Dread & Certitude - Notes from the Writers' Strike

In Robert Stone's majestic, Conradian novel about Americans screwing around with Central America in 1980, A Flag for Sunrise, there is an hallucinatory riff about dread. It popped into my head this morning, after a bad night's sleep. In the passage, the protagonist, an American anthropologist finds himself over his head, way south of the border. He goes diving some 120 feet off a coral reef, and down there, in the dark, he becomes preternaturally frightened, struck by an unnamed dread, and feels himself to be close to an abyss, and closer still to something terrible. A "Shadow within a shadow, a silence within a silence." In Stone's utterly black inoculation, the solitary diver ponders what it was; shark, bottomless bottom, the end of all light, desolation.

Today, I feel that we writers are on the edge of just such an abyss; a sudden drop-off that can not be seen but can sure be felt. I have only my gut and my instincts to guide me, and I pray I am wrong. However, if indeed, 'character is fate', then the actions of the studios' negotiators are very telling. They want more than just this strike. They want to break the guild. To entirely dictate the terms of remuneration to artists in all the emerging electronic and new media markets.

If that is the case, the fight and the strike is going to be long and bloody, and at the end, the CEOs of the big media companies will be left with no way to justify their hallucinatory pay-packages. Or will they? Yes. Because the write-offs in deals they can trash, in a lackluster TV season will probably more than make up for the losses from the strike. The lawyers will pick up the pieces, and maybe the collateral damage for them will be some jobless creative executives, sacrificed by over-paid bosses, whose hubris has gored an entire industry.

The studios want the strike. They are clear-eyed and mercenary about it. The hard-core realpolitik equation in the boardrooms has got to be that the numbers will work out. So what if the industry is shut down for four or six or nine weeks. Or more.

And the guild members who are striking -- we have got to insist and pray that our leaders negotiate responsibly, wisely, and bravely. And insist that they do so without blinking, now that the trigger has been pulled. And insist on cunning and resourcefulness and stamina. (Not having been in the room, I cannot account for the DVD fracas of this weekend, which seems, on the face of it, to have possibly left the writers slightly less well armed for the siege I am worried we're headed into).

The studios probably have already noted the less than sympathetic reactions from the viewers. In fact, you would not be wrong to guess that the studio folk are enjoying the spectacle of watching the writers dance around to sell the idea of unfair wages to an unimpressed populace. An unimpressed populace who are only too happy, at this point, to say "who cares" to the writers responsible for the nightly, woozy miasma of lame jokes and mewling, sentimental crap that makes up a percentage of prime-time. (By this logic, the studios are simply blameless lending libraries that innocently stock porn on the shelves of the kiddie section.)

This fight with giant corporatism is the canary-in-the-coal mine of how labor deal with big business in this country. And with each day that passes, the actors and the directors and all other interested parties are getting closer to their own show-down over the same issues with the same negotiators for the same studios and networks. Careers are about to suffer. For those of us who are not rich -- the majority of guild members, that is -- the strains will be cruel and maybe even tragic, if the thing goes on and on and on. The ripples will get bigger, and other boats will get swamped. Crews and their families. The economy that depends on the industry. And frankly, it in this hubris-laden equation that the cold-eyed calculations of the studio heads begins to corrode.

And it begins to backfire. A smart strategy can turn into a bitter mistake very quickly. As the generals will remind you, once a war starts, the only thing you can count on is being surprised by what happens next. Wars get expensive and when people lose their livelihoods, you lose their hearts and minds. An industry is shut down not by the writers (the workers), but by the men who own it and run it. Why? Because it is in their interest to clear the slate of bad and costly bets.

That decision results in people who have nothing to do with the movies and TV, other than the fact that they live in LA, to lose what they have worked a lifetime for. People who are already trying to keep ahead of a faltering economy and sub-prime lenders (more corporate greed and hubris at work). Because the studios' negotiator would not discuss a deal over paying for downloads and on-line viewings with the people who created their product.

As the days pass, the indifference on the part of the public starts to shift. The attitudes about the fat-cat rich writers starts to shift. Because the message gets through. No matter how much the Reagan revolution transformed Americans into accepting the notion that "greed is good", and that unions can be broken without consequences, there will come a point at which the worm will turn. This thing will end. The writers will be weakened, but standing. They will be more unified than ever. They will get a piece of the pie they are asking for. Some piece. Something.

And somewhere, some CEO of one of these huge companies will start to wonder if it was all worth it. All the destruction. The rancor. The mistrust. The ill-will that will develop. The lost viewers, the lost audience. All of it. The ruined relationships with the people who create the product they need. Is it worth it? Was it worth it? Did we put our best man, and our best strategy in play?

May that epiphany happen sooner rather than later. It is my sense that in this stand-off the writers are not going to budge. Too much is at stake. The writers will not budge. How can you when you are being offered nothing, not even words? Even as we head towards a shadow within a shadow and silence within a silence, circled by sharks. The writers will prevail.

Read more thoughts about the strike on the Huffington Post's writers' strike page.

Comments

[trevor01]

Unless I'm mistaken the writers we're talking about already sold their souls to the devil. No one can blame them for trying to renegotiate their "deal" but are we really supposed to swallow this crap that they're doing it for some greater good?

[vinlotis]

It's unfair to blame writers for the "nightly, woozy miasma of lame jokes and mewling, sentimental crap" because in fifteen years of working on those shows, I've rarely seen a draft that couldn't be made more toothless, obvious and unfunny by some studio or network hack. To the handful of you who aren't hacks (and you may think you know who you are) I apologize.

The reason studios want a grace period to study new media before they commit to sharing a percentage of the revenue is because they have no intentions of inviting the guild to the party, a party that the studios know full well will be an absolute bonanza. They'd like to sit back and watch the union starve itself.

[BillSeward]

methinks you've been reading my posts: the dvd mishap, the reagan breaks the air traffic controllers reference of my earlier post.

your post consolidates all I've objected to in your style of writing about this so far: you say "oh no, the sky is falling! I had a bad night's sleep and I'm depressed! I'm a show-runner and my show is about to go down the shitter! whaaaaahhh!!"

suck it up nancy boy.

now, I emphathize. more than you'll know. but what I've been trying to say all along, with some overly harsh throwaways at times, is this:

it is WAR. the wga negotiator caved on dvd at the 11th hour - the wga's most important demand. what message did that send to the producers? "we got 'em," that's what.

this strike by YOUR union, needed to be intelligently planned and carfefully executed, it needed to have rock solid long-term support from the other unions, as in, "what we're striking for is what you'll have precedent to demand when your contract comes up soon, so, we're all in this together. when we go out, you all have to hang tough so we can shut the industry down. here are our non-negotiables on dvd and new media. everybody on the same page? all the unions? o.k., let's go."

instead, your negotiator BLEW IT. which means his bosses blew it - the people who pay his salary TOLD him to give up dvd to avert a strike. then, boom - the producers STILL wouldn't budge. uh-oh. better go to plan b. except, there IS no plan b. you NEVER give up your principal demand at the 11th hour.

why would you expect the hard working members of the other unions to follow your lead now? it's THEIR lives and livelihoods on the line now, and they're supposed to trust your decision making after that negotiating debacle at crunch time, when you need to bring your A game?

"the writers will not budge."

don't bet on it.

[Steven Weber - Huffpost Blogger]

Robbie: you are an artist. So you know that life without art is a cold, empty existence. Without art the only tools left to give expression the cold empty soul that remains are Consuming and Profit. And this is at the core of the corporate paradigm: to coldly dissolve the unions and the spirit that necessitated their forming, to break the hearts and souls of those who want a world where more than materialism and greed is prized. And in spite of your optimistic view of lonely CEO's left alone in empty boardrooms with their corrupted morals and spent hopes, feeling remorse for their actions, the facts simply do not bear it out. It will be a fight to retain the what the corporate juggernaut has so brutally and successfully scuttled. But we, not just artists but all citizens, must stand ready to do battle with what seems to be overwhelming opposition.

[grendl]

There's a moment in James Brooks " Broadcast News", when the news anchorman, played by Jack Nicholson watches the office clear out due to budgetary cutbacks. Saddened at the carnage he shakes his head, and utters aloud to the shows executive producer " What can we do about this?"

Half jokingly the producer responds "Well, you could give up some of your salary," a line met with a dark stare by the anchorman. The producer quickly amended that it was only a joke made in poor taste, and stressful times like these made him a little punchy.

There's a lot of truth in that statement , and in that movie. Are the big name stars who say they're on the side of the writers willing to forfeit some of their big paydays for the people who put words in their mouths? Is David Letterman?

Jay Leno stood at the picket line in Los Angeles today handing out doughnuts to the writers in a show of support, then said he paid them squat, but supported them anyways. A bad joke, or an honest confession?

The power brokers in the business know how important the writers are to it, and are gambling on dissent right now, and public apathy, and people like me who are disgusted by the level of writing we see on a daily basis. But this is an important battle, and one the writers, hacks as many might be, need to stay strong in solidarity. If not for themselves then for future writers, better writers who are going to deserve those internet download residuals.

[JKalos]

I appreciate what you are saying. It seems absurd that a writer's strike, of all things, would be so revelatory of one of the central issues of our time: the way in which workers are treated by corporations who want to totally dictate and control all aspects of the situation. If you listed out the salaries and compensation packages of all the ceos and such in a list and just looked at it--if you even simply listed the severance packages of the ceos who were fired (I remember reading about someone receiving 100 million or so when they were relieved of their position for underperformance!)--it would limn the situation clearly. No matter how absurd it seems that a writer's strike would highlight one of the key issues facing America today, there you have it: life is often absurd, is it not? And maybe its not absurd that it is writers who see the problem more clearly than some others. Say all you want about all the crap on television, there is still some very good and brilliant things that I have seen that have helped me think about my life (or just helped me laugh, no small thing). Again: my appreciation and best wishes.

[wadenelson1]

Stand oustide every studio in Hollywood and spread the message that this is the time to sacrifice.

Do not be afraid.

Other hard-working Americans support us.

And God will help us.

The day will come when you will see the writers prevail and the studios and producers back down from their greedy positions.