The Writer's Strike: Why You Should Care
So I know a lot of us are not exactly happy that the writer's strike means that the TV season is being ruined. And for those who live in LA, it's a lot worse - if this thing drags on it's going to cause collateral economic damage on an epic scale. But while tooling around online today, I found a very concise summary of why the WGA went on strike (and why the DGA and SAG might do the same next June). It's pretty compelling:
http://blogs.knoxnews.com/knx/telebuddy/archives/2007/11/guest_blogger_r.shtml
As someone who makes her living via her keyboard, I know the value of a well-crafted piece of writing. I mean, who hasn't cringed the day the writing went to hell on their favorite TV show (the first half of season 3 of Lost, anyone?), or watched a bad movie and gone, "Wow this idea is great - if only the dialogue didn't SUCK." And while the guilty pleasure of reality TV can be fun (okay I hate it but I'll admit that some find it fun), imagine how much the TV viewing experience would be diminished without a great, writing-driven, long-form stories like Battlestar Galactica or ER or CSI or Ugly Betty or 30 Rock or Law & Order or Grey's Anatomy or Pushing Daisies or... hell, even crappy shows have moments of good writing. Imagine the great mythic epics of TV or film - Buffy, X-Files, LoTR, the Mel Brooks canon, etc. etc. - who do they really belong to, at heart? The writers, my friends. I'm not denigrating the work of anyone else involved, it's a team effort, but doesn't it seem logical that these folks should get an infinitesimal percentage of the ongoing revenue stream created by something that began IN THEIR HEADS? I'm just sayin...the studios get $17 per, the writers want an increase from 4 cents to 8. And they gave that up, and the studios still won't talk to them.
Why is George Lucas a multi-gajillionaire? Because he was able to retain the rights to all of his work. Most writers will never get that opportunity. But when the guy who heads the studio that put a movie into production gets $50 mil plus stock options a year, and the writer who came up with the movie idea that made it possible for that studio to pay said CEO that $50 mil etc. gets nothing, there's something a little out of whack.
So...I know I take this personally. But for those of you *ahem* old enough to remember, I'd like to point out a wonderful little moment from the 2000 movie "Shadow of the Vampire." It retells the making of "Nosferatu" by German director F.W. Murnau (John Malkovich) and features the most accurate line about the writer's perceived value that I've ever heard. His "creature", Max Schreck, is actually a real vampire who has just killed the cinematographer. "Stop that!" Murnau screams. Schreck complains - he's hungry. "Fine," Murnau sneers. "You can eat the writer."
'Nuff said.