What if Writers and Actors Told the Studios to Stuff It?
Maybe it’s time for the big studios to go the way of the Dodo
I’m sick of corporations taking advantage of working people.
When the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) joined the Writers’ Guild of America (WGA) to strike for a contract overhaul that would adequately address the changing industry and provide working people with fair compensation, it was just the last in a long line of battles between corporate America and working Americans.
But this time, the strikers have a silver bullet. This time the strikers aren’t nameless, faceless people fighting for their rights. They are familiar faces with names we know. These are people we respect and appreciate for their unique talents and abilities — they are also the people who put the words in the mouths of the characters we watch intently because they have the power to give us glimpses into other worlds through their creativity, humor, and intelligence. We need them.
I don’t care who runs the studios — now that I have a reason to think about it, I would prefer the studio system didn’t exist. I hate watching 30 minutes of action movie nonsense while I wait for a movie I paid for to begin. The last time I tried to skip that, we found other people in our seats. They kindly moved when asked, but had a less friendly person been sitting there, it might have led to an ugly confrontation.
The current system allows theaters to force this garbage down our throats if we want to see a movie. It’s how they get kids whose parents bought them tickets for “Toy Story” to see something violent and flashy that jacks up their adrenaline and makes them want more.
What if the studios were not allowed to use their enormous financial advantage to push children toward violent content — like Meta with its algorithms designed to “keep eyes on the page” even if it must rely on damaging disinformation to do it — what would that be like?
What if we could take away the studios’ power?
What if the people we love to watch and the writers who make them so real and interesting got together to set up their own studios?
Can SAG/WGA sign a different kind of contract with other producers? Plenty of actors have produced movies. Why not set up a system to encourage more of that?
If a new system were created that included training actors to work in production when they aren’t working as actors, they could make critical industry contacts, maintain a steady income flow and fill in for each other when one of them gets a gig.
What about a GoFundMe page to support the actors and writers? I’ve never set one up, but plenty of people have. Surely, the unions could work together to make that happen while they’re working everything else out?
I would love to see the reaction from the studios if the strikers were bringing in the money needed to keep striking until they built a better system or negotiated a decent deal.
All the power now is in the hands of the ones who can hold out the longest. What if we could give that power to the members of SAG/WGA?
Could unions use AI to replace the studios?
If the unions worked with outsiders to develop the infrastructure they’d need to continue making content without relying on studios, the studios would lose their power.
Admittedly, I don’t know how much tangible infrastructure they would need. But isn’t almost every expensive scene aided dramatically by AI already?
If studios want to eliminate actors by using their likenesses to recreate them with AI (without paying for it), why can’t AI replace the studios? How much dead weight is in those legacy operations, anyway?
In the interest of fairness, shouldn’t the people we pay to see and the writers who create the stories we want to hear be the ones who decide which stories to tell us? Shouldn’t people who possess the empathy needed to produce great works to elevate humanity (or at the least don’t actively work to bring out the worst in use) be the ones who make those choices?
The only reason those on the business side of the entertainment industry get to decide how it all works is because they have the money. What if we stopped giving it to them?
Just a thought.
The Rock gave 7 figures to the SAG/AFTRA relief fund. They need more like that.