Yes, exactly! And if the studios think that members of the WGA bring significant value to their productions then they should pay them accordingly! Which brings us right back around to why the writers are striking in the first place … .
I must say, Dio, i find your position in this thread rather perplexing, given what (i thought) i have learned about your politics over the past few years.
Are you against all striking, on principle? Do you think that strikes are ever a valid form of labor strategy? Is your position on this issue peculiar to the WGA strike, and do you see writers as a qualitatively different type of worker than, say, an assembly-line employee or a dock workers? Or would you take the same position if the workers in question were more typical manual laborers?
I ask because you’ve always seemed a pretty class-conscious, for-the-worker type of guy, and i’m rather surprised at your hostility to the writers in this dispute.
Well, the studios apparently think the writers are already paid accordingly.
If that’s the case, they why aren’t the studios willing to extend the current deal for broadcast and cable to online?
It’s this particular point that really convinces me that the writers are right in this fight. For decades the studios have all agreed that the writers deserve residuals. Now just because distribution methods are changing they don’t?
In which case there’s no negotiation to be had, and they should have already hired non-union writers to kick out new scripts. After all, if a retarded monkey can kick out a TV script,* the studios shouldn’t care if those 12,000 unions writers never work for them again. Right?
If writers are a dime a dozen, this strike shouldn’t actually affect the studios at all.
- Mind you, I am not calling Diogenes a retarded monkey.
This is actually a fairly accurate summation of my view. The only thing I would take exception to is the “any schlub can do it” line. I don’t think that. I just think that anyone who can write can learn how to do it.
More proof that knowledge is not a prerequisite for forming strong opinions.
I’m not philospohicically anti-union or anti-labor or anti-strike. I just think that not all strikes are warranted and that not all unions are equally sympathetic. Television writers are not making shoes for Nike. It’s hard for me to get wrked up about their plight. I feel for the camera crews and the make-up people and the other wage slaves who are going to lose their livelihoods over a fight they have nothing to do with and don’t stand to benefit from either way than I do for the writers.
Mind you, I never made the assertation that a retarded monkey can kick out a TV script. I fully respect the talent of many WGA writers, and I agree with their goals in principle. In principle only.
No joke? I’m reading this thread from back to front … where is Dio’s script? In another thread?
You explicitly argued that you had a problem with the writers *striking * and not just quitting. You may not be *philosophically * anti-union, but you certainly seem to be in practice.
The fact that you seem unfamiliar with the key points in the contract dispute suggests that you don’t really know if this strike is warranted or not.
Here is a link to Dio’s script for an episode of House, on Google Docs.
Personally, i don’t think that the quality of the script (good or bad) is at all relevant to the debate in this thread.
Agreed, but it’s amazing to me that someone went to the trouble of writing an entire television episode just to make a point.
Or was** Dio’s** ep was not written in response to this thread? I am assuming he was challenged in this thread, and then wrote a script in response.
The original thread that started the whole thing is here.
The discussion of Dio’s teleplay then got its own thread.
ETA: You are correct that the whole thing began in a debate over the writers’ strike, but not in this particular thread…
Your memory is faulty. I proved I could do a prettty good job.
I didn’t care one way or the other about it, but then I got tired of the condescension, the self-importance and the self-righteousness of the writers. I find their martyr complex really annoying coming from profession which has never done anything but debase the culture.
Since **Diogenes ** has agreed with LurkMeister’s assessment of why he’s against the writers, I’ll give a brief summary of why I’m for them:
1. Deferred compensation is a good idea in high-risk industries. It’s why stock options are a good idea for high-tech start-ups and why royalties are a good idea for publishing. It means you can pay your talent less up front and offload risk onto the people who are responsible for the success or failure of the project. Frankly I think the producers are being incredibly short-sighted in this negotiation. They see an opportunity to make a quick buck off online reruns without considering the long-term effect the elimination of residuals will have on the industry.
2. In general I’d rather see talent get paid than the suits. Television executives, like recording industry executives, are a necessary evil. As much as possible though, I like seeing the profits from a hit show or song or movie go to the creative people who are actually responsible for making it.
3. The writers tried being accomodating 20 years ago and got screwed. When terms were negotiated for videotape residuals in the 1980’s the writers believed assurances that their compensation would increase as the industry matured. Instead they found themselves locked into the lower rates. So they’re entirely right not to trust the producers now that new digital distribution channels are being introduced.
Correction: fans said you did a pretty good job. Professional writers said it was utterly unshootable and quite flawed.
I’m starting to understand your hostility: professionals think you suck.
I think it’s just a question of changing the italicized word. I have a problem with the WGA striking, not with striking in general. I actually don’t even have that much of a problem with the WGA doing it. It’s more their sanctimony about it and their assumption that they are right, period, with no gray area, no room for disagrement and anyone who questions their purity of purpose is evil that bugs me.
Maybe if they weren’t being so thuggish and so presumptuous about where the public’s sympathy’s should lie, I wouldn’t have such a knee-jerk impulse to want them to fail.
The fans are all that matters. The professional writers were already predisposed to shoot me down, but even their critiques were mostly about formatting and length, not about the quality of the writing per se. I proved I could write crap for television. I won.
The fans. There’s this stuff called “fanfic” which is series-based fiction by fans which fans love. However, most fanfic writers know that that’s what their stuff is.
I’d suspect that your content was not seriously critiqued because it would look like a lot of “nyah-nyah”-ing on the part of the pros - at least to you or the people who, though not scriptwriters, were able to determine that yours was great.
You also seem to be concentrating on “crap for television” while ignoring the fact that movie writers are on strike too. Unless you think that all (ALL) movies are crap, you have to admit that there are people out there with a lot of talent who ALSO think the writers are getting shafted.
Not to mention actors and producers who are also on the line. Ray Bradbury came out in a WHEELCHAIR to lend support. I don’t doubt his reasoning faculties; do you?