gates of Versailles,’ the ‘Nanny’ star said during a press conference officially announcing the strike.
It doesn’t.
Neither is it reminiscent of the French Revolution, or the American Revolution, or the Russian Revolution, for that matter – it’s a labour dispute. Any repercussions will be felt by those who will have lost their jobs after the strike comes to an end.
As if on cue, Disney CEO Bob Iger countered with his own let-them-eat-cake sound bite, telling CNBC’s David Faber a few hours earlier that when it came to negotiating with striking writers and actors, ‘there’s a level of expectation that they have that is just not realistic.’
Whatever else you may think about him, what he said is true.
Outside Paramount Pictures that day, with temperatures approaching 90 degrees, Drescher’s voice crackled with indignation when she was asked about Iger’s comments.
‘I found them terribly repugnant and out of touch,’ she said. ‘Positively tone-deaf. I don’t think it served him well. If I were that company, I would lock him behind doors and never let him talk to anybody about this because it’s so obvious that he has no clue as to what is really happening on the ground with hardworking people.’
The Nanny may want to do the same with tough-guy wannabe Ron Perlman.
Ron Perlman, the ‘Sons of Anarchy’ star, adopted a Robespierre-like tone in a viral video message posted to Instagram: ‘The motherfucker who said we’re going to keep this thing going until people start losing their houses and their apartments … we know who said that and where he fucking lives,’ he said, referencing a Deadline report that quoted an anonymous studio executive about dragging out WGA talks to the point where its members face financial ruin. ‘You wish that families starve while you’re making 27 fucking million dollars a year for creating nothing? Be careful, motherfucker. Be really careful.’ (Perlman has since deleted the video, though it continues to circulate widely on Twitter.)
My apologies, Lillia.
Personally, I’d love to see Perlman find himself squaring off against a member of the The Mongols, Bandidos, or Cossacks.
The studios hold all the cards, here – and they know it. That’s why they are in no hurry to get to the negotiating table. They know they can hold out a lot longer than can the unions. Call it cold-hearted, call it evil, call it whatever you like, but in the end, it’s reality.
The industry as it is known today is likely to be transformed, maybe even into something we don’t recognize. The one constant, though, will be the studios that produce the film and TV entertainment consumed by most of America.
The talent (so to speak), as a whole, has badly overplayed its hand.
Cracks may start to form in the actors alliance. There is a wide discrepancy between A-list stars who can earn $20 million a year and the jobbing performers who are lucky to make $30,000. That income gap means that their goals for a new contract will be vastly different. At the same time, there’s concern that there’s no industry titan who is viewed as an honest broker by both sides.
Imagine the highest-paid celebrities in Hollywood finding themselves in bed with studio heads and executives – not because they have common goals, but because they share the same economic strata – as if their pledges of solidarity with their struggling union brothers and sisters aren’t already beginning to ring hollow.
Elsewhere, on the East Coast…
Who the hell are these people?
I once heard Jay Leno, in a rare appearance on Late Night (when Letterman was still funny, and worth watching), tell Dave that unless Jay’s mom had heard of you, you weren’t famous. Admittedly, I am employing that same standard here.
I recognize Marcia Cross because eons ago, my girlfriend at the time watched, Melrose Place, religiously – my preference was to paint a wall in another room in the apartment and watch it dry.
In a development that brings to mind the wide-ranging dispute between the character of Crash Davis and the home-plate umpire in the film, Bull Durham…
Matters and concerns with tangential connection (at best) to the core grievances of the strike are beginning to emerge.
In a series of Tweets Tuesday, Mejia said his office is investigating what happened to the Ficuses on Burham Boulevard, which he said are ‘LA City managed street trees.’ WGA picketers drew attention to their thinned out ranks on Monday. Universal owned up to trimming them but said in a statement it was done for ‘safety reasons’ though it ‘has created unintended challenges for demonstrators, that was not our intention.’
“LA City managed street trees.” That sounds like an arboreal street gang. Groups of kids wandering inner-city Los Angeles in the dead of night, randomly planting trees in vacant green spaces.
As if that wasn’t enough (and by golly, don’t you think it ought to be?), there’s this:
Separately, the fight over the studio’s construction on Lankershim Boulevard and its impact on the ongoing strike just got even bigger: The WGA and SAG-AFTRA today filed complaints with the National Labor Relations Board over the lack of safe pathways available for union members to picket.
Well, that’s all for today, dear reader. Thank you, so much, for your time and indulgence.
Until next time…
Excellent synopsis and analysis. With AI on the horizon, actors and writers will be as relevant as the IBM selectric.
"If the battle echoes the Book of Samuel for some, Fran Drescher, the sitcom star turned actors union leader, preferred to evoke the French Revolution, likening SAG-AFTRA’s struggle to the proletariat’s rebellion against an out-of-touch monarchy. ‘Eventually the people break down the gates of Versailles,’ the ‘Nanny’ star said during a press conference officially announcing the strike."
Not. Even. Close.
God, they make it so hard to be nice.