I was all in behind last year’s strikes by the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actors Guild/American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) that brought TV production and filmmaking to a halt. Labor in general as well as creatives like myself and those union’s members always get pressed down by the big-money interests. It’s how America works in rampantly capitalistic times such as these. I’m forever on the side of the sometimes growling and barking underdogs that do the work that counts.
Even if the strikes affected my life in ways that saddened me. I’m a bit of a TV series junkie. In recent years the ones I follow, and those I dip into for a while, kept me happily occupied in my evenings. After a day’s work at a screen inputting and revising, editing and rewriting myself and clients, I like to kick back and let another screen’s output engage, entertain and sometimes enlighten me. It feels like a nicely balanced equation.
Sure, as with TV since my youth, there was always some kind of summer lull. But here in the streaming era there was always something that would catch my fancy that I’d watch. Then came the COVID lockdown and the production of TV series went on hold. That set back new episodes being produced. Once the health safety restrictions and precautions eased, some series started back up.
Then the writers, who in some cases were able to keep working during the pandemic, went on strike. Actors followed. With both those key elements out of the loop, both TV and film production hit a wall.
That caused a lot of people who work in many of the fields and crafts that it takes for a production to create shows to lose work and genuinely suffer. That puts into perspective whatever disappointment I might have felt as last fall began and all my regular shows didn’t start new seasons. Small potatoes, really.
However, my favorite series have become ingrained into my life. They feature stories and characters I feel compelled to care about and follow. As I’ve noted previously in this column, my primary favorites are all trios of show from the bustling stable of creator Dick Wolf: the current “Law & Order” line-up of “Special Victims Unit” and its Elliot Stabler spinoff “Organized Crime” plus the reboot of the original L&O that launched Wolf’s TV series empire; “Chicago Fire,” “PD” and “MD.” And the three Wolf “FBI” shows. I missed ‘em.
I can’t comment much on the SAG issues other than to note that even though stars quite obviously have lucrative and even enriching compensation, minor role players and extras that even may work regularly are still squarely in the middle-class income bracket. I doubt that I am telling most all of my readers something they don’t already know – in the current economic climate anyone making a middle class living often feels financially challenged.
I have spent time looking over the WGA schedule of minimums that is its agreement with studios and producers, Writing for TV shows is also largely a middle class-level pursuit – and anyone who lives in the two primary production hubs, Los Angeles and New York City, feels the squeeze of the high costs of living in both locales for the middle class. So the main strike issue of better compensation from steaming revenues is valid indeed.
The other big matter, protection from artificial intelligence, is also reasonable, even if I don’t share the panic about an AI threat that some other professional writers feel. I must confess that as I pass through the living room of my shared house where one of my housemates spends much of his spare time shuffling through the many offerings on Netflix and other platforms – I kid him that he watches those shows so I don’t have to – I hear lots of dialogue that’s so mediocre and pedestrian that it could have been written by a program.
This gap in my series viewing has reminded me that even if strikes affect our lives in some way that’s negative, there are bigger issues regarding a financially secure and thriving populace we must keep in mind. Unions by and large serve the middle and lower-class workers. Media portrayals of life in Tinseltown as lifestyles of the Hollywood rich and famous gloss over how the vast majority of the workers on our favorite shows are regular folks trying to get by. We can suffer a bit for a bit so they might suffer less, right?
TV Series: “Fargo” (Season Five) – One series that has returned does so with a bang. Its wonderfully bizarre accounts of Midwest life and crime goes full monty weird and hilarious in this new season. Juno Temple glistens as an odd, sweet yet cunning and strong heartland wife and mom. Bonus points for Jon Hamm’s corrupt sheriff.
Song: “Let’s Be Grown Ups Now” by Paul Brady – Sometimes a song just feels so right for the times, This title tune to the latest album from Ireland’s singer-songwriter bard is addressed to what Dylan called the Masters of War. But its sentiments apply across the board. And it should be played every time the US House of Reprehensible children convenes. Good introduction to a masterful writer of songs with one of the most verdant tenor voices in popular music.
Rob Patterson is a music and entertainment writer in Austin, Texas. Email robpatterson054@gmail.com.
From The Progressive Populist, March 1, 2024
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