A metaphorical wrench has been thrown into the highly mechanical workings of TV Land that is bound to totally cramp your style.
In case you haven’t picked up the remote this week, the constituents who form the Writers Guild of America are on strike. Of course it is only appropriate that we get to see this manifestation of democracy in action the week of Election Day.
However, many will probably fail to realize how much this affects them, overlook the principles behind the strike and complain about their shows being postponed (or maybe canceled, but hush, hush). While these may be real concerns, they are far outweighed by more pressing matters of justice and principle.
You may have noticed some change in your line up already. Jay Leno came out and said that he’s not funny without writers and is supporting the cause by buying donuts for picketers. Tina Fey and the writers of The Simpson’s ought to be very happy about that. Taping of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report has ceased completely for two weeks. Jon Stewart is even said to be paying salaries out of his own pockets to members of his and Stephen Colbert’s staffs. At least one protest has interrupted the recording of a program. There will likely be more incidents in the coming days and possibly weeks.
I, myself, a humble little couch potato, even considered joining the movement – just to prove a point, of course. But then people started yelling at me and said I wasn’t part of the union or something. One of these days, I’ll show them.
The fact of the matter is writers ought to get what’s coming to them, just like everyone else. They deserve to be paid if episodes of shows derived from their scripts are sold online or in other media. Lord knows that the big time producers and actors get more than their fair shares of the dough. Authors get paid every time a copy of their book is sold. In the world of music, the powers that be make a point to pay residual royalties to songwriters – unless, of course, you’re Vanilla Ice.
Naturally iTunes, YouTube and Web sites like hulu.com are at the center of all of this contention. The movement toward the Internet away from actual television sets has brought to light the injustices that screenwriters have faced for years and exacerbated their fury. They had to fight to get paid for reruns, and now they must step into this new ring and really hold their ground lest their altruism be taken advantage of again.
The digitization of television programming is a reality all too real for scriptwriters, and they simply cannot afford to remain silent. It means their work will be allowed to ride aimlessly on the information superhighway and never pay the toll. Writers, of course, are people too, with bills to pay and mouths to feed. We tend to forget that. It isn’t even about viewers paying anything.
It’s all about production companies sharing the wealth in a responsible and fair manner. No one likes to be bullied.
It’s high time the suits in Hollywood get their acts together and realize that their Emmy award-winning dramas or sitcoms would never be possible without their talented writing crews. After all, bringing home the bronze bacon is what they were hired to do in the first place. Actors may be smart (many of them are), but they’re not exactly prepared to carry a whole show without a prepared script. Without the writers, all of our favorite TV characters would cease to be characters at all – just pretty faces with nothing to say.
