Resolve & Fortitude
Two days ago I posted an open letter to the Governor of California. He has remained silent, thus far. I obviously had misplaced hopes that a deus-ex-machina might emerge out of the blue, but this is not an age of peacemakers, is it? The governor was also sadly only one-third correct when he asserted that the executives and the writers "would be fine," before correctly expressing his concern for the other affected parties, crews and hairdressers, etc, who are caught in the cross-fire. The writers will not be fine, of course, as anyone who has spent even a moment examining the economics of the WGA membership roster could tell him. One would find the names of talented writers who go years between paying jobs.
Who is on strike today?
It is not merely the writers of current TV shows, but also young writers at the start of their careers who are passionate about this fight because not to be would be a betrayal of the self. Not to insist that new rules be written for a new age would be to bet against their own future. And no, it is not just a business: It is a hard and honorable craft, screen writing. Take it from a skilled dabbler who was not born to it. It is the primary well from which all life in film begins.
Who is on strike today?
Old-hands who have written some of the most socially relevant, nuanced scripts ever to be placed in the hands of a director or a studio head. This seems to be a fact the CEOs are not cognizant of. I will remind them they have relied on talents far greater than their own. I will remind them that they are trying to cut-out craftsmen and women who have given more to American film-making than all of them put together in a room at Aspen. The CEOs have been afflicted collectively with both amnesia and with an astounding failure of the imagination (no surprise) in this tendentious struggle for the content they are fighting so desperately to control. I will remind them with a very incomplete list as they blindly stonewall their way into the future of our industry. Here, sirs are a few names, without whom you would only have theme parks and real estate holdings to protect. As you refuse to come back to the table for talks, think about the language of Robert Towne. Alvin Sargent. Walter Bernstein and Elaine May. The craft of David Mamet, and of David Webb Peoples. The delicacy of Horton Foote, and the grace of Anthony Minghella. The slight-of-hand and subversive word-play of Larry Gelbart and the masterful construction of William Goldman or the pitch perfect ear of Nick Pellegi. For those of you CEOs and studio heads who want to talk about television, contemplate a future without David Milch, David Chase, Alan Ball, Matthew Wiener, Aaron Sorkin, or the next Norman Lear. Think of a past without them too, and this weekend, take stock, and then send your man back to the table, but this time with a small trace of humility and a sense of history.
On another note, I wish to reluctantly respond here to a another Huffington Post Blogger, one Lauren Rich Fine, an academic at Kent State and ex-market analyst, with no experience in TV or motion pictures, who has the distinction of having penned the single most asinine paragraph written thus far on the WGA strike. Her ill-informed and chilly little daubing is entitled "Be Afraid, Be very Afraid", which is advice she helpfully gives to the membership. She advises us to quit, really, and to shut up. It is so bloated with ignorance, that it arrives not merely dead, but indeed, cremated, ashen.
For instance, she suggests that the writers are vulnerable to being replaced by the makers of YouTube and viral content. As suppliers, she states vaguely of "alternative story lines to well-known shows". She then bravely goes on, "for no other reason than perhaps a good fight", to declare that while she understands the "historic significance of unions, they serve very little, if any, purpose in the U.S. today."
Quite separate from not at all understanding anything about unions, other than she doesn't like them, I also suspect she is being less than candid about her fondness for a fight, given the fact that my (rather harsh) responses to her meretricious post seem to have been deleted. I must admit that I decided to drop any real charade of civility with her, perhaps for the following reason:
I got sick about twelve years ago, and couldn't do too much of anything, because after the valve in my heart was repaired, I had to climb out a depression of sorts, one that is common after open-heart surgery, and find my way back to writing and life. All in all, a very bad year. Had it not been for my union, and the battle for health care that had been fought before I ever joined -- had it not been for the WGA -- the medical bills would have meant hundreds of thousands of dollars to a young writer, an off-Broadway playwright with a couple of years worth of movie jobs under his belt. I am striking not merely for the reasons stated above, but because of the simple fact that in addition to having been brought up to believe in manners, I was also brought up to believe in reciprocity. And have learned the importance of returning fire. Since I have earned the space here not to be deleted by prim and cool-hearted shills for the money-men, who have somehow earned or bought tenure somewhere, I will say that reading her post reminded me of why I avoid a particular kind of dinner party, where one is seated -- trapped really -- next to someone both ignorant and arrogant, and loaded to the gills with unearned opinions. The only people who should be afraid, I thought, are the parents of young men and women in her classes, who will all need ideological debriefings after she is done with them.
Now it is Saturday afternoon, and I am going to take advantage of the Autumnal weather that has finally arrived, and go run five and a half miles or so, and then have a (turkey) burger and a (diet) coke and think of other things.
Read more about the strike on the Huffington Post's writers' strike page.
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first of all, i am excellent dinner company. secondly, you don't need a union; you need health insurance. third, the market is driven by supply and demand. i was making the point that there is ample supply of writers, not necessarily good ones, but thanks to the Internet the quality threshold has been lowered. as for your comment being removed from my blog, until today, i have never looked at the comments so it wasn't due to any particular reaction from me.
Robin --
I love your plays, but I am even more delighted by your forceful defense of writing as a creative endeavour worthy of compensation.
I worked for some 30 years as a copywriter at an ad agency dealing with book publishing accounts. I quickly noticed that the lay-out -- usually a hand-rendered drawing by an art director -- was seldom revised, while my copy, delivered as a typed page, was regularly revised by clients who assumed that anyone who could type was a writer.
While I occasionally scored big -- Oxford University Press, for instance, loved my Alexander Pope parody for a biography of Colley Cibber -- my work was largely treated as "material to improve," while lay-outs were untouched. Clearly, the "jou-jou" of hand-drawn graphics had exceptional power.
Now, of course, Microsoft CrappyLayOut, or whatever they call it, has reduced the work of art directors to that of mere writers and assemblers. Too many decisions are being based on the naive illusion that technology can replace creativity.
Godspeed to WGA, to the Broadway stagehands, and to everyone else who insists that creativity is a personal endeavor, worthy of a reward, not a corporate mechanism devoted solely to maximizing profits.
As we said in my youth --
Peace and Love
I'd say 70% of the US would be with you if they're even aware. I can't share my findings with many. They don't care, as long as they think they're OK. But they're not ok, they just haven't seen it yet. I have a book and a half to write. I spent my life time learning it. And now it'e important to share this knowledge with the world. But I've started to write it 1000x's & now realize I can't write!! I never dreamed it was so hard to write, let alone get anyone to care. It's a beauty, has all the components a story needs & is true. In fact I'd pay not to know alot of the things I know. For those writers out there who can afford to strike, & maybe want something else to do for now, I need a writer to help me write. Pick your own percentage, because after you listen to my story, if you don't think it's going to be a best seller, you don't have to write it. Anyone I told even part of my story to has told me to write a book, I'd love to see what you pros think. And maybe ..just maybe...wh
Robbie,
Did you catch the NY Times article " Go west young Writer"? Interesting.
.
The WGA has given TV executives and TV viewers a GREAT opportunity. The best TV shows ever were made during the 50's, 60's, 70's and 80's. Bring them back. Ernie Kovacs, Steve Allen, Mary Tyler Moore, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Jack Paar's Tonight, Sid Caesar, The Bob Newhart Show, Johnny Carson's Tonight, The Wild, Wild West, The Jack Benny Program, That Girl, The Avengers, Carol Burnett, Sonny and Cher, Jackie Gleason, Kraft Television Theater, Studio One, Philco Playhouse, Playhouse 90, Armstrong Television Theater, Rowan & Martin's Laugh In, The Ed Wynn Show, The Saint, The Rifleman, Knight Rider, The Six Million Dollar Man, Mission Impossible, Superman, and on and on. Nothing created since even comes close (except Seinfeld). Make these classics the new stable for prime time TV on all networks. Bring back the best TV ever produced - and everybody wins, both young and old. After several months of seeing these classics, maybe, just maybe, the standard for acceptable TV will increase from its current toilet-level.
.
Technology has changed the world - again. The imperative is to find ethics that can keep pace with changing technology. The screen writers are correct - much of their talent is being siphoned off by management teams adept at maximizing returns on investments. The point is simple - changing technology requires changing rules.
Ohg.
http://the
"It is the primary well from which all life in film begins"
Given recent efforts like Black Christmas, Saw or Hostel, these are NOT selling points.
THE STUDIOS STRIKE BACK!
http://www
I challenge Jon Robin Baitz to refute these arguments.
JRB - thank you. I agree with your original posting and your open letter to our Governor. Not sure what he's waiting for...with the housing market crumbling, gas at 3.50 a gallon and rising, and now a strike that could ripple quickly into a tsunami of economic disaster, he seems obliquely smug to deal "backstage
A writer friend of mine said something that rings in my head daily. It holds true in this situation and sadly, in most corporate/worker situations in this country today. He said, "They already wiped out the middle class. Now they are trying to wipe out the upper-middle class. Soon there will be the rich and those who work for the rich." We're moving towards England...
So stick the fight, JRB. I'm a fan and writer who gets it.
BUT, when the amount of money going to those people, with their full understanding that it makes bupkus available to their fellow union members they make such a show about "supporting" in their hour of need, like NOW, that means there's a void created - everybody else gets SCREWED. check out my other posts on this BEFORE the ny times article today.
this whole economic model needs to be rewired: the top dogs need to put aside their GREED and understand that the producers will HAPPILY play ball if they TELL their agents "you know, I think I can get by on 15 million instead of 20, with a limited back end next time so they can pay some other people."
bottom line? yeah the producers are greed heads. SO ARE THE TOP ACTORS/DIR
read it and weep...
Well, here it is folks:
http://www
the ny times link to the real story here, one I've been writing about on huff po and speaking about for YEARS. what it says, for those who haven't read it already, is, wanna know where all the money goes? wanna know why the producers plead poverty? here it is, in black and white:
STAR SALARIES AND BACK END GROSS POINTS.
I've been saying this for years, and FINALLY, it gets some coverage.
understand, the economics of movies are star driven - that goes for show-runners and tv stars too. it is purely agent driven, actor/director/show runner enabled GREED, as in "20 million for tom, plus first dollar (gross points) up front, 20 grand plus all the craft service you can eat for the actor playing tom's boss, or friend, who gets one decent movie job in 3 years, and has to try to stretch the salary and residuals over the next 5 years, along with a very few other movie or tv jobs."
same in tv: david kelly gets stupid rich, kelsey grammer is minting money, everybody else? the staff writer? the actor who plays kelsey's best friend in that very special episode where patricia heaton makes a funny face? - scale for the episode, to add to the one commercial he got that year, and the 450 bucks a week he made doing that off-broadway play.
stars/top directors/
Jon, there have always been Hollywood moguls opposed to writers earning more, simply because the currency of a writer's work is based on something so flimsy as an idea plucked out of the ether. It is craft. The moguls have never seen writing any more than words on a page. They will wait us out -- us stray cats -- because they can.
Jon,
I'm sorry but I think it's just Rubbish!!
Who cares?
Not me!
I'm content to watch, when they are on, re-runs from the 1960's!
Who cares?
Why should I care?
Take West Wing off and take Surface off and replace them by junk...
Even with Satellite, I still have little to watch these days....
I can't even watch the few games I WANT TO SEE...not without paying a high premium!
I don't want to watch KANSAS whatever..
Who the heck wants to watch Football Games from
5 or 10 or more years ago huh?
Oh, no, but we just can't see the New England Patriots play!
Want to know why I don't care?
TELEVISION STINKS!
Good post, Jon. The WGA is essential. I can't help to think of the advice that Hemingway gave when dealing with Hollywood: "You throw them your book, they throw you the money. Then you jump into your car and drive like hell back the way you came."
I understand the WGA's reason to strike. The creators absolutley should be compensated when a producer makes money by distributing their work through other means like online. I wonder though if the business model that currently exists is even relevant anymore. The Hollywood pot-o-money exists is because the networks were able to control the distribution of their product. Since the internet challenges that control, others outside the system will be able to compete with that product. I for one welcome the breakup of the hold the studios have over entertainment choices. Maybe more diverse voices will be heard. But then, I don't have to figure out how to make living in that new environment, either.
I read a lot of detail on this blog, which is all very interseting, but somehow I itend to think you are getting bogged down and not seeing the wood for the trees.
What is happening to writers is happening to almost every American who works for a living.
Degradation of income and increase in the cost of living. We have become a winner takes all society and the rest get the crumbs from the table, just enough so that you will keep showing up for work. Profits are up but real wages are down.
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