18 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY JULY 20-26, 2023 www.montereycountyweekly.com On the Line Actors join writers in a Hollywood strike, a powerful show of solidarity in standing up to the big studios. By Josh Gondelman FORUM The Writers Guild of America went on strike on May 1. Now, two-and-a-half months later, actors in the SAG-AFTRA have joined them on the picket lines after encountering the same intransigence from Hollywood studios during negotiations. The solidarity goes further: Thanks to IATSE crews and Teamsters respecting WGA picket lines, numerous films and television shows have suspended production. The Entertainment Community Fund has distributed over $1.1 million to support workers affected by the work stoppages. People have been calling these two simultaneous strikes “historic.” The WGA and SAG last struck simultaneously in 1960, and the ensuing contract significantly expanded a residual structure that allowed writers and actors to benefit from the success of their work for the next 60 years. It’s not coincidental that residuals are at stake again during this current double strike. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers is trying to turn back the clock, once again refusing to hand over a fair portion of the profits studios make from our work. But it doesn’t end there. The AMPTP has also laid claim to our very selves. According to SAGAFTRA, the contract the studios offered contained a provision whereby a background actor could be paid for a single day of work only to have their likeness manipulated by AI and used in perpetuity with no additional compensation. That doesn’t seem like the kind of proposal made by an organization that’s committed to reaching a deal. Disney CEO Bob Iger accused the striking workers of not being “realistic” in our position, which is a bit rich, both literally and figuratively, coming from a man with a net worth well into the hundreds of millions of dollars, whose company employs a department full of “Imagineers” tasked with fantasizing the improbable and then conjuring it into existence. Maybe Iger could ask someone from Disney’s Imagineering wing to dream up a fairer paradigm for compensation than his own creativity permits. Such a system, it’s worth noting, did exist in the form of broadcast television and theatrical film releases until the studios pivoted to streaming, in an effort to stake a claim to even more of the entertainment industry’s profits. Now we’re back where we were 60 years ago. The more things change, the more they stay the same. So, as the WGA strike continues, our position remains steadfast. We will not take less than we deserve, less than we’ve earned. We welcome our union siblings in SAG-AFTRA to the picket lines in even greater numbers, now that this fight is for their own futures as well as ours. Together, we will be even stronger than we were on our own. We will not be broken, no matter how many threats studio executives make. We’ve picketed for two months, and our ranks are only growing stronger as the studios menace and flail. Sometimes, I think, the more things stay the same, the more things can eventually change. Josh Gondelman is a comedian and an Emmyaward winning television writer. OPINION We will not take less than we deserve. PRESENTED BY
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