The Writers Are Right To Strike.

 

It’s only right that actors should support the wordsmiths. Tom Wilkinson, nominated for a best supporting actor Golden Globe for his role in George Clooney legal thriller Michael Clayton, will not be at the ceremony. "If actors can't have solidarity with writers – the people who put the words in their mouths – then who can they have solidarity with?" he told the Los Angeles Times. Succinctly put, the message will blemish any gongs that are handed out at the ceremony. To accept an award this year is like getting on the armoured bus to a picketed coal mine circa early 80s Britain, a bit like Billy Elliot’s Dad.

 

 

Stars who have already leant their weight to the writers’ protest include Robin Williams, Matthew Perry, Ben Stiller and Lisa Kudrow. Newly announced absentees from The Golden Globes (and therefore likely the Oscars) include James McAvoy, nominated for Atonement and Mark Forster, nominated for directing The Kite Runner. So is there a way to save the annual party season? The Golden Globes appear seriously endangered – a black tie picket line is already planned to be held outside the awards ceremony in which alternate awards will be dished out to picketing winners. Heating aside, the chill will be felt inside the auditorium.

The body feeling the pinch of the labour strike is The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) – an equivalent to the WGA on the production side of the major studios. They claim that there is already a scheme of writers’ royalties for digital media on the table. But it’s been rejected by the guild, whose strike has been buoyed already by the suspension of mainstream TV shows such as Letterman, Saturday Night Live and Ugly Betty. Impact on the longer-leashed film industry is soon to follow. The scribes are right to ensure their stake in the digital market. In a few years we’ll all be consuming most of our media through the net. From wherever it comes, the material is the same at source, and the writers deserve their share.

 

Arnold Schwarzenegger has called for an end to the crisis that is overshadowing his former place of work – the last writer’s strike in 1988 cost the industry an estimated $500 million and this one appears far worse. As a writer on a picket line said last week, “’I’ll be back!’ Schwarzenegger didn’t write that. A writer did. He wouldn’t be where he is without us.” The most powerful man in California might well have found himself on a picket line had he not made his recent career change. Perhaps his election, coupled with the damage to the TV and film industry that will become evident at this year’s awards, might just sway things the writers’ way. Let’s hope so – there’s little but reality TV without them.