A video shared Monday showed SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher discussing a possible strike action by actors in the mainstream entertainment industry.
Drescher joined the Writers Guild of America picket line outside Paramount Pictures on Monday afternoon, where she told Variety that “it’s important that we support our sister unions in the entertainment industry.” Drescher called for solidarity, saying it’s “the only way that the labor can effectively stand up for itself and be recognized for what our needs are.”
Footage of her comments were shared by “True Lies” lead actress Ginger Gonzaga (who happens to be one of the loveliest women in entertainment, despite our political differences). In the caption of her post, Gonzaga wrote, “I’m sorry y’all but thank f*cking god I write and direct and produce in addition to acting because my acting union has me losing faith left and right with its straight up stupidity.”
She went on to list six different ways that the entertainment industry has changed, making it harder for actors to get paid for the work they do. Gonzaga noted that the concerns of actors should be very similar to writers, who typically depend on residual checks from SAG-AFTRA.
Gonzaga noted that she and others had to launch an investigation after some $13,000 was “actively hidden and not paid because studios know they can get away with it.” Much of the rest of the caption followed similar themes, with one of the statements describing how even though Hollywood is calling for more diverse actors, the industry isn’t paying them.
She concluded the post by writing “if we don’t protect our futures there will be nothing and we should have gone on strike in 2008 … this is ignorant, fear-based bullsh*t and it’s so embarrassing. I’m sure I’ll add more to this later.”
So, what would happen if everyone in Hollywood went on strike for the summer? In my mind, there are two outcomes. #1 is that everyone in entertainment would get what they want, a fat paycheck and no more being messed around by studios. #2 is that we’d get thousands of new actors to watch on TV, because everyone is replaceable.
I also think an actors strike would be really, really tough to support. Whereas writers actually develop the content we watch, depending on a unique talent to the individual, actors are trainable and replaceable. I guess time will tell.
