Guild is Not Great
I was talking to my friend Henry today; he’s an up-and-coming screenwriter who lives in L.A., so he’s been following the writer’s strike. He was offered a job to write a short film that would play before a Disney movie, but he declined, not wanting to be a filthy scab.
Even though he isn’t an established professional screenwriter yet, it was important for Henry not to undercut the Writer’s Guild work stoppage.
He pointed out that if the WGA survives this strike intact, non-Guild members who sell scripts during the strike won’t be allowed to join the guild, ever. You would think most filthy scabs are rebels and agitators who would never want to join a union anyway. “Oh no no, please don’t throw me in that briar patch!” right?
But rebellious streak notwithstanding, you gotta be a member of the WGA to be hired for screenwriting assignments or to do re-writes on your own spec script. That means even the cool kids have to join the union if they want to have an honest-to-God screenwriting career.
I know what you’re thinking. “Why the hell is there a ‘Guild’ in modern times anyway? Guilds are terrific for Medieval pastimes like blacksmithing, glassblowing and rug weaving, but this is The Movie Age. The only time Writers of America should ever concern themselves with Guilds is if they’re doing research for a movie about hobgoblins, fairies and knight-errants in ancient times.”
“With all its regulations,” you continue in your head, “the WGA makes it even more difficult for studios to consider new writers, creating yet another barrier for undiscovered pros like moi truly. And once I do sell a script, I am basically forced to join the union, whether I believe in collective action or not. Damn the man. The Writers Guild of America is the very definition of tyranny.”
“The Guild acts like this strike represents some kind of spiritual mission,” you internally rant, “but what they’re after is more money and power. Money and power is what the studios want as well, which means their quest is just as holy as that of the Guild. Personally, I hope the Guild crumbles with the strike.”
Well, it’s a good thing you don’t say that out-loud, cause words like that are gonna haunt you later, at least if the Guild doesn’t collapse.
I can imagine the first WGA meeting after the strike ends. The WGA rounds up all the non-believers like yourselves who sold words during the strike, puts you in uncomfortable folding chairs on the floor of an auditorium, and reads aloud your anti-Guild diatribes and the most painfully underwritten scenes from your screenplays. “You called us the very definition of tyranny? Atone, slave!”
Thinking about all this gave rise to my latest movie idea. It would be kind of a “Guilty by Suspicion” type story, except instead of following victims of the Communist Hollywood Writers Blacklist (which Hollywood is still yet to get over), it would detail the plight of scabs after the strike.
The main character would a poor humble man with a haggard wife and hungry kids who works three jobs to make ends meet. He secretly wants to be a movie writer, though, and by using every rare minute of his spare time to write, he is able to finish a decent screenplay.
Since he’s a no-name, no agency, no manager and no studio wants to read his script. But then the WGA strike happens. A few months into the strike, one guild-signatory studio is desperate for scripts. It finds the script that had been submitted by our humble artist hero before the strike, dusts it off, reads it, and decides it’s brilliant (given the circumstances of no other scripts being available).
The studio contacts this humble writer and offers him a paycheck and an opportunity that will change his life forever. But he refuses. Why? Because the strike is still on, and even though he is not a Guild member, he doesn’t want to do anything that might interfere with the mission of these working class heroes.
He goes back to work at his three jobs, knowing he threw away a chance at a satisfying life, but glad not to have lost his soul in the process.
The next day, however, the artist’s wife and children all become so violently ill that if they do not receive medication and surgeries at once, they will die. With no savings or insurance, our hero knows that his family’s only hope is for him to sell his script and become a scab.
So that’s what he does. He saves his wife and children, and his movie opens to rave reviews for its honest and heartfelt portrayal of working class life (as well as its finely tuned plot that follows screenplay story structure perfectly), but then the strike ends, and the Guild bans him from membership forever.
He tries to get jobs on the outskirts of the industry, but his reputation precedes him. He has to give up his screenwriting dream and go back to working three jobs. Four, actually, to keep up with all the medication bills now.
Yet he cannot forget the short period of time when he truly happy, making a fortune doing what he loved to do best. Not being able to write for a living is all the more painful after having a taste of it. Unable to bear it any longer, he hangs himself, just one of many tragic victims of the WGA Post-Strike Blacklist.
Have you no decency, Guild?
4 years ago