Strike two!
Hollyweird's luvvies are restless. Again. And this time it's not #MeToo, or climate change, or any of that shit. This is a far more noble cause. This is about money dahling!
As the members of SAG-AFTRA go on strike, they join the hacktivists and genuine writers of WGA on the picket line. And those of us with real jobs look on in amusement.
I don't doubt that some union members, probably the majority, have a hard time of it, and they have genuine grievances. In particular, the use of actors' digitally-captured likenesses, without compensation and potentially in projects that they would not assent to, is abhorrent if not flat-out unethical. But the concept's hardly new; 2004's Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow wasn't a terrible film, worth a rewatch even, but how down on his uppers would Sir Laurence Olivier, who died fifteen years prior, have had to have been to agree to appear in it? Yeah, it's not AI, but the principle's the same.
I'm more ambivalent about the use of AI in scriptwriting; it can't be worse than some of the drek coming out of Hollywoke. If it is, then studios will lose audiences, and money. If, on the other hand, it passes muster with audiences, then what of it? Creative and compelling writers will still find work. But some of the demands, such as stuffing the writers' room with sociopolitical talentless bloat, and the whining of vastly overpaid stars wanting a bigger cut of the residuals—when most crew members working on a film or show don't get any at all—kinda loses my sympathy.
Stars Cillian Murphy, Matt Damon and Emily Blunt left the premiere of Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer in London on Thursday night as the strike was declared. The film's director, Christopher Nolan, told the cinema audience that they were "off to write their picket signs", adding that he supported them in their struggle.
Bernd Debusmann Jr and Samantha Granville, BBC News
Their struggle? There's something about pampered dance monkeys walking off the red carpet on strike that makes me laugh. It's all just too precious. But, given that much of the studios' current output is lacklustre, thanks in no small part to the members of SAG and WGA, it's easy enough to just fall back on video collections from better times.
For her part, SAG's president, Fran Drescher, piled on the histrionics.
It's a terrible thing when big business tries to replace you with digital, with robots, artificial intelligence. If we don't stop this now, this maniacal need to make money over allowing people to make a living, it's gonna be a dystopia.
Fran Drescher, via BBC News
Hmmmm, much of this has happened to other people working in other sectors for years, if not decades. It happened to me, to some extent, when part of my role at MegaCorpUSA was farmed out to someone far less able in Mumbai, when their only qualification for the role was being cheaper. If Hollyweird was a pinnacle of entertainment excellence, and its practitioners focussed solely on their craft without preaching at the great unwashed, it'd be a different matter. As it stands, pass me the world's smallest violin…
THIS IS THE GRAMMAR POLICE! COME OUT WITH YOUR HANDS UP!
Fran Drescher, SAG's president, said the strike comes at a "very seminal moment" for actors working in the industry. "What's happening to us is happening across all fields of labour," she said, "when employers make Wall Street and greed their priority, and they forget about the essential contributors that make the machine run."
Bernd Debusmann Jr and Samantha Granville, BBC News
I think seminal
is one of those adjectives that's absolute, it doesn't take another; something's either seminal or it isn't. Drescher may well be better at talking other people's speeches rather than writing her own. But, being Merkan, she probably said fields of labor
, so that one's on the dynamic duo who reported this.
I first read this article a couple of hours ago. As I reread it while writing this post, I was pretty sure it had only mentioned Cillian Murphy and Emily Blunt walking out of the Oppenheimer premiere. And, sure enough, the Wayback Machine agrees with me. Poor little Matty's display of solidarity seems to have been added as an afterthought; stealthily, naturally. Bless him; still, it's the thought that counts.
If the luvvies' strike does go on until the end of the year, let's hope the coverage dies down a little, because it's getting tedious already. The BBC excitedly has four articles on the strike linked on its home page.
- Actors' strike to hit production of major films;
- Why Hollywood actors have walked off set;
- Hollywood strike could last until end of the year; and
- Christopher Nolan says he will not make films during strike
Restraint doesn't appear to be a thing.