Writers And Air Traffic Controllers
I'm about to offend a few political sensibilities, here. I do no support the Writer's Guild Strike.
Although these days, the meaning of the word "support" has been stretched pretty thin. Instead of providing material goods or money (as in child support or supporting your family) it has come to mean nothing more than having vague positive thoughts about a group of people or an issue, as in "Suport The Troops" or "I support the war in Iraq." Support is just attaching a sticker to the bumper of your car.
So why all the fuss over the writers' strike? I know members of the Writers' Guild want a piece of the internet pie and for what it's worth, I believe they are entitled to it. Everyone should be able to make money from their own creations.
And yes, I also know that we are now getting re-runs and reality shows on television and there could possibly be no three hour Oscar Award show next month (and this is a bad thing because...?) And yes, I am even aware of the fact that thousands of hard working people who make their living off of the entertainment business are out of work and strapped for cash.
Last night, while watching the lead-up to what was left of the Golden Globe Awards show, my husband suggested that the writers should be treated like the striking air traffic controllers in 1980. Then President Ronald Reagan fired them all and brought in a whole crop of brand new workers to do their jobs. It was a huge blow to organized labor and plenty of dire preditictions were made. And yet, more than a quarter of a century later, we can look back and see that those people were not irreplaceable. As far as I remember, there were no plane crashes attributed to inexperienced controllers and things went back to normal. Or as normal as things can get in the airline industry.
There's no shortage of writing talent in this country. I'm sure the studios and the producers could find plenty of good writers out there who'd much rather make a very good living writing sitcoms as opposed to scrounging about for publication in any medium while they toil away at their boring day jobs.
But what about the stars who refuse to cross the picket lines?
My husband had an answer for that, too. Get new ones. There are plenty of attractive, talented actors out there who could take over. Movies and television shows might be more interesting without the distraction of the Brad Pitts and the Nicole Kidmans and the Sally Fields.
It is, after all, just television and movies. Unlike the air traffic controllers, there's no possibility of a plane crashing because an inexperienced writer came up with a bad joke for Jay Leno's monologue.
As for all those people put of work because of the strike, all I can say is that economic shit like that happens. The entertainment industry is just that, an industry. And we all know industries can go bust, like the auto industry in Detroit and the steel industry in Allentown, PA and the textile industry here in North Carolina. You have to adapt to change.
I'm quite sure some kind of resolution will come about eventually. In the meantime, my family and I have decided to entertain ourselves by talking to each other. And maybe we'll find we don't need to watch television.
Posted by judy5cents
at 9:58 AM EST