White Lung Syndrome

Mack Hall

Trying to understand the writers’ strike is genuinely problematic. There are only about 10,000 entertainment writers along the New York – Hollywood axis, and while some actually are on strike, others of the brothers / sisters / comrades are cutting separate deals with Big Media.

And for what are some of (not all) the writers striking? A reduction in job injuries from paper cuts? The issue appears to be the arcane matter of residuals from internet reproduction or re-broadcast of movies and television shows. This makes some sense – when a movie is re-broadcast, income from the advertisements and sales of tickets means that someone is making money from the exhibition, so the writers and actors should receive some part of that.

Where the argument falls apart is that the concept of residuals does not obtain in other fields of endeavor.

Consider the modest little Ford Escape owned by an aging and not very successful writer. Once upon a time auto workers in Michigan assembled the little car, for which labor they were paid. The aging and not very successful then bought the little Ford Escape, and enjoys driving the machine around. The workers who built the car do not enjoy residuals every time the car is driven, repaired, or re-sold.

Several years ago, following Hurricane Rita (which never happened because it had nothing to do with New Orleans), the aging and not very successful writer hired a roofing company to re-roof his hurricane de-roofed house, and a good job it was. Every time the rain falls or the cold winds blow the aging and not very successful writer enjoys the benefits of his excellent new roof, and yet the roofer and his crew receive no residuals.

If the guy who scribbled “Take my wife – please!” receives residuals for the rest of his life based on a one-time effort, why not residuals for auto workers and roofers?

The nice lady who cuts the hair of the aging and not very successful writer does not receive a residual every time some lissome lass coos “Oooooh, look at the geriatric hottie with the great haircut!”

The Writers (sic – that should of course be “writers’”) Guild of America forbids actors to cross their picket lines and has forbade Jay Leno to deliver his own monologue made up of his own jokes that he thought up himself. One gathers that the WGA is not exactly a hotbed of freedom and individuality.

Now the WGA, somehow involved with SAG in striking against NBC and HFPA (Where Have All the Acronyms Gone, Long Time Passing…?), is threatening not to write for the awards shows.

Does this mean that awards shows had writers in the first place? Does it really take a professional writer to create the babble issuing forth from the heavily-lipsticked and decidedly foul mouth of some aging starlet receiving some sort of plastic award for having had a hit show in the 1960s and now peddling medications? “I just…oh, gosh…I mean…I just wanna…like, you know…um…you know, like…um…thank all my briefcase holders…um…and all the, like, you know, other little people…not that you’re really little…I mean, like…um, and you little people all over America…like, you know, in flyover country…like, you little people who worship me…because, like, you know…I bring some meaning…like…into…your pathetic little lives because you can’t read a freakin’ book or newspaper, and you just stare into that stupid glowing tube all the time…and…like…(BLEEP) that evil (BLEEP)ing George Bush and his (BLEEP)ing colonialist imperialist running dog capitalist war against the, like, you know, South Africans or something, like…you know…those funny little people in Argentina or somewhere like that…gosh, ain’t I cute!”

Residuals for writing jokes? Maybe. But first let the writers argue for residuals for miners and linemen and other people whose jobs keep us safe and warm and fed, and which involve more risk than dry-air allergens from an air-conditioned office atmosphere