Benjamin Rizzo
Give the WGA some blueberriesBy: Ben Rizzo
While the days turn into weeks for the various TV and film industries, yet another capitalist battle between labor and management inflicts its damage within millions of living rooms throughout Southern California. Both sides of the strike, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers place the blame of the stoppage on the other, with residual payments serving as the focal point of their dispute. Who is right-¨the writers, of course. The current pay formula in these industries, agreed on in 1985, needs some major revamping. Invoking images of TLC, writers only receive 4 cents for every DVD sold of their material. Also, some of the streaming of videos and shows over the Internet has no pay formula whatsoever. Studios are quick to use the defense that they are still “grappling with uncertain business models.” How can a business operate on such a scale with economic policies dating back to 1985? Billions of dollars exchange hands, yet writers are forced to strike over what amounts to pennies to the production giants. What is their rationale? It’s all right to give Keanu Reeves $15 million plus 15 percent of the gross for saying, “Woa,” in “The Matrix Revolutions”, but Howard Gordon doesn’t deserve more than 4 cents if someone buys one of his episodes of “24.” I’m sorry Keanu. Let me take my argument to a higher power.In today’s social Darwinist society, we have seen the likes of moguls such as Rupert Murdoch amass enormous fortunes with ties to the entertainment industry. In a word, his fortune is silly. In March, Forbes Magazine estimated his net worth to be $9 billion. Make no mistake, Murdoch has earned a right to stick a finger into his various pies of business throughout the world. His media conglomerate, News Corporation, owns television’s Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox Television Stations from Los Angeles to New York and almost everywhere in between, film’s Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, DirecTV, MySpace.com and HarperCollins Publishers just to name a few.But now, he is up to his elbows in blueberries and all the writers are asking for is to lick his fingers a little. Or maybe they could just smell a pie as it cools on the window sill of his $44 million Fifth Avenue penthouse. A smell has to be worth a couple of cents, at least.Writers are the creators of the movies and shows that provide these people with the lifestyle they now know. If something isn’t done now, the rich will keep getting richer and the little guy will keep fighting for pennies.So I have trouble with the phrase, “grappling with uncertain business models” and commend the WGA for grappling with certain business moguls. With the amounts of money made in the industries today, writers deserve higher residuals.
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