An Open Letter to Hollywood and WGA/SGA Strikers of 2023

As of July 20^th, 2023, it’s really odd that I have to write this letter. To a failed system that didn’t want people like me or anyone else who demands a paycheck. Hollywood itself never cared about the talent, even if they weren’t talented, at all. The anger, on its own, is rightfully justified. With the anger surrounding so many films, like DeadPool 3 being halted, the Hollywood system is broken. The careless distinction of artists being destroyed by Aritifical Intelligence is the newest system in the entertainment culture. It’s so easy to think a machine can write a story about love and war is phony and whimsical, at best. I get why so many artists are pissed and it makes sense. And studios who want to destroy artists and only pay them less than livable wages is why so many writers and actors need to strike.

        

It’s the “do this for me and I’ll pay you later” sort of mentality the entertainment media never cared about. And giving them an Oscar won’t be enough, anymore. The question of being paid is why so many people don’t pursue being paid for the arts. The idea of being on someone else’s leash is not what I nor anyone else should want. But many people had to live by those constraints, and maybe the older artists had to fight harder for what they wanted. Francis Ford Coppola is the only Director who has ever won a public court case against a major studio system.

            But the question remains, in 2023, is that while the arts is dying, can youtubers and “content creators” fill that role? No. Who the hell wants to hear culture critics when they don’t have anything to commit or create that will help people buy and then create a culture of comics, art, movies, or books, to help illustrate their entertainment vision upon the mass public. The right has officially lost that battle, too.

            As I am a product of Independent and self publishing ventures, the strike itself is not lost on me. I have my own books according to my own vision, and somehow, I am happier for doing so, but also can’t help but see why Tik Tok poisons people’s minds.

But to be fair, why does Hollywood think they can get away with paying writers and actors little money and they expect them to be happy about it? While the entertainment world promoted regular people to “eat bugs” and “you will own nothing and be happy” the answer, to their own is, the same.

            The regular people must own nothing and be happy, and if posed upon Hollywood, they will have nothing as well. And Hollywood doesn’t like it, either. Maybe the tide is turning on communist/corporate Social Justice Warrior nonsense. So I do support the Strike of 2023, as long as it goes on. If the world wants entertainment, Hollywood must pay talented writers who work hard enough, but also let people create authentic art that speaks to the artist as well as the studio and the patrons, too.

            But the mantra the Hollywood strikers should say is “Fuck You Pay Me.” And I will say, like in Goodfellas, “Business bad, fuck you pay me.”

            LtB