This is part of a series of accounts of the strike from Hollywood writers at different levels in their careers. The diarists have been granted anonymity to encourage candor. You can read previous entries by ‘Eastside Warrior’ and others here.
Memorial Day must be the new Labor Day — at least judging by the ocean of unions that flooded downtown to end Week 5. While Disney had Ariel trying to sing the summer box office back to life, we had Lindsey Dougherty chanting “Union Town.” Nothing against mermaids, but when I’m in a knife fight, I’ll take a Teamster with a Hoffa tattoo on her arm any day of the week.
No, it’s not easy. At this point everyone’s starting to think more about practicalities. What places in town give discounts for WGA members. (Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank is Hollywood labor’s new commissary thanks to Drew Carey.) What shoes are the best for clocking 20,000 steps a day? (As every waitress and nurse already knows, Hokas apparently.) Most importantly, how do I stretch out those last paychecks to last however long they gotta last?
Also, with school out, more than a few of us will be juggling childcare with picketing schedules. The WGA’s volunteer captains are busting their asses daily. Folks are calling every actor they knew to help SAG-AFTRA get its strike authorization vote passed. And everyone is holding their breath to see how deep the DGA sticks the knife in our collective bargaining back this time around.
But until that Brutus moment, it’s nose to the grindstone — well, heel to the pavement — and stocking up on sunscreen for summer. Is there anxiety? Yes. Is there penny-pinching? You bet. Is there an overwhelming wish, given the existential dread hanging over this entire industry, that someone could get informed and intelligent people in a room to hammer out a functional deal? A way to keep this an industry where people can earn a living, instead of turning it into a hobby for all the trust fund babies and tech bros who cash-out their useless app start-ups and suddenly want to get in touch with their creative side?
Fuck, yes.
But there’s also support. Not just from the usual Hollywood types but from everyone. You wear your WGA shirt around town and suddenly everyone wants to talk. Teachers, grocers, cops. One traffic cop at Universal asked me, “They really trying to replace you with robots?” “They won’t promise not to,” I told him. “That’s fucked up,” he said, shaking his head as he made a Tesla wait for our picket lines. Then, the butcher at my grocery store chatted me up for 15 minutes, empathizing with how no one can afford a house in LA anymore.
It’s touching and surprising. Every time a potential WGA strike comes up, someone inevitably agonizes that studio flacks will caricature us as “out of touch.” But with the disappearance of the middle class in this country, it feels like we’re all in the same boat for once. You’re either in the .01 percent, or you’re everyone else.
Still, we writers are lucky and we know it. We get to work our dream. Traditionally, writing — TV writing especially — was always the stable job in Hollywood. When I first started as an assistant, a boss told me, if you want to be able to last here, get into TV. So, you always wonder if others will sympathize. What about the freelancer, what about the aspiring actor, what about the overworked crew whose families take the hit for all those 14-hour days?
Honestly, I find myself astounded by their support. And I can’t help wondering what powers it. Maybe it’s the fact that if writers can’t make this work as a profession, what hope is there for anyone else’s dream? Maybe it’s because we make the noise and our fight is so visible that it gets everyone else’s struggle seen.
If we can’t get health care and a decent wage, then the only ones who’ll get to tell their stories are the .01 percent. And those who already have so much just don’t dream as hard or intensely as the rest of us, i.e. we who’ve clawed and crawled our way through years without health insurance, endless “mentoring” program applications, sleepless nights sweating under mountains of debt, trying to make something, anything work, so we can tell a story. (And if there’s one industry whose dreams are as deadened and devoid of humanity as possible, it’s Silicon Valley. If we have nothing to look forward to but a future of TV shows scripted by “founders” who sold their AI start-ups, God help us all.)
See, the most touching support I’ve seen in these five weeks came on the line at Disney. A Mexican restaurant from the Valley was offering the writers free tacos and aguas frescas — far and away the most delicious food on any picket line. Everyone wanted to know what actor, agency or celebrity had paid for it: Verve, Jay Leno, Stephen Colbert? But no one knew.
Finally, we went up and asked the abuela manning the tacos. It was her restaurant. No one had paid for it, she said. “It’s from us.” If there’s anyone who knows how to dream bigger and better than all of Hollywood combined, it’s her. Thank God, she’s got our back.
