The Disruption Series: A New Series On The Consequences of Strikes And Protests In America - Not All Of Them Are Talked About

 

 

As the WGA and SAG-AFTRA engage in a labor stoppage that shows no end in sight, I have only recently begun to deal with my opinions on in my work.

I am understandably conflicted. I understand why both guilds must have these strikes. I fully comprehend the consequences for my medium if they do not receive even partial acknowledgement of their cause from the studios and streaming services. My columns have been as much a celebration of everything that they have gifted the world with for decades. I know people like me are blessed by their work. I know I am privileged to write about them for my own livelihood. Their cause is worthy and needs to be fought for.

But I am also aware of reality. Not merely the one that the writers and actors are fighting for, but the entire historical reality of labor stoppages and disruptions throughout the entire history of America. I also know the opinion of the public who devours the product that the writers and actors produce with little real thought for their labor. And I know that, for all the advocacy so many claim when it comes to this strike in particular and organized labor in general, there is far too much historical evidence to indicate that the men and women who are on the picket lines will get anything close to what they want for their protest and will end up losing far more from a public relations and financial standpoint than they ever hope to gain from this battle. I know that this is a battle that needed to be  waged and I do fully support it, but at the end of the day they had lost before they ever went on the picket line. This is not doomcrying in this sense that so many on this blog choose to do; it is a simple acknowledgement of reality, particularly when it comes to entertainment.

This series will be an ongoing saga of both the history of disruption in America, not only when it comes to this particular strike, but labor stoppages in general and so many of the protest movements that have made up so much of the twentieth century and continue to this day. So much of what has driven the leftist movement is the decision to fight for rights and protest for equality. While in many cases this has won battles that needed to be fought for Americans of all races, genders and sexual preferences, there have always been repercussions. And though the left has tried to pretend otherwise in their newsletter and histories, it can not be denied that far too often in the American experience, the reaction of the average American is indifference at best and a radical lean to the other side at worst. This was true well before our society had the radical polarization it has today and it is far truer now. The left has no answer to how to bridge this divide other than to deny it exist or demonize the other side. So many people who have spent their lives protesting keep arguing that their warnings and demands fell upon deaf ears. This series will make the argument that Americans did, in fact, hear their arguments – and the world we live is because they reacted that strongly against it.

And it has never helped the battle that so many of the people who are the loudest voices are in a sense people of privilege who react from a position that is not the same as the average American. Some of these columns will deal with the problems of Hollywood taking sides in these conflicts and how an argument can be made it has actually hurt the causes they fight for more than if they had stayed silent.

I think that is perhaps the best place to start this series.

 

Part 1: Some Say Fran Drescher is The Face of Organized Labor Today

That’s Not A Good Thing To Argue

 

The day that SAG-AFTRA went on strike SAG President Fran Drescher made a loud speech that went viral on YouTube and was quoted in so many progressive websites. People began to celebrate Drescher’s presence and forecast a political future for her. AOL has repeatedly referred to her in the opening days of the strike as the new voice of labor.

I can understand why so many would want to make that argument. But if the right were to show a picture of Fran Drescher and use the Chyron ‘1990s Sitcom Star Claims to Be The Voice of the Average Worker’ in their mocking fashion, they would not be entirely wrong in their sarcasm.

Don’t get me wrong: Drescher is the face and voice of SAG-AFTRA. She must be the public persona of the battle for her union and everyone who works in Hollywood. With her union on the presence of picket lines along with the WGA, she has given both sides immense public visibility in the battle going forward.

But to call Fran Drescher the voice of labor is the kind of obliviousness that shows just how blindly progressives will follow anyone who celebrates a cause they believe in. There is no world where Fran Drescher should be consider in the same voice as John L. Lewis or Cesar Chavez or Ralph Nader in their early days. All of them had to work to become the faces of their unions; all of them sacrificed immensely, and all of them no doubt faced enormous danger in their lives. Fran Drescher has been a millionaire for at least thirty years and like so many presidents of the SAG Guild hasn’t been an average actor for a very long time – or for that matter worked regular in the business for a while. The bosses have made it very clear that they intend to stall until so many of the rank and file start to lose their houses. Drescher will never be in that condition.

Nor will Bryan Cranston nor Robert Downey Jr. Nor will Margot Robbie. It is a grand gesture that Dwayne Johnson is contributed seven figures to support the strike. He can afford it. None of them are in any position to go broke or indeed have much of a problem finding work when this over. I have little doubt their support for the strike is real and deep in the bones. But it is the support of people who can afford to support it. Their livelihoods are not in question.

Now the people who organize unions at Amazon or Walmart or Starbucks – they are in real peril. Their decision to do so very likely could cost them their houses, put them out on the street or have them blacklisted whenever they try to find work. Their decision deserve to be celebrated. Their battles deserve to me made prominent every chance they get. So why is Fran Drescher being called the face of labor?

Because she’s rich and famous – and photogenic. People have heard of her. That is why so many progressive websites tend to push her as the voice and face of labor today. Why shouldn’t they? She’s an actress which means she already established at delivering rousing speeches to thunderous applause. Perhaps I am being too cynical when I see her speech given to her union was just a variation on the kind she spent years delivering on The Nanny when Fran was lecturing the Sheffield’s but I wouldn’t say it didn’t help her cause more than showing the ones of marchers outside a McDonald’s in New York.

That’s the real reason  actors are the face of this battle by progressives, which to be clear, shows their own hypocrisy. They have spent years berating the conservative politicians who deliver ‘canned speeches’ with ‘applause lines’ to their ‘rabid bases’ as frauds. That’s the definition of what so many actors do to earn their living. It is really hard to argue that you are a ‘man of the people’ when you live a life of privilege: the fact that so much of the left wants to celebrate every time a celebrity says something that they agree with as being ‘one of them’ shows their own tone-deafness.

 I acknowledge that far too many actors and writers are struggling because the financial burdens they suffered are not far removed from so many of the working class today. In all honesty, it would be far better optics if the celebrities themselves removed themselves from all these strike and let the rank-and-file do all the talking. Let them do the photo ops, let them walk the picket lines but whenever its time to do an interview or be on camera, step away and let the extras and table writers be your spokespeople.

Indeed, if you want this to be a battle about organized labor, then let’s hear from the ones who are truly suffering. We need to hear more stories from the writers who haven’t had a job in a couple of years and only make money every time an episode of The Good Wife they wrote seven years ago gets reran. Let’s hear from the extras who only get a paycheck whenever an episode when they were a villager in Game Of Thrones replays. We don’t need to hear from Bob Odenkirk and Bryan Cranston; find someone who played an addict in a meth lab in Breaking Bad who only gets money every time his or her episode is rerun.

I am not saying that this would make the battle easier to win when it comes to the bosses: as I have written before and will write again, they don’t even view Drescher herself as a real threat to their business model. But strictly from a PR standpoint, to have them being the voice of labor who make it a lot harder for so many on the right to argue, as they always do, that the people on the picket lines are overpaid Hollywood elites and might help some of the people who are trying to fight similar battles realize that Hollywood and the people struggling for higher wages at Burger King aren’t that far removed. Considering that Hollywood is about image and perception above all else, it might actually help move the goalposts a little. I may be overly optimistic on that last point; I do know that to call the star of The Nanny the face of the labor movement is absolutely the wrong image for your cause, even for this particular war.