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- Hollywood is about to shut down.
If this newsletter is a little out of date by the time you’re reading it on Sunday morning, please forgive. I’m going to be away for a few days with limited internet access (a rare joy!) But it’s looking unlikely that the topic is going to change much between now and then: the Hollywood Writer’s Strike. Which has seriously escalated in the past 24 hours.
If you need a recap, this Vox explainer is fantastic & thorough. In one line: TV & movie writers are on strike, demanding three key things to be written into their contracts: better pay, better conditions and guarantees that studios won’t replace them with AI.
On Thursday, Deadline published the cruel stance of studio and streaming platform executives on the writers strike. One anonymous studio exec said this out loud: “The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses.” From their POV, letting the strike continue until just before Christmas will make writers turn to the union leaders and ‘beg’ for them to negotiate again, which will in turn give studios & platforms the upper hand.
I don’t think it’s going to go down in their favour, for a few reasons.
ONE: This is planned industrial action, unions don’t just rush into these things when members’ livelihoods are at stake. The WGA expected this to be a long fight (the 2008 strike lasted 100 days and the 1988 strike for 158 days) and an existential one. They continue to raise mutual aid funds* so that members can access money for rent, groceries, health care or literally anything else they need. As writer Adam Conover says in this video: “Every dollar [studios & streamers] make starts with us. They’re not starving us out, we’re starving them out.” He’s dead right. Sure, the longer the strike goes on will be tough for writers, and some may never return to the industry… but dragging it on too long would be disastrous for the studios and streamers. The 2008 strike cost the California economy $2billion in revenue. If I know anything about the C-suite, it’s that they hate to lose billions of dollars.
*If you’d like to donate, the Entertainment Community Fund is the place to do so.
TWO: The Screen Actors Guild - American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) has also decided to strike. That’s all the actors and voice actors. Uh oh! This is the first actors strike since 1980, and the first dual actors-writers strike since 1960. Their demands focus more on AI – studios/streamers want to be able to scan actors faces from one day’s work, and use AI to endlessly regenerate that actor in new scenes for no extra pay. It is evil villain-type shit.
Up until now, studios could continue productions where the scripts had already been finalised (which is why we’re still getting some new shows and movies for a bit longer). But now, no new productions can start, existing productions cannot be finished, and striking actors will also not participate in promotion of completed projects. Would the hype for Barbie be quite as high if Warner Bros. didn’t have Margot on this insane promo world tour? Any gains that one union is able to secure typically have to be given to the other union too, so both striking at the same time shifts power away from the studios/streamers big time. The anarchist in me kinda wants to see what will happen if the Directors Guild of America decides to join in (their contracts are also up for renegotiation). MEGA-STRIKE! MEGA-STRIKE!
THREE: Finally, it’s time to talk about us, the consumers! The cost of living is hurting. There are too many streaming platforms, movie tickets are not cheap, and my best friend just text me that she paid $19 for a pack of bacon. How quickly will you start cancelling subscriptions when there is nothing new & zeitgeisty to watch? As writer Daniel Kibblesmith tweets: “Hype is what gets lapsed subscribers back. You can’t manufacture hype with what’s already in the pantry.” The third and final season of Euphoria has now been pushed back to 2025 (what’s the point, anymore?) Production on the crucial final season of Stranger Things is on indefinite pause. White Lotus season 3 was expected in early 2024, but that’s under a question mark now. Writing for new seasons of Abbott Elementary, Yellowjackets and many more have stopped. This is about money for the studio & streaming executives - they are trying to screw down the cost of writers, actors and crew labour so that they can get as much profit as possible out of your dollar. Once the impact of the strike (no good entertainment) starts hitting revenue the longer this goes on, who is going to be more desperate?
I am optimistic that the strikes show we’ve reached a tipping point where everyone understands just how badly they are being exploited by corporations. Not just in the entertainment industry, but all industries. Australian CEOs earn 55 times more than the average worker – their work is categorically not 55 times harder. It’s not sustainable for societies to be so top heavy, and it’s very exciting to see people organise and fight for a fairer share of the wealth that their hard work generates. Solidarity!
Good stuff on Zee Feed rn:
This is a big one! Australian unis are a mess atm, and this piece lays out exactly why no-one is getting what they should out of the situation – not students, not researchers, not teaching staff, and not Australian society. CLICK HERE TO READ.
Smart stuff on the Internet 💭
All the stuff I found on the web that made me think, smile, or have an ‘aha!’ moment. Spend your Sunday reading them – you'll be better off for it:
Watching the Rewatcher on Vulture
The sheer amount of work that goes into Mike’s Mic videos deserve to be understood: "The scripts for each of his videos sometimes stretch to over 30 pages; each page takes him about 25 to 30 minutes to record. Then comes more than 15 hours of editing, and none of this even takes into account actually watching the shows — which he says he does three times for each season of every series he focuses on.”
‘I never thought I’d end up with a man who won’t call himself a feminist’: And yet... on Sydney Morning Herald
Um, ok. This interview with a relatively high-profile Australian couple made be very uncomfortable. A lot of layers of ickiness, much to think about. I’m wary of saying too much here, but this is a good one to discuss with friends imo…
This interesting TikTok video about psychogeography – basically, that “walking with an agenda” helps solve your problems. Going to try this! I do have problems.