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“Hollywood actors are joining screenwriters in the first dual strike from the two unions in more than six decades… Union leaders say the streaming model that has taken over the industry in recent years has cheated actors of their share of income and funneled money to executives…
“For decades, an actor who appeared on a popular TV show like ‘Seinfeld’ or ‘The Office’ even once could count on getting royalty checks when the show appeared in reruns, bringing pay even at times they were unable to find work. The streaming model has largely dried up that income, with residual payments untethered from a show or movie’s popularity. Actors want a long-term share of that revenue…
“The move to streaming and its ripple effects have also meant shorter seasons of shows with longer gaps between them, and therefore less work. They say inflation is outpacing the scheduled pay bumps in their contracts. And both writers and actors fear the threat of unregulated use of artificial intelligence. The actors say studios want to be able to use their likenesses without having to hire them, or pay them.” AP News
The right argues that Hollywood’s troubles stem from its embrace of leftist politics.
“Hollywood has been its own worst enemy. Moviegoers like superhero movies, name-brand franchises and Pixar cartoons? Inundate them with so many sequels, of such declining quality, that viewers tune out. #MeToo scandals reveal the industry is overrun with sexual predators protected by an insular liberal elite? Overcompensate by turning casting and programming decisions into a festival of ‘representation’-focused identity politics and ham-fisted leftist agitprop…
“If your creative class is churning out content this devoid of creativity and alienating half the audience in the process, you may as well replace them with machines. At least, that seems to be the thinking of Hollywood bigwigs, who have pushed the writers and actors to accept a greater role for artificial intelligence. Say what you will about AI: It doesn’t grope its co-stars, vanish on coke binges, send ill-advised tweets or promote polarizing political causes.”
Dan McLaughlin, New York Post
“No company has been more responsible for the collapse of entertainment revenue than Woke Disney… [Disney CEO Bob] Iger naturally tried to put the blame on slow COVID recovery, but nobody who saw the woke-less Top Gun: Maverick become a record-breaking hit at the height of the pandemic buys that canard. Especially after Disney’s last four post-pandemic movie projects (Lightyear, Strange World, The Little Mermaid, Elemental) crashed and burned in a blaze of wokeness…
“By replacing the once majority straight white cast with a ridiculously disproportionate percentage of minorities, industry players alienated a commensurate portion of the audience. Not because of any racism or homophobia on the viewers’ part, but because they’re bored and bothered by having inclusion shoved in their and their kids’ faces. They’d like to enjoy seeing a group of regular straight white — or black or Asian — friends like most of them have without being made to feel guilty about it.”
Lou Aguilar, American Spectator
Regarding AI, “In one high-profile example, artificial intelligence already arrived in Hollywood, in the form of the opening credits for Marvel’s latest show on Disney+, Secret Invasion… The creators wanted an opening credit sequence that looked strange, disconcerting, and paranoia-inducing to help set the tone. They went with AI…
“As for the actors, you can understand their wariness as we see not just de-aged versions of actors on the screen, but long-deceased actors come back to life through computer graphics — most notably Peter Cushing in the Star Wars film Rogue One and Christopher Reeve for a brief scene in The Flash. Once a studio has sufficient data to make a realistic moving image of an actor… how much do they need the original actor anymore?”
Jim Geraghty, National Review
The left supports the strikers, arguing that AI will soon be a threat to workers in many industries.
The left supports the strikers, arguing that AI will soon be a threat to workers in many industries.
“Residuals on streaming are lower than in broadcast TV. If you write on a broadcast show, and it’s a huge success, then you get extra payment, in part because your show is bringing more eyeballs to advertisements or cable subscriptions. But if you write, say, Stranger Things, and it’s a massive hit for Netflix, bringing in thousands of subscribers and revenue, you don’t share at all in the profit even though you’re a main reason the platform is succeeding…
“This is a huge issue, but there’s another one — AI… A lot of the TV episodes and movies produced by Hollywood are, by nature, highly formulaic. (Think of a police procedural, or a Hallmark movie.) A scenario could arise in which an AI tool is used to generate an idea for a plot, or even a full script, and then a writer is hired to revise it, or punch it up… And you can easily imagine a scenario in which someone gets their intern to do a pass, or just does it themselves… For many members of Hollywood’s labor unions, the issues at hand are existential.”
Alissa Wilkinson, Vox
AI could also “easily be used to replace the actors in background roles in studio and streaming productions — the ones listed in the credits with titles like ‘second police officer’ or ‘waiter in the restaurant.’ These roles generate a huge number of the jobs that SAG-AFTRA members depend on to pay their bills…
“However this issue comes out in these two strikes, it won’t be the last time it comes up in labor negotiations. As many as 300 million full-time jobs globally could be automated in some way by the use of AI… ‘The actors and writers, they’re kind of a canary in the coal mine.’”
Chris Isidore, CNN
These workers “represent the frontline of two battles that matter to every single American… The first battle is between humanity and artificial intelligence… When it comes to regulating AI now, before it gets so widely entrenched that it’s impossible to roll back, union contracts are the only game in town…
“The second underlying battle here [is] the class war itself. When you scrape away the relatively small surface layer of glitz and glamor and wealthy stars, entertainment is just another industry, full of regular people doing regular work…
“The preferred state of every corporation in America is one in which all of its employees earn just enough money to survive and the CEO and investors earn enough money to build private rockets to escape to a private Mars colony for billionaires. The only – the only – thing that stops this process is labor power. That comes from unions. The walls that unions build protect not just their own members, but by extension the entire working class. That is what’s at stake here.”
Hamilton Nolan, The Guardian
