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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I am so heartened to see intelligent people coming together on issues of shared interest. The self interest norm of Bushworld has hopefully reached its Apex along with its inherent greed, avarice and dishonesty.
This is turning into quite a strike journal with a great character arc.
Ennui
Education
Passion
Keep going-- there's a great screenplay here!
Jon Robin Baitz -- You are one of my true heroes, not because you are a great writer, but because you are a great human being and a union man.
You don't have to be a member of the WGA, you'd probably make a good living as a pure playwright. But you know that other people, less lucky or less talented, would be fucked if they didn't have the health insurance. That's an important fucking thing. Anyone, even the most talented writers, can go through a dry spell or be sick or whatever, it's the "UNION" of writers that holds us together, that helps us through sickness or unemployment.
That sense of unity among all writers, whether commercially compensated or not, is what will enable us to prevail. Not all talented writers become successful, but it is incumbent on all of the writers that do to help their brethren.
Mr. Baitz, I commend you for your example. You are not only talented, you are a mensch.
Robbie,
I've had the pleasure of meeting you several times in Santa Monica with Joel Grey. You are an intelligent and very funny man. Thank you for your honesty and insight on this strike. I am a Playwright that hope s to be a member of the WGA someday. I will be supporting the WGA and picketing with them as a SAG member. Keep it up.
p.s. just curious, how long do you think the broadway strike will last?
p.s.s Don't drink any more diet cokes, they aren't good for you.
It took courage to share some of your own story and what the WGA meant to you at such a critical time in your life. Unions do matter. They are the final, flagging stopgap between basic dignity and utter corporate dominance.
As your post demonstrated, ignorance is easy, cheap and it too often goes unchallenged.
By invoking the name of David Mamet as some sort of justification for accepting the WGA's demands, I believed Mr. Baitz was drawing some sort of correlation between what gets greenlit in the business and quality.
I've seen too much crap to know there exists no qualitative standard in the entertainment industry. I know the studios cater to an idiotic teen demographic who find Steve O letting a rattlesnake bite him in the crotch entertaining.
And the guy who penned such shit gets to stand in line with the likes of David Mamet ( not that he does stand in line ) and call himself a writer. And that diminishes the value of the writer, and diminishes his bargaining power ultimately, as the lower the bar is set, the greater the "talent pool" from which the studio can draw.
Anyone can write " Saw 4 " in their sleep, is what I'm saying. But if people want to buy that DVd, or download it on the Internet, the people who wrote it feel they deserve adequate compensation. If you look at moviemaking specifically as a business and nothing else, they're right in that claim.
If you hold film to a higher standard, as I do, they don't deserve to even be writing movies.
But there is no higher standard in reality. It's all about the money and an audience with the attention span of an epileptic ferret, flocking to theatres with Pavlovian predictability every time a marketing campain rings the right bells.
Lets not pretend a qualitative criteria exists in the business, or in the WGA.
Jon -- You are absolutely right. It was because of the people before you, the writers who fought for healthcare that you were able to survive. We have to stick together with our union so that others who follow us, talented or untalented, who earn their livings as writers survive. It would be wonderful if they had your talent or David Mamet's or Robert Towne's. But that's not what this strike is about. It's about the rights of all writers to be fairly compensated for their work. The studios don't care about quality. They care about money. If the writers make money for the studios, they should be fairly compensated.
Awards for quality are extras, given by the WGA, the Academy, and the public.
Paddy Chayefsky may not have needed the WGA, but he definitely benefitted from it. In any age, he would have been recognized as a great writer. He just wouldn't have gotten the health coverage and the insurance benefits. And those things matter for every working writer, from Paddy Chayefsky to Jon Robin Baitz to me.
Jon, again impassioned and literate. I respect your positions wholeheartedly, even if I don’t always agree.
I'd like to take the polarizing rhetoric out of these retorts and ask some legitimate and serious questions about the role of unions in an individually creative endeavor.
If a WGA writer doesn't work regularly, that writer doesn't get residuals. So they are not making enough to support themselves initially, and would have no residual income to support themselves later. So why is it your responsibility as an individual writer to support someone who, for whatever reason, isn't capable of supporting themselves as a writer? Well, because the guild mandates your support.
Let’s say I, an advertising copywriter, couldn't get work. Maybe I have a bad reputation, bad luck or am just plain bad. Why would other copywriters be responsible for supporting me while I can't get work? Well, they wouldn’t. I would be obligated to pay the bills however I can, even if I have to work at the DMV.
No one who wants to be a writer or has written in Hollywood, is guaranteed work or income. That is the nature of toiling in art. Julian Schnabel, the painter, makes as much as the market allows and isn’t obligated to support fellow painters through a union. Julian Schnabel, the film director and DGA member, is. Yet his craft is sought after in both worlds. When someone looks at his paintings, or buys a painting of his from a previous owner, he doesn’t get a residual.
I'm sure that you negotiated your own deal when your show got picked up and then renewed. That’s fantastic, that we should applaud. Is that writer in the WGA who doesn't work for a few years entitled to any of what you rightfully made for yourself? Even staff writers on shows can negotiate their own deals above and beyond the guild minimums. And they should. It’s capitalistic economics.
It is not that I am against unions in principle, I think they assist the potentially exploited. Rather I find it inherently difficult to unionize an individual’s art.
Yes, I read the idiotic post by Prof. Fine as well, and found it such a lackwit production I was unable to think of a reply that could possibly do it justice. Nothing worse than an academic talking about something they know nothing about as if they do. (As an academic myself, I am especially sensitive to this!) Socrates taught us the rule: know what you do not know.
Good luck, Jon, to you and all your colleagues.
The major problem in America at this very moment, be it in the writer's on TV, or the people who do the work in hospitals, or any other occupation, is that the real laborers, and the ones upon whom the work really falls, and who produce the goods and services DO NOT GET A FAIR PORTION OF THE PROFITS AND INCOME GENERATED BY THEIR LABORS.
We have FAILED CEO'S who walk away with $200 MILLION DOLLAR golden parachutes, and then workers get nothing.
I read the story alluded to in this one, and that old hag needs to have her ass kicked. As a Professor, she belongs to a UNION, as the Professors at all colleges have an association which negotiates upon their behalf, and establishes the process for tenure, etc. and you can bet the bitch took advantage of those negotiations and that process.
I have to ad that I grew up in Western Europe, and first came to the US in 85 or so. Every working soul was a member of a union in Europe. Employers had their own "union."
My question is: How can union-members survive in a society when they have to compete against a cheaper non-union work-force?
Who gets to be a union member in US? It's so confusing to me. Two guys do the same job. One is union, he gets $23 an hour. The other guy who is not blessed by union-membership gets $10 an hour..
By the way, if you were an employer, who of these two guys would you employ?
What does it take to become a union-member?
Good post, as have been most if not all of the pro union and WGA supporting blogs.
I was SPEECHLESS when I read that bit of idiocy by Rich. I just could not believe ANYONE who is given the privilege of posting here such as you writers (and yes I don't think all of the WGA's work is great, but a lot of it is) would post such an idiot comment about the usefulness of unions.
I just couldn't get over it.
I am usually ready to write ten page missives to moronic comments like hers, but I just didn't know how to get through such obvious ignorance. It's like trying to get through to the 24 percenters who still think Bush is a great president and Iraq is the greatest success of American history.
BUT I support you and if that means just watching old movies and missing Jon, Stephen, and the rest?
Well I can do it, I just hope you guys can hold out. It's a tougher world than it was during the last strike.
Hang tuff!!
A burger and a coke? Those are both nutritional death bombs. If you want to stay a healthy guy, don't put garbage into that lovely body of yours.
If I understand it correctly, this strike has nothing to do with the quality of writer’s standing in those picket lines, it has to do with fair monetary compensation for their work, be it of a high caliber or absolute crap.
As long as it sells, and earns hits on You Tube, then, the argument is, the writers of that fare should be compensated fairly.
Which leads me to this question. Why are you invoking the names of great writers like David Mamet, and David Chase, and Larry Gelbart in your posts. It seems as if you’re suggesting a correlation between quality work and the income generated by a film or television show. It’s been established that horrible horrible television shows make money, as well as “ The Sopranos”, “Weeds”, and other quality shows.
“ Who made Steve Guttenberg a star”, the Simpsons writers once wrote in an episode. The American public did. And made “ Two and a Half Men” a hit show. And earned Adam Sandler untold wealth and fame. And provided Jerry Bruckheimer the opportunity to operate in a business he has no right working in. To those standing in picket lines who actually write quality stuff, like the writer’s of the Daily Show, and Conan O’Brien, and the older Simpsons episodes, do you really feel you’re operating on the same level as the writer’s of “ Two and a Half Men”?
It’s irrelevant. What makes money is all that matters, and is ultimately what this strike is about. That’s the bottom line. Let’s leave the issue of quality out of the equation. Hollywood has.
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