On The Strike
Tuesday, I went to the Writers Guild of America East’s picket line. At around 2:45 PM I took the B train from 125th downtown to the 42nd St Bryant Park stop. I emerged from the subway to see Bryant Park, its sun-soaked leaves, and bird-shit-covered branches.
A mariachi band played on the corner.
Still, carrying my leather messenger, and New Yorker chip on my shoulder, heading towards a picket line, made the city feel romantically intellectual.
See the night before, my phone had been inundated by the upper echelon of society, trying their best to impress Twitter users at the Met Gala. Just across the park and twenty blocks south of my studio apartment, the world’s most talented (and most famous for no reason,) donned designer and climbed the coveted carpet-covered Met steps.
And instead of being asked the inspiration behind the little black dress they wore, the pressing question of the night was, “What are your thoughts on the potential writer’s strike?”
Placating pleasantries, disguised as unbridled support followed.
JIMMY FALLON: “I wouldn’t have a show if it wasn’t for my writers, I support them all the way.”
I’d like to note, as a writer, there is a grammatical error in this sentence. *Weren’t. “If it [weren’t] for my writers…”
QUINTA BRUNSON: “I’m a member of WGA and support WGA, and them getting–we, us–getting what we need.”
Following her response, the task of obtaining fair pay was laid at Brunson’s feet. Her Twitter, besieged by uninformed Met Gala viewers, sharing sentiments like “Quinta, Girl! Pay your writers!” As if Brunson’s wallet were the issue. Again, a black woman is blamed for the system’s failure.
AMANDA SEYFRIED: “Everything changed with streaming, and everyone should be compensated for their work. It’s fucking easy.”
Seyfried received a parade of praise for this comment. It is the most basic take on the strike. Her hair looked so good. Slay.
With all this in mind, I headed to 415 5th Avenue.
In this industry, there are the haves and the I-Literally-Should-Haves-But-I-Have-Nots.
These writers, the minds behind your Saturday Night Live and your Sunday Night Succession, should HAVE, but they HAVE NOT. They aren’t able to live comfortably. They see no money from streaming.
So when “Live from New York, It’s Saturday Night,” turns into “Hungover on my couch, It’s Sunday Morning,” the writers of the sketches you smirk at, while holding in last night’s tequila, see no money from your hungover binge watch.
The reality of the situation is, writing is no longer a viable career.
(OW, OWIE, OUCH! MY DREAMS!)
Most writers exist on 13-week contracts, which aren’t renewed. Writers receive royalty checks in the amounts of ¢0.03. Only writers a part of the union are guaranteed health care; And in the age of mini-rooms and Sam Levinson solo writes, young writers struggle to obtain enough units to join.
All This, despite the fact we’re in a current Golden Age of television.
Despite the fact that viewers eat up White Lotus and Abbott Elementary, the idea of a writers' strike seems to them, pompous, elitist, grotesque.
To write for TV is to be invisibly adored. To be superficially applauded.
Take into account, for example, Alex O’Keefe, one of the seven writers on Hulu’s Emmy Award-winning The Bear.
He worked on the critically-acclaimed first season, from his Brooklyn apartment, during a heat wave. The studio wouldn’t fly him out to LA. As a result, he wrote from a public library when his power went out.
He was rejected from a full-time position at Target the day Emmy nominations went out.
He attended the award ceremony with a negative bank balance. He’d gone into the red when he bought the bowtie for the red carpet.
And yet, when the WGA went on strike on Tuesday, they were met with plenty of public dissension.
How dare they leave their laptops to march the street and demand a fair wage? If–If they aren’t being paid fairly at $4,500 per week, on average, then what…why am I not being paid fairly? Oh, wait–maybe I should be paid more, too? Oh, am I being abused in the workplace?
This is the awakening of class consciousness, people!
I heard them before I saw them.
“My neck! My back! We Need a Fair Contract!” echoed off the towering skyscrapers lining midtown.
Nice.
I approached the picket, timidly. After all, I don’t technically belong there. I am pre-pre-WGA No agent. No fellowships. Just an obsession with Late Night Comedy, and twenty pilot ideas stowed in my notes app.
So I stood with the reporters. A crowd I am more comfortable standing with. (This blog is investigative journalism, you know!)
Simply because I believe in observational humor, here are my favorite things I saw:
Every male writer looks like they could be related. I don’t even need to describe a white, male television writer for you to see the type in your mind’s eye. They all wore Mets hats. I was in love.
I realized I needed to get off Twitter, I recognized too many non-famous people’s faces simply from their profiles. Their bios containing the phrase “Writer @SHOW NAME HERE.”
A particular writer, whom I idolize, has a significant acne issue. This humanized a hero.
Steve Higgins made eye contact with me and I dry heaved.
Every street reporter in New York is a 5’5” blonde. And they are all too bold for their own good. Specifically, the reporter who shoved her foam microphone in Steve Higgins's face, unprompted…girl.
Writers will strike until they run out of ideas for creative signs, i.e. when the sun explodes.
I wanna be a protesting blue-haired, moon-earring-wearing, still-working-in-TV Grandma when I grow up
My celebrity paralysis (a deep refusal to approach a celeb in public, because Jesus leave them alone?) will be the death of my career. I could’ve told at least one person I was a fan of the sketch they wrote for CollegeHumor in 2009. But, no, couldn’t even manage that.
So I stood on the sidelines, snapped a few photos, and quietly chanted along, averting my gaze from the male writers who stared at me a little too long.
Cut it out! I’m your future intern, you know! Workplace relationships, yuck!
I have doomed scrolled all week through these stories: stories like Alex O’Keefe’s and unpaid bills, and pitiful royalty checks.
I empathized with newly hired staff writers; People who’d just accomplished their dream, still standing on the picket line mere days later.
I got hired last week and I hope they hire me back, but I am proud to stand on the line with the WGA!
But I left the line, inspired. These people, even if they were not aware of it, were striking for me. (I am a narcissist.)
They were striking for themselves, yes. But also for the next generation of writers. So, ME! MWAHAHAHA!
With a lot of hard work from myself, and with their fight for fair contracts, I might be able to be a career television writer. Which–even if I didn’t know it till ten months ago–has been my lifelong dream.
I watched 30 Rock as a 10-year-old! I read Live From New York: An Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live when I was 14.
I had full-fledged story arcs I’d scratch into a purple notebook and would ignore when I, in the third grade, realized could not EP an HBO Mini Series. Yet!
Without knowing it, I’ve always wanted to be a writer.
So, I searched for storytelling in musical theater and dance classes. I immersed myself in the craft of acting because I was pretty and naturally lazy. Acting was easy, it was just playing pretend!
And when I finally grew up–ten months ago–I sort of noticed, the lazy stuff wasn’t worth it. I wanted the hard stuff.
To put it in the exact words I said to my boyfriend late one night after filming a self-tape for a regional theater production of Spongebob: The Musical, “I want to make my own shit.”
I thought I’d be a Met Gala Level Celeb, but really, I just want to be the guy in a Mets hat on a WGA picket line. Well, maybe not the picket line part…I’d rather be a writer making a living wage.
So here comes the hard part: The Trying. Really hard. Which sometimes includes standing on a picket line, hands sweating with imposter syndrome perspiration.
Rehearsing the line in my head, if I were to be approached by the 5’5” New York 1 reporter,
I just wish it were a viable career. You know, as an aspiring Television Writer.
And I really, really hope it will be. May the writers striking come up with creative sign ideas until the sun burns out, or their demands are met.
