Why You Should Give a Sh*t About The Strikes
It's not just about getting your favorite TV shows back!
At Work:
I’ve been following the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes on baited breath, and today it looks as if we’re finally headed in a direction that vaguely resembles progress. While I’m thrilled for what this could mean for creative laborers in Hollywood, I want to invite us to think about here is what these strikes mean in a greater context.
At Work/At Leisure is all about the intersection of work, culture, and people. We use pop culture and art to understand something about ourselves and society that’s difficult to talk about without a narrative to unpack, archetypes to model, or perspective to empathize.
The things we reach to for entertainment reveal fundamental truths about our culture — how could they not? These movies and show are, after all, created by people who work, live, and love in the same world we do. So when Hollywood goes on strike, there’s a cultural megaphone held up to voices suppressed not just by labor equity in Hollywood but by industries everywhere.
Problems in Hollywood mirror the problems of every industry: inequity, injustice, unsustainable and inhumane working conditions. But when postal workers go on strike, the general public doesn’t get as fired up as they do when their favorite movie stars marching at the front of the picket line.
Artists have a massive platform and the tools to to communicate incredibly powerful messages and broadcast revolutionary questions.
Questions like:
How much longer can corporations expect people to work without compensation that affords us sustainable wellbeing?
At what point does efficiency stand in the way of quality life AND work?
What unquantifiable human value do we have a responsibility to protect in the wake of technological advances like AI?
How does consumerism clash with creativity, quality, and sustainability?
What opportunity and responsibility do corporations have to create cultures of sustainable wellbeing and collective thriving? (Wishful thinking ;)
Film, television, and stories connect us, and help us see things in a different light, which help us ask better questions and find answers we wouldn’t have been able to find without curiosity, empathy, and creativity.
As the entertainment industry answers to these questions in such a public way, I hope other industries start answering to them too
I may be naïve, but I really do think (and hope) that Hollywood’s strikes will have a ripple effect on other industries and give a roadmap for people to use their stories as catalysts for change, instead of getting sucked into narratives that keep them shackled.
Just look at the UAW strike announcement video. Now THAT is cinema, people!
And now for part 2:
At Leisure:
In honor of the headway made this week, I want to recommend a show that celebrates workers, highlights working class struggles, and showcases the challenges and gifts of building a team under high stress.
The Bear is a brilliant show — moving, loud, touching, intense, and gritty. It’s a masterful depiction of trauma, family, community, grief, and resilience. It’s a perfect show to watch if you’ve ever worked a thankless, bottom-of-the-totem pole job, or had to carry the weight of a team during hard times.
I also have to shout out one of Season One’s co-writers Alex O’Keefe, who has spoken extensively about the realities and working conditions of his experience writing the show and has been at the forefront of the strikes.
I first stumbled upon Alex’s story on Sam Fragoso’s spectacular podcast Talk Easy, so treat yourself to his interview after getting hooked on The Bear. It’ll contextualize and infuse the show with that much more meaning.