Entertainment
Jul. 20—I have a serious love of television, and so I take things that stand between me and my ability to binge-watch it personally.
How dare someone make me wait an additional year to see what happens on "The Last of Us." I'm not sure I can live in a world where "1923" has indefinitely delayed its filming. It's too much to ask, people.
Yes, I realize this is the epitome of first world problems. I am not going to perish if I don't get resolution to the "Grey's Anatomy" finale. Probably not, anyway.
But it's an example of how the Writers Guild of America strike that kicked off in May and the SAG-AFTRA actors' strike that followed July 14 are bigger than just some people with picket signs in Hollywood.
Just like airport strikes affected travelers and railroad strikes affected transportation of goods nationwide last year, the collision of writers and actors going on strike affects everyone with a television — or whatever device you use. It affects people who go on dates to the movies or go there with their kids.
And if you think, "Hey, I have streaming services on my tablet or my smart TV. I can watch things that I've been meaning to watch for months or even years. I'm good," well, no, you aren't.
Sure, you can watch Hulu or Amazon Prime or Netflix or Disney+ or Paramount+ or whatever service is out there tacking a "+" onto its name. But that doesn't mean you are escaping the issue. It means you are part of why the strike is happening.
The wonderful world of being a writer in Hollywood — according to friends of mine in the biz who know firsthand — is not that different from the big studio days at the beginning of the industry. Well, it is a little different. The studios are even bigger, and there are more of them, but, in the end, they make a lot of money on work that begins with writers.
Writers rooms are where television and movie scripts are born. Without them, there is no show to produce and, therefore, no advertising or tickets or subscriptions to sell.
The streaming services and artificial intelligence are changing the way Hollywood works in an unprecedented way, and writers (and actors) have to be fairly compensated for an industry that is built on their backs.
But are the studios negotiating fairly? In front of Universal Studios in Los Angeles, a long line of ficus trees was not "trimmed" so much as butchered to remove branches and trees. Picketers say this was to remove shade amid high temperatures, making it harder for the striking workers to stand their ground. An NBCUniversal spokesman said that wasn't the intent. The city says there was no permit for the work and is investigating.