Life, Fannishness, and Thespic Infatuation

I don't have too much to say about the strike, as I don't know a whole lot about it. What I do know about it, I support the writers. I continually find it amazing that corporations (i.e., the studio execs) value their personnel (in this case, the writers) so little. IIRC, the last writers strike resulted in the abundance of "reality" TV we "enjoy" today. (Yeah, I know. Some people love reality TV. Imo, from what I've seen of it, with the exception maybe of the talent-oriented shows, it's little more than loosely scripted soap opera. But I digress.) I'm just constantly amazed that the higher-ups don't seem to get that they make money from the talents of their production crews . . . starting with the writers. No writers, no stories. No stories, nothing to produce. And if they're gonna make money from the work of these employees, it only makes sense that they give these employees a fair shake. I mean, yeah, there comes a point wherein a product loses its original value, but it seems quite unconscionable to say to an artist (or any other employee), oh, sure, we'll pay you for the work--after it's lost its value. (I refer to an article I read somewhere that said the studios would give the writers a portion of what's made off their shows, like, six weeks after it hits the 'Net. In other words, when everyone who wants to see it has already seen it and they aren't making money off it anymore).

It's stupid of the studios not to pay their talent a portion of the revenue generated from Internet "broadcasts." Seriously. The writers (and actors and costumers and set designers, etc.) produced the show, you're making advertising bucks off the show--pay your employees, for goodness sake! Pay them *something*. They're not doing this on a volunteer basis, and they're not doing this for their health. Shop Owner Friend back home, when I was working at the pawn shop, told me that he believed in thanking his employees verbally, but he also believed in thanking his employees in a more practical way, monetarily. (I didn't stay at the shop long enough to start making commission, but that's what he was referring to.) If only the studios understood this, what with living in one of the most expensive areas of the country and all.

Now, I'll be fair and acknowledge the fact that the studio execs have people they answer to--their boards of directors, their shareholders, and the like. And I'm also of the opinion that in a lot of ways, that some unions have more power than they should in this country. However, I worked wardrobe on a non-union indie film a few years ago, and it truly did give me a new appreciation for why Hollywood unions exist. The hours I worked would *never* have been allowed by a union. The pay I received, same thing. I'm glad I had the experience, and I did it because Geo was involved in the project, but I totally understand why production and crew people need rules that they can point to and say, "Hey! I'm allowed to have a life. I'm allowed to make a living from this." And if they feel they're being taken advantage of, they need to stand up for themselves.

All this babbling to say the following: "Pastor Dale" at my church back home always does a Labor Day sermon on the value and importance of work. In one such sermon, he talked about how writing poetry was just as important a job as fixing cars. One of my favorite quotes came from that sermon. It's a paraphrase of something written by John William Gardner, something to the effect of this (insert "writer" for "philosopher" if you like):

A society that values neither its plumbers nor its philosophers is a society in which neither its pipes nor its ideas hold water.