2023 Writers + Actors Strike Thread

[j swift]

I was listening to two actors on a podcast discuss how the trades like Variety and The Hollywood Reporter are siding with AMPAS because their ad revenues are dependent on the studios.  It really made think twice when I read headlines like this one.

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Because they are crafting a narrative that creatives are willfully withholding their talent, in order to shift public support against the actors and writers.  To me this is a perfect example, because the strike has nothing to do with a comedy festival, but pairing the two ideas reinforces the narrative.  They want Joe Six-pack to focus on the idea that the strike robs him of the opportunity to have fun, rather than informing him of how issues in this strike will set a precedent for how many type of labor that will deal with AI.  Prior examples included the list of things that actors can't do during the strike, which has been widely shared on social media but includes many factual errors, like that actors can't podcast or sing.

Edited July 27, 2023 by j swift

[janea4old]

Variety and The Hollywood Reporter and a whole bunch of others are all part of Penske Media Corp.  A huge list:
go here and click on the "brands" tab to see all the trades:
https://pmc.com/about-us/

[j swift]

Yes, they are, (as is Rolling Stone, Billboard, WWD, SHE Media, & Deadline), and their bias is quite clear.

Variety's homepage today does not have any news about the strikes and The Hollywood Reporter's strike page only contains stories about how the heat is affecting the strikers, the studio's loss of money due to the strike, and projects being cancelled.

 

Edited July 28, 2023 by j swift

[Vee]

An essential article. Use archive.is or Incognito Mode to bypass paywall.

 

[Vee]

[DRW50]

Rolling Stone had to delete a tweet mocking Snoop Dogg for canceling concerts due to strike solidarity. 

They know the studios have the advantage and money to wait this out and crush actors and writers, and it won't take a lot to get the public on their side.

[Contessa Donatella]

A somewhat interesting article about soaps, Fi-Core, Lisa Ann Walter, etc. I'm not familiar with this site. First I've heard of it was this morning. 

https://showsnob.com/2023/07/26/hollywood-is-putting-soap-operas-on-blast-amid-strike/

[Vee]

Again, I wouldn't be so sure about the public buying it. There's the usual loud minority voices but I think we're in a real Eat the Rich moment these days, for better or worse, and that starts at the top.

[Contessa Donatella]

Never heard this phrase. Love it. 

[AbcNbc247]

This might be an unpopular opinion, but all this outrage about GH using scabs seems a little manufactured to me. 

[Contessa Donatella]

I don't know but I appreciate your suspicions! There was a lot of aggression & a lot of factual errors. One of them said "The WGA will be looking into this." Tweeted to him with the link where the WGA lists Fi-Core writers. Suggested maybe look it up. Oh no, they did not need to look anything up . They knew everything. One of them said "Fi-Core writers are only enabled to write for non-union projects." Gently corrected the error. They said you can't be for the strike & for our soaps. Explained how it's possible to hold both those ideas in your head at once. Got called a hypocrite. All over though. I guess they blocked all of us & we blocked all of them. I even tweeted about the 1963 court case. Uninterested. 

If it was manufactured wouldn't they have known more facts?

[dc11786]

Lisa Ann Walter's comments are interesting regarding soaps during the strike. I don't remember the exact timeline, but she was involved with "Watch Over Me," an English language telenovela that aired on MyNetworkTV after the WB and UPN folded into the CW leaving stations without affiliation. MyNetworkTV claimed their writers were translators and hired non-union workers. The WGA did get involved and the writers did get the proper recognition, as they were doing much more than just translating scripts from one language to another. Besides the incredibly low ratings, the telenovelas became less cost effective because of the unionization of the writers. I just don't know if this had occurred by the time "Watch Over Me" was in production.

I don't remember there being any real press about the writers' labor issue until after it was settled, though I remember following the blog of one of the actors/writers who worked on the show and the implication was that they would get whoever they could get to "translate" scripts so that they could keep the costs low. 

[Contessa Donatella]

Yeah, it seemed like everything about those shows was done on the cheap. She also claimed to have been a former fan of both AMC & RH, which may be true. 

[titan1978]

The unfortunate side effect of most entertainment coverage being online these days- they have to generate clicks. And they need a constant influx of new material. Constant. That’s why places like Deadline cover so much soap stuff. We are nothing if not a loyal group of people when it comes to soaps. So it is getting more attention than it normally would.

I was genuinely shocked at how much attention Jackie Zeman’s passing generated from media sources. It went on for several days. She deserved it!  But 10 or 15 years ago I don’t think it would have been the same. But that’s the insatiable appetite people have now for nostalgia and media stories.

 

[dragonflies]