I am pro-Union, pro-Labor, and I hope the actors and writers in Hollywood get every dime they seek. I support the strike because it concerns the average working actor, the working writer, and those who support their work. Like professional sports, the studio system is known for “champagne wishes and caviar dreams.” Still, most of these professionals have short careers, and the money is unpredictable. Let’s hope the studios come to their senses.
But I am afraid that this strike is in peril before it begins.
In the Artificial Intelligence world, so many jobs and ideas are at risk from the quick learning and composing computers that makeup A.I. Just this week, the A.I. music app Mubert generated over 100 million completely fake songs, thus doubling the number of songs in streaming circulation. I know what you are saying: A.I. music could be better, heartfelt, and raw as a track by Phoebe Bridgers or SZA. And I tend to agree. Part of the life of an artist’s music or acting or writing, or painting is the relationship developed and the history each of us has with them.
I am a massive Wes Anderson fan and recently saw his new movie, Asteroid City. It was a delightful tale, showcasing his expanding perspective and artistic palette forged in his previous film. Watching his work regularly as I do shows you the progression in skill, art, maturity, and age. The writers and actors in Hollywood bring that to us time after time. It has not been a better time for prestige television. I just completed The Bear, and to me, it is better than Ted Lasso’s ability to communicate a sweeping tale of overcoming the odds and reaching for our family’s and ourselves’s dreams.
But I fear the actors and writers may be victims of their ability to produce an endless stream of content. Just today, I was listening to a discussion on the writer’s strike from a week ago, and the narrator was looking forward to a halt in production so he could “catch up” on content. He compared the strike to COVID when we had time to binge those shows we may have missed. After all, that was how we met Ted Lasso. It was a floundering idea until the pandemic gave it space in the line-up. Add to that the avalanche of individually produced content and reality TV, and it may be a while before the bulk of Americans “miss” new television and movies. Apps like Tik Tok and sites like YouTube has an endless supply of entertainment, and Netflix, Hulu, AppleTV+, and Max have catalogs that would be impossible to watch all of if you started today.
And then the elephant in the room looms. In less than 2 months, football will be back, and the NFL and College Football has such a hold on American culture I know my own television and movie-watching dips in the fall to almost zero. So the studios may have the upper hand here. But I hope I need to be corrected. I hope A.I. produces boring content (not trash because, let’s face it, with the Real Housewives and Below Deck, we have proven we love trash tv), but I guess it will produce content just good enough to break the strike, which is a shame. Actors and writers make our lives better. They are the souls of our pop culture experience. And I love my pop culture experience. So, let’s hope this gets resolved and the writers and actors are treated fairly and compensated in a way that values equity and partnership. But who am I kidding? Likely not.
Considering Outloud 