As
I wrote in an article a few weeks earlier extremists on both sides are more in
accord then they’d think. Indeed, many on both sides might be shocked to know
that they are, at least in principle, fundamentally in agreement on almost all
things related to Hollywood.
Both
sides believe that celebrities who talk about anything related to politics are
completely out of their depth. Both sides are in accord that it when it comes
to so many real world issues, no one from Hollywood knows the first thing about
what the average American goes through. And in the biggest shock, both sides are
in accord about many films and TV that come out as being tone-deaf or out of
touch with the real world. Now in the last case, there’s a breakdown as to what
is considered ‘out of touch’ but they do fundamentally agree on that. The devil
is, as they say, in the details. Those on the right think that Hollywood is all
of these things because of its politics and those on the left think they are
because of their privilege.
(I
should add that when I say left and right, I don’t mean when it comes to electoral
politics. I do agree that the overwhelming majority of Hollywood is on the
Democratic side. That actually gets to a larger point which I will get to in
the next part of the article.)
As
someone whose professional career has spent closer to studying Hollywood, I
have fundamentally been indifferent to celebrities positions on anything other
than the films and TV they make. There are several reasons for this. Those of
you who have read many of the articles in some of my more political writings
are aware of the major ones. I believe that free speech is something that has
to extend to everyone, no matter how much you disagree with it or how foolish
you may find it. And as someone who is utterly opposed to the idea of ‘cancel
culture’ particularly when it comes to artists I think that any actor or artist
has the right to say whatever they want. Whether I agree with it or disagree
with it, they are entitled to their opinions and I refuse to let their politics
along with other off-screen behavior they go through allow them to stop me from
my enjoyment of their work. I am a hundred percent opposed to censorship, no
matter how much I disagree with the statement.
However:
the actions involving the breakdown of negotiations between the studios and
SAG-AFTRA over the last several weeks have increasingly led me to believe that
those in Hollywood are everything that both sides say they are, at least when
it comes to being out of touch with the rest of the world and the influence
they have. And while several events in the last week have increased my feelings
on the issue, something I learned last night was the rhetorical nail in the coffin.
Because
this is a complicated issue I think it must be explained in detail. So this
article will be divided into two parts: the crime that is unforgivable and the
punishment I think is fitting.
To
recap, last week SAG-AFTRA walked away from the negotiating table because of
what seemed to be a breakdown over residuals for streaming rights from services
such as Netflix. Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos said that SAG-AFTRA has said things were
going well and then the negotiating team, led by Duncan Crabtree-Ireland and
Fran Drescher, demanded a ‘levy’ on every subscriber. The figure announced by
Sarandos was that it was cost $587 million dollars. Let’s round that up to $600
million. (You’ll see why in a minute.)
Now
I’ve been arguing for months that the streaming services have been financially
shaky for a long time. Earlier this week I got more proof of it. The head of
Paramount Plus, a streaming service that includes Showtime, announced that they
were making several restructuring moves. One involved that they at the end of
2023, Showtime would no longer show live sporting events, making an end to an era
that has lasted nearly since the start of pay cable. More troubling was the release
of their head of original programming after twelve years who under her
authority had been responsible for the creation of such remarkable series as Homeland,
The Affair, Billions and Yellowjackets. The head of the network, at
this conference, made a very public denial that “the work stoppage had helped
save their network” which isn’t a thing any entertainment service wants to have
even floated.
We’ve
heard similar stories throughout the last year in particular. As I mentioned Starz has been increasingly
cancelling several original series – they cancelled four within days after the
WGA strike ended. Netflix has been undergoing
similar restructuring and Max, the network that took over HBO has been doing
much the same as well as cancelling several projects they had already shot seasons
for. The financial health of the
industry has been shaky for a while and the five month work stoppage by the WGA
did nothing to make it healthier.
When
pressed by this by interviewers Drescher did not offer a blanket denial but
said something telling: “It would only cost each Netflix subscriber 57 cents more
apiece.” I’ve already written an article about how much harm this could do the
shaky network so I won’t repeat what I said before.
Then
yesterday two separate stories came out within hours of each other. George Clooney,
acting on behalf of a certain group of stars, was willing to offer $150 million
dollars as a goodwill gesture in favor of getting the strike resolved. We don’t know how many other stars were
involved in the creation of this fund, but let’s not pretend that $150 million
isn’t a big chunk of change or an insignificant gesture. You would think that
if SAG-AFTRA’s negotiating team was interesting in resolving this strike, they
would at least be willing to consider this offer for what it means.
Instead,
I ended up reading not an hour later a statement from Crabtree-Ireland
fundamentally saying this gesture was essentially meaningless when it came to ‘resolving
the issues they had.”
The
utter gall of this statement really should be apparent to anyone who saw the
amount Clooney offered as well as confirming the utter discontent actors seem
to have between their world and everyone else’s. Any other union that has been
on the picket lines within the last several months – hell, years – would
jump at this offer if it meant resolving the strike. And to break down just how fundamentally
selfish this is, let’s do the math.
I
have looked online and the membership of SAG-AFTRA is listed at around 155,000.
For simplicity’s sake, let’s round it down to 150,000 members. That mean Clooney’s offer would break down to
a thousand dollars for every member of the union. Now I realize that people
like Nicole Kidman and Paul Rudd, this isn’t even a day’s salary but for many
of the rank and file it would be significant. And hell, I’d jump at the chance
to get an extra thousand dollars any day.
The
breaking point for Netflix was that they didn’t want to pay $600 million to
SAG-AFTRA. That breaks down to $4000 a member. Now I suppose that leadership
has spun it as saying that ‘you have to stay strong because Netflix won’t give
you a meager $4000 each.” Now again, to Kidman or Rudd or Fran Drescher, I
imagine they can find $4000 if they go through the change in their
couches. Most Americans would kill for
an extra $4000 a year and the people on the picket lines on Amazon or Starbucks
or anywhere could use that money.
Now
if we add Clooney’s offer into the pot that would mean that Netflix would have
to come up with only another $450 million. I’m not denying that’s still a lot
of money but for an industry that, as I keep mentioning, is struggling it would
probably make a significant difference. At the very least, they might be
willing to find a way to do make whatever cost increases they have to make for
their services far less painful. And if
it ended up helping start up an industry that to date has cost the state of
California at least $12 billion and has hurt the lives of many people
who rely on the film and TV industry for income and who don’t have the kind of savings
SAG-AFTRA does, you’d think it would be a step in the right direction.
But
apparently to people like Drescher and Crabtree-Ireland, this huge amount of
money doesn’t make a difference. And if that doesn’t tell you how utterly
detached Hollywood is from the real world, nothing will. I’ve never believed for a moment the myth
celebrities are just like us – they have
wealth and privilege that most of us
will never attain, even if they’re not part of the one percent - but there was a part of me that thought they
had some connection to the real world in a way that those borne into wealth and
privilege don’t. They did have to struggle to get to the top of their
profession, some of them did come from working class roots, and many have had
to overcome divides that had to do with their race, gender and sexuality. Steven
Spielberg did more to earn his wealth then Steve Forbes did. They have tone
deaf statements – Billy Porter saying that he was struggling because he had to
sell one of his houses is really out of touch with the community he’s a part of
– but I thought at the end of the day they cared enough about their industry
not to want to burn it down.
Everything
in the last two weeks, topped offed by the statements made by Crabtree-Ireland
and Drescher, show that they do not. And
by letting these statements stand without any argument SAG-AFTRA has
fundamentally revealed a truth about so much of their politics and ‘principles’.
They only seem to have them when it
comes to somebody else. I’ve believed
this for awhile on other issues, but this is by far the worst. Their attitudes
towards this have truly put them on the wrong side of history – I compare them
to the Vandals and the Huns who sacked Rome, the Vikings and the warring tribes
who specialized in looting and pillaging, the robber barons who had no trouble
destroying smaller industries so they could rule them. In a bizarre way, I see
them as worse than all of those titans of firms like Goldman Sachs who
nearly destroyed our economy in 2007-2008, were never punished and demanded the
government bail them out for the sole purpose of paying themselves huge
bonuses. At least those CEOs were
willing to take the money when it was thrown at them. SAG-AFTRA won’t even do
that unless certain people are paying for their rights. All of these ‘good, liberal people’ who have
spent the last decade raging against all things MAGA – I can just see them at
the picket lines chanting:
“We’re
going to get them to give us more money for the same work . And who’s going to
pay for it? Netflix!”
I
am not entirely shocked that left-leaning publications have essentially stopped
following the negotiations going on between SAG-AFTRA and the studios: the last
few weeks have revealed just how morally bankrupt the people they celebrated at
the start of this strike truly are, even though they will never be anything
close to financially so. When ‘the face of organized labor’ is saying they want
to take their money from the working class and spitting in the face of an offer
made by a man who embraces all the causes they hold dear, then you would have
to do a moral accounting. (Those on the left, of course, will never do so
because they are inclined to remain in their own bubble but never mind.)
Now
to be clear, when this strike is over, my principles will not have changed as
far as criticism goes. I will review all of these actors works on their merits
and I will try to keep my personal politics out of it. That being said, considering that all of Hollywood
has surrender whatever fragment of moral authority they think they had, I do
believe there has to be some kind of consequences. So in the conclusion to this piece, I’m going
to offer a ‘modest proposal’ for a punishment that I think will fit the crime.
I am under no illusions that a single one, much less their entire gang would go
along with it, but I’m going to offer it anyway if for no other reason than to
deal with my renewed sense of rage.
No comments:
Post a Comment