The Writers Guild of America sucks. Not to mention it’s
anti-American.
Usually I sit back and adoringly watch its witty sitcoms and
gooey dramas as the writer’s union invents new love triangles for McDreamy,
McSteamy and the rest of the McCast of “Grey’s Anatomy.” I tune in late nights
to watch Jay Leno and John Stewart ridicule political leaders and cracked-out
celebs.
But alas, those days ended Nov. 5 when close to 12,000 WGA
members took to the nation’s streets to protest their lack of royalties for
online media.
Of course, writers — myself reluctantly included — would
like you to think they’re hardcore, that they live life on the edge and that on
the weekends they’re skydivers, mountain bikers and rock climbers. But compared
to truckers, mine workers and firefighters — all of whom are also unionized —
they’re featherweights.
It was no surprise then, that when writers launched their
crusade earlier this week, their performance was underwhelming. They were
calling it a strike, but it looked more like a mid-morning powwow for the fuzz:
Striking writers sipped coffee, ate donuts and feigned superiority; the only
difference was that they weren’t fat.
With BlackBerry devices and picket signs in hand, they
paraded the streets as more of a spectacle than a strike.
They blew a major chance at resolution on the evening of
Nov. 4, when negotiators for both sides were hashing out demands. Despite
active bargaining on the West Coast among Hollywood writers and studio
officials, East Coast union members went ahead with their plans to strike when
the clock struck midnight Nov. 5.
Although Nick Counter, the studios’ chief negotiator, urged
the union members to postpone the walkout and continue negotiations, writers
carried out plans the following day to put primetime television on hold.
I couldn’t help but take offense. Do they not realize the
gravity of their morning mutiny? Prime-time entertainment for millions of
Americans is at stake and the instigators are sans a plot for their own daytime
drama. These are writers for god’s sake; couldn’t they have just scripted their
strike ahead of time?
Instead, they went along making a mockery of themselves and
their fellow writers with scattered chants and a severe lack of organization.
In doing so they’ve slighted not only us, the groupies who tune in week after
week to watch their skills at work, but also the hundreds of make-up artists,
set decorators, costume designers and camera crews who are now temporarily out
of work.
Indeed, the WGA writers, many of whom earn a mere $30,000 a
year, do deserve the increased salaries that would come from the greedy studios’
tycoons if they agreed to pay the picketers the requested 1.2 percent licensing
fee for online shows.
Granted, there are the few lucky show creators and
blockbuster screenwriters who rake in more than a million a year, but these
folks are few and far between. So of course I support them collecting money
from slimy network and studio moguls. But honestly, why the haphazard approach
with so much at stake?
This is America, guys. Primetime television is like a family
staple. You can’t just go around cutting people off cold turkey whenever you
feel like it or there might be another angry mob on strike.
So for the sake of all that’s good and true — continued
fresh episodes of my favorite primetime programs — I’m begging you studio
execs, give them what they want. If not for their welfare, then for mine and
for that of the American people that are being frightfully neglected throughout
this whole debacle.
They can’t afford another strike of 1988, which lasted five
months and subsequently boosted the notoriety of shows like “Cops.”
A repeat of that lengthy strike would force networks to air
replacement reality shows, a danger that would undoubtedly be detrimental to
the state of the nation. We can only watch episodes of “America’s Next Top
Model” and “Pussy Cat Dolls Present” so many times before neighboring countries
stop taking us seriously — assuming they haven’t already.
And to be quite frank, I’m just not sure I can take any more
drugged-out Paula Abdul, whose future celebrity now seems cemented, given the
networks’ need for filler shows.
FOX corporation executives have already indicated that if
strikes continue through the holidays, we can expect to see the typical masses
of atrocious singers that accompany the annoying TV sensation “American Idol”
hit our screens in early January.
Five months away from devious housewives, mock doctors,
pretend heroes and plane crash survivors would mean Americans would have to
start reading, or better yet knitting. So please, studio barons, if you’re
listening, hand over the cash.
Is this desperate? Definitely. Lame? Perhaps. But,
goddamnit, I want my television back.