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Basement)
We feel your pain, Charlie. We do. We may not have not suffered
the intense trauma of literally spiraling downward amidst the
chaos, confusion, disorder, and derangement of an actual plane
crash (of course, neither did you), but we are about to lose the
most promising season of television in years.
You’ve all heard by now that the WGA is on strike. If you
happen to be one of the few people on the internet old enough to
remember the last time this happened (1988) then you remember
life before reality TV… and you share our pain at the
evolution of the world’s most inaptly named genre. While
it’s true that we occasionally love to hate reality shows,
it’s also true that we vaguely blame them for the downfall of
civilization as we once hoped to know it. In fact we
recently conducted a completely unscientific poll asking some of
our favorite webbers to name the best and worst shows on
television; Kid Nation won both categories. (While some fans
love the purity of interaction which can only occur between two
children, an equal number of viewers just want to dig their eyes
out with a spoon whenever Jared comments.)
For those of you who don’t remember the last strike, not to
worry. You’re about to get a taste of just how potently a
well-organized union can really affect your life… Entourage is
about to go poof. As are 30 Rock, House, Gray’s Anatomy,
Jericho (#&*!), The Office, My Name Is Earl, Heroes, Rescue Me,
Dirt, K-Ville, NCIS, CSI, CSI Miami, CSI New York, CSI In the
Holy Land (it could happen), and a barrage of other shows you
have so flippantly taken for granted by expecting someone in the
real world to actually write the silly things (Jericho possibly
notwithstanding - we love you Skeet!). This is of course in
contrast to the shows which have already gone poof, such as The
Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Saturday Night Live, and pretty
much all of late-night. Just be glad the soap operas and Ellen
have more integrity than that.
The current strike is both complex and important, and not just
because we’re gonna miss the everlovin’ crap out of Steve
Carrell and Jon Stewart. Though the overly simplistic summary
is that writers want more money, what’s really at stake here
is the future of entertainment technology. With the advent
of gadgets like iPods and DVR’s, television has entered the
digital age and viewers have taken control over what they watch
- which means a “Yes” to high dramedy, and a big fat
“NO!” to commercials. The result is that the corporations
that advertise on TV networks are losing money, which means
Sumner Redstone and Rupert Murdoch are losing money. And if we
can be sure of anything in today’s culture of
mega-conglomerated, super-monopolistic corporations, we can be
sure that when these guys lose money, heads roll in a big bad
way. Trouble is, it’s usually the wrong heads.
Enter writers, stage left.Someone has to make up for the
dollars/euros lost by advertisers, and you can be damn sure
that someone is NOT going to be Redstone, Murdoch, or any of the
other uber-beneficiaries of your hard earned consumer dollars.
Instead, networks are passing the loss down the entertainment
ladder to the writers. Most of the public has no direct
emotional connection to the writers; we don’t idolize them, we
idolize the actors. So we don’t have an immediate visceral
reaction to reports that writers are getting the shaft. After
all, they make bucu bucks compared with us. Why should we stop
nursing, or fixing cars, or teaching kids, or fighting fires, in
order to jump up and support them? So the writers are giving us
a reason. We should support them because Matthew Fox is pretty,
but he does not write the show. Not only does the strike affect
viewers, but it brings the celebrities and their hard-hitting
publicity value into the arena. When the writers don’t work,
celebrities don’t work. When celebrities don’t work, people
notice. Low and behold, here we all are, noticing. The networks
say they can’t pay writers for shows being downloaded, but the
writers are slinging their own words back at them. And the
writers are right.
What will be the outcome? Only time will tell, but if it’s
true that history repeats itself we can expect a few things.
Reality TV, or some other relatively inexpensive and probably
mindless genre, will take center stage. This is bad news because
with so much crap already on the air, reality shows will have to
outdo themselves, and the results will no doubt be ugly. Also,
the networks will accuse writers of being greedy, and will
ironically appeal to the average joe’s ever-thinning wallet as
proof of this greed. Fortunately, the writers will put up a
pretty entertaining fight, mostly because they know how to
invoke an emotional response in their audience. In fact, the
best thing they could probably do for their cause would be to go
ahead and script the strike. There’s not going to be fook-all
else to watch anyway. Certainly they will use the most
celebrified amongst their ranks to spread their cause, and
eventually they will come to some agreement that is mutually
unsatisfactory to both sides, because everyone loses if the
strike goes on too long. Viewers were lost in droves after the
1988 strike, and have never returned in numbers proportional to
pre-strike audiences.
Which means the good news is that all this really boils down
to you - the viewer. How long you’re willing to endure without
the writers is in direct relation to what the strike will
achieve. The longer you hold out, the more power the writers
will have, and the more integrity television shows will
hopefully gain. Now is the time to choose your stance, because
networks are about to become obscure, and they don’t like it
one little bit. Technology will soon reach the point that you
will be able to download everything on demand, and then there
will be no time-slots or captive audiences. The Redstones of the
world are vying for control of that technology, while the
writers are wrestling to pull some of that control back to you,
the viewers. Their stake is in you, because they believe you
would prefer to watch shows involving at least one thought
process over the tripe you’d otherwise be fed by network execs
whose real job is to sell advertising time. You watch what you
like, and if Sumner wants to sell you crap, he’ll have to find
a way to make you want to watch the pitch. If he doesn’t, you
can just tune in to the next episode of LOST and tell him
you’d rather keep your cash. Yeah, you might end up paying a
dollar or so for the privilege, but wouldn’t you rather pay a
dollar to watch something you like, than watch what this guy
tells you to for free? The best news about this whole strike
is that you the viewers are unofficially in charge. For once,
someone with some power is banking on your integrity and
far-sightedness to shift the greater power structure. The
networks will deny this fact to the ends of their days, but
this is your last best chance to have a real effect on how
much control consumers will actually have over the new digital
market.
About the author:
The author operates
website which examines the political side of pop culture. She
carries a master's degree in Social Work and Policy from
California State University, and can be reached by e-mail at
lazlo@lazlosbasement.com
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