Some Hollywood writers have brought levity to their signs on the WGA’s picket lines. But the stakes of this fight — the industry’s future — are no laughing matter.
FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images
Hollywood writers are entering their third month on strike. Soon, actors may join the fight.
The root cause of their struggles appears to be technology’s unstoppable ascent in their industry.
Even if the writers score big wins, the forces disrupting Hollywood won’t retreat.
Before I became a journalist, I was an actor who spent much of my childhood on sitcoms for NBC, Nickelodeon, and Disney. As a newcomer to Hollywood during the aughts, I was often warned of an imminent technological revolution that would unseat many longstanding foundations of the entertainment industry’s business model.
People I worked with pointed to the advent of platforms like YouTube, which handed keys directly to original content creators to access huge numbers of followers without the burdensome rites of auditioning and relying on networks or studios to turn them into stars.
It was an exciting and scary time to be in the thick of it all — it felt like we were all lined up on the shore, bracing for waves to crash on the beach and wash away the industry we’d known.
Fast forward 15 years or so, and we can now clearly see the results of this technological tsunami. For years, Netflix and other streamers have been upending the traditional models for creating, distributing, and consuming content — and in the process, writers have seen their compensation whittled and residual pay vaporized.
Those warnings I heard as a kid, it would seem, were prophetic. Everything’s been shaken up, and the aftershocks are stretching from West Hollywood to Wall Street.
Film and TV writers say they’re among those who have fared the worst as their industry has been remade, even as others reap the rewards. That feeling has turned thousands out onto picket lines across Los Angeles and New York for the past two months since the Writers Guild of America called a strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents the Hollywood studios and streamers.
The WGA members may get a battalion of reinforcements come July 12 if actors decide to join the fight against the studios over their own concerns about wages and the rise of artificial intelligence, among other issues. Already, though, the strike has shuttered or disrupted countless shows and films, leaving many without work.
The writers and actors have some issues in common and others that are unique to their respective guilds — but both groups insist the protections they’re fighting for will lift all types of workers across the industry.
Either way, the bottom line is this: Everyone in Hollywood is afraid that the robots are coming for their jobs, Terminator-style. Think that’s an overstatement? It’s not — let me tell you why.
Streaming and tech have transformed Hollywood, but some say the revolution has come at a steep cost
In my view, at the heart of the struggles so many in Hollywood face — from early-career hopefuls to veterans now on the picket lines — are the wily tentacles of tech.
They’re reaching into and are metastasizing within the depths of nearly every industry. Hollywood’s fight is taking center stage right now, but this conflict is playing out everywhere as workers confront the possibility of AI upending their jobs or rendering them obsolete.
In Hollywood, streaming was the harbinger. Netflix, Disney+, Amazon’s Prime Video, and Apple TV+ either didn’t exist or were barely twinkles in tech execs’ eyes during the last writers’ strike, which began in 2007. Now, they’re some of the dominant forces controlling new content development in the entertainment industry.
But many within the business feel the streaming services have distributed their rewards unequally, boxing out the writers and performers whose work generates revenue, wins awards, and is gobbled up by audiences.
“We’re fighting for the survival of television and film writing as a sustainable career, period,” Adam Conover, a TV creator and WGA board member, said in a recent video from the picket lines. “We’re gonna be out here until Ted Sarandos and Bob Iger come to the table,” he added, invoking the chief executives of Netflix and Disney.
“Hey, Netflix! You broke it — now fix it!” one WGA member wrote on his picket sign in the early days of the strike.
But even if the writers score some wins to preserve their creative process and professional security, tech’s disruption of entertainment won’t stop. And already, Wall Street and Big Tech are salivating over the money-making potential of this land grab.
Investors are buzzing over startups that harness algorithms to predict box office hits before they’re even produced. Studios are digitally altering voices and virtually resurrecting deceased stars. Creators have racked up wealth and big followings via TikTok and Instagram — linchpins of the now ubiquitous creator economy that, according to Goldman Sachs, could be worth nearly half a trillion dollars in just four years.
For actors, rising competition for a small number of roles is another massive issue — in a post-COVID era of global connectivity, now they’re vying against people sending casting directors “self-tapes” from all over the world.
“It’s a convergence of technology. You’ve got streaming technology that affects residuals. We have inflation that affects the basic wage issue. We’ve got AI, and now we have this ‘self-tape,'” Jonathan Handel, an entertainment attorney and contributor to Puck, said in a recent TV interview, outlining actors’ concerns.
The waves of change are crashing ashore
The unfortunate fact is that, while the writers will likely gain some victories in the near term, change is going to keep coming, and people will keep hurting.
So many people hoping to break into the industry are out of work — and this year, as entertainment companies have slashed 15,000 jobs in bids to cut costs and satisfy shareholders, job-seekers are confronting slim pickings.
Recently, I reported on how the Hollywood writers’ strike is dispiriting industry hopefuls at the outset of their careers — you can read it here. Aspiring entertainment workers told me about fears that they’ll have no choice but to leave the country if they can’t find jobs and extend their visas, and described the dread of dwindling bank accounts, “skyrocketing” debt, and applying for food stamps during the strike.
“It sucks to be out of work, and we’re all looking to get back to what we love to do,” Zayd Dohrn, a WGA strike captain in Chicago and director of an MFA program at Northwestern University, told me in June. But, he added, the writers are fighting for long-term gains that will benefit everyone in Hollywood, including those young job-seekers who feel stymied.
“To delay the beginning of their careers in order to have, long term, a more sustainable industry for everyone — I think that’s a sacrifice most people would say they should be willing to make,” Dohrn added.
These pain points may recede when the strike eventually ends, but the undulating waves of change I was warned about as an actor during the aughts have crashed ashore in full force. The industry needs to face the inharmonious music: None of the forces that led to the strike are going to retreat.
This labor stoppage will be resolved by a clash of wills between artists and creators on one side, and big corporations bringing the weight of technology down on them on the other. But, long term, all of the ingredients appear to be in place for a dramatic — if somewhat dystopian — movie plot about showbiz versus the robots.
Sounds like the perfect job for a Hollywood writer.
Do you work in Hollywood or are you trying to break into the entertainment business? Contact this reporter. Reed Alexander can be reached via email at ralexander@insider.com, or SMS/the encrypted app Signal at (561) 247-5758.