The Disruption Series Part 5: Why Framing the WGA and SAG-AFTRA Strike as a Battle Against Evil Corporations Doesn't Quite Work

 

Throughout this series I have made the argument that the writers and actors who are on strike have been framing the battle they are waging as one to put them on the side of the working stiff. One of the points they have continuously come back to over and over are the massive salaries of the executives running all of the major studios. Bob Iger, the head of Disney’s Marvel decision has been a particular punching bag for the strikers: they have constantly argued that if Marvel can afford to bay Iger a $90 million bonus, they can surely afford to pay the reasonable demands of the working stiff.

Ever since the recession and corporate bailout of 2008, one of the biggest talking points of the left has always been the ridiculous bonuses paid to corporate executives. It’s an easy argument to make when, having nearly destroyed the economy of America and possibly the world, these same executives take the money to bail them out and then give themselves large bonuses. This has become a talking point for so many in the Democratic party and it is an argument that is impossible to refute to everybody who is struggling to make ends meets in the past fifteen years. 

This argument would work for every other industry in America and possibly the entire world. When it comes to Hollywood, however, I find it severely lacking. I understand the left’s desire to frame it this way and the actors and writers are cagey enough to do so, but in the industry of Hollywood, it’s  a false flag for at least two reasons.

Iger received $90 million for a bonus. According to the SAG-AFTRA website, they have approximately 160,000 members.  If Iger had decided to forego his bonus and bestow it to the entire SAG-AFTRA membership, each dues paying member would receive a little more than $563 apiece.  For the people on the ground living paycheck to paycheck, that would not cover a week’s worth of groceries based on where they lived. And the most famous members of the guild – the Meryl Streep’s, the Bryan Cranston’s, the Dwayne Johnsons – get that much of a few minutes of wok in any project. The WGA has 20,000 members according to their website, so if Iger had done the same for them they’d received roughly $4500 apiece.  I imagine many of them would be able to do with more the money but that would still barely cover a month’s rent for many of them. To be clear, the Vince Gilligan’s and Shonda Rhimes get that much every time one episode of theirs airs in syndication.

The choice to use Iger is a deliberate one: he is a controversial figure in many circles for how he has run Disney and Marvel and because the comic book industry is one of those that many creative people commands so much of their work, they don’t like him any more than some devoted fanboys do for what they consider him doing for the Star Wars franchise. In the eyes of everyone, Iger is grossly overpaid because he produces something that nobody likes and because, well, nobody ever lost money by taking a swing as a rich executive.

The second part of this argument is that because Disney can afford to pay $90 million to one man, their claims – and by extension, the entire entertainment industry – that they are financially shaky is de facto a lie.  This argument, to be clear, barely holds water when you consider the budget of the average blockbuster film and how much it costs to break even. It ignores that the movie theater industry is shaking and on the verge of falling apart.  And it argues that the fragmentation of the TV audience that has allowed so many in these guilds to work on their dream projects has caused the breakeven point for so many networks to become harder and harder to meet with each passing year.  This argument works fine when you’re discussing Goldman Sachs or Walmart. When you frame in the context of Netflix, which has been undergoing more than its share of a stock meltdown and a financial crises, it doesn’t hold up as well.

Because so many people have the inability to hold the idea that two conflicting ideas can be true at the same time, this disconnect is no doubt impossible for many to bridge.  There is a very good chance that many in the leadership roles in both guilds can not see this possibility even though they have to have at least been aware of it over the last several years with the extensive rise of corporate mergers involving cable and streaming and how fewer and fewer networks are shelling out money for original work in the first place.  The possibility that the studio heads are aware of these problems and have insight into them would not occur to them, giving the eternal struggle between the creative and the studio system to get the money they need for their projects in the first place.

I am not saying that the studio executives are not misguided in their approach or tone-deaf in how they have handling the work stoppage.  What I do know is that they are more aware of how the industry has been changing over the last decade and they know that there is only so much money to go around. They are also painfully aware that they have created a system that – to repeat – basically leads to the majority of viewers paying as little as possible for their product.  And since, no more than the creative forces can they afford to blame the consumer, they have to take the stand they do. 

This work stoppage is cutting in to their bottom lines. They’re not going to starve or lose their houses to be sure, but they know that these strikes will end up hurting their industry in the long run, just as it already has in the short run. They might end up losing their jobs as a result, and they know no one will shed a tear for them if that happens.

That is the only real leverage the guilds have. They are trying to frame themselves as the blue collar sort, and the face of American labor. That the left is willing to actually go along with this idea – that somehow millionaires like Fran Drescher can be thought of in the same breath as Cesar Chavez – would be ludicrous to anyone with a connection to reality. But as we all know, the left will never miss a chance to swing at greedy corporate overlords. That so many of the people on the picket lines are millionaires themselves is a disconnect they will never realize; Hollywood always makes donations to their cause, and they’re not going to bite the hand that has fed them so well.

So when Billy Porter says that he has to sell one of his houses because of the strike, the media will seize on this as the greedy billionaires squeezing out the working stiff. They’ll ignore the fact that Porter has houses to sell in the first place when so many Americans do not, and frame him as much a victim as those striking for higher wages at Starbucks or trying to unionize at Amazon. Those people are clearly the people we should celebrate – not a group of millionaires who are the loudest voices for an industry that is not in as great financial shape as the bonuses its executives are receiving would have you believe.