As the Hollywood writers’ strike entered its 10th week and actors were preparing to join them — in their first dual work stoppage in 63 years — studio executives screamed the quiet part out loud in an unusually clarifying manner.
“The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses,” an anonymous executive told Deadline. According to the news outlet, an industry insider affirmed this approach, calling it “a cruel but necessary evil.”
Deadline further reported that the studios and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), the trade group that negotiates for them, “believe that by October most writers will be running out of money after five months on the picket lines and no work.”
Big corporations — and bosses broadly — know the control they have over their workers’ lives, and they’re very happy to use it to keep those workers down. Last week, they accidentally admitted it. (We’ll note the AMPTP later refuted the comments, saying their member companies “are committed to reaching a deal and getting our industry back to work.”)
What this will come down to, as is true of so many things, is whether the public will support it. And for the public to support writers and SAG-AFTRA means they won't watch anything until things are made right. Very many people won't make that "sacrifice:" not to amuse themselves, or take advantage of an opportunity, until people they don't know, and don't personally care about, are treated properly. For an object example, if someone said to you that you shouldn't go to the movies, or stream anything, or listen to the radio -- but only rewatch the DVDs, CDs, etc, you already own -- until writers and SAG-AFTRA are given proper support, would you do it? Many people talk that talk, but they won't walk the walk.
Fred
In a heartbeat I will stop watching. But I'm old and insignificant in the viewer demographics so I don't matter. And I will always prefer physical media so I am set for life.
Mr Robillard,
I'm probably about like you. I don't even have TV access, and I don't go to the movies. I occasionally listen to public radio or the local community radio station. If there's a movie I want to see, or I think I do, I buy it on ebay. If I guess wrong, it goes to Goodwill.
So I'm old and insignificant, and don't matter to the big machine, either. I, too, have a system that works for me, and that doesn't enrich the machine, so as long as the DVDs and CDs work (I've been in this house for 18 years, and I never did set up my turntable, and I didn't set up my most recent VCR right, yet), I'm content.
Fred