I’m irked. I was listening to KCRW, our local super-cool public radio station, when an annoying screenwriter named Rob Long came on to complain about the Writers Guild. He kvetched about his 16 years of Writers Guild membership and pooh-poohed the recent "unity rally" – the very notion of writers’ unity, even – "as if we writers don’t really secretly loathe each other," he drawled. He actually whined that the Guild provided good health insurance for him when he was so well-paid that he didn’t need it. Ingrate!
I can’t WAIT to be a member of the Writers Guild. I will happily pay my dues, wave signs at rallies, run for fucking treasurer. Whatever. Not just because it will mean that I’m making a living at what I love more than anything else, alongside people I respect, which is like winning the fucking lottery. Also because organized labor has done really important things for workers, like forcing employers to stop discriminating against women, ending child labor, and bringing us the 40-hour week (and, hello, the weekend). (Although the weekend is a misty, nostalgic concept for many of the TV writers I know.)
What would this Long guy have writers do? Keep our heads down at our insular laptops, submitting meekly to the studios’ "no-residuals-for-DVD-and-online-sales" larceny? Lest we forget, without the writer There Is No Story. No characters, no actors to hire (not to mention costume designers, composers, set decorators, editors, Teamsters, gaffers, grips, Best Boys and craft services people). No locations to scout, no DVDs to sell, no online episodes to stream. Even most so-called reality series need storytellers. And we need to band together, like members of proud guilds have done since medieval times. (Listen to me – as if I’m already a card-carrying member. The hubris!) Well, writers are my people. And they’re yours too, Rob Long.
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2 comments:
I had my Author's Guild card laminated. Of course, it's expired (I need to pay my dues), but I still have it and feel like hot shit.
As for writers "secretly loathing" one another, I can assume it's probably like anything else. Some people are sweet and friendly and see the benefit in banding together. Some people are just assholes.
I like to see writers get ahead. I remember the initial rejection and expect to face it, again. Some writers have been very kind to me. And some, well, will always be on my shit list for looking down on this eager young upstart when she could do nothing but look up to them.
Many writers are just whores, Pontifica--whores, whores, whores...
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