Rant #3,171: Stand!

So what do you make of this actors’ strike?

We do know that coupled with the writers’ strike, it is going to hold up new TV series and new movies from being shot, and on TV, lead to more reality shows and the like to be put in the scripted shows’ places.

But if the actors, in particular, are looking for general public sympathy for their cause—which revolves around protection of their images from artificial intelligence and an increase in pay and residuals via their latest new cash cow, streaming services—they are losing it by putting higher-profile stars as the out-front leaders of the strike.

Sure, they say the same blather that we have heard in the past—they aren’t doing this for themselves, but for the probably nine of 10 actors who don’t make a living and for future actors, who will deserve to have their rights in place as they move into the field.

But you can’t have Jane Fonda yelling through a bull horn screaming about actors’ rights.

You can’t have Brad Pitt and Harrison Ford and the like talking to reporters as they march the picket line.

(As an aside, since the strike is about actors’ rights revolving around AI, Ford’s likeness in the latest “Indiana Jones” film was altered by the use of AI, so him screaming about his rights is like the pot calling the kettle black, don’t you think?)

And you can’t have Fran Drescher screaming about her rights as a common worker, leading the charge.

Collectively, these actors have more money than Fort Knox in their possession, have revenue streams through their popularity that us common people can’t even comprehend, and in a post-pandemic economy where most people wonder how they are going to feed their families—and with weather disturbances rocking the country to the point that people don’t even know how they are going to survive—well, using these people as your spokesmen really doesn’t cut it.

Again, I know that probably nine out of 10 actors are waiting tables somewhere looking for their big break.

Others have regular gigs on TV and the movies, but can’t make ends meet.

Yes, those are the people that should be leading the charge here, trying to sell this to the public, but instead, we have what amounts to multi-millionaires looking to grub even more money into their coffers.

It reminds me of the baseball strike in 1994, which effectively shut down the season, and the permanent damage it did to the popularity of the sport.

You had multi-millionaire players marching the picket lines, and then you had the Detroit Tigers’ Lou Whittaker, a very good player who really had absolutely no clue about what a strike actually means and how such a strike relates to the public.

He came to the picket line in a limosine, and marched the picket line wearing a full-length mink coat, and was festooned with other high-priced baubles—including jewelry—while he held a placard basically saying that he was little more than a paid slave.

Well, fast forward to 2023, and when Dresher shouts out to the masses that she is a worker that needs to be paid more and more and more money than she and Fonda and Pitt and Ford already have, you kind of lose me to your cause.

Drescher was in my first grade class at P.S. 165 in Flushing, New York, a hardscrabble neighborhood of white-collar and mainly blue-collar workers way back 60 years ago.

She has evidently no connection to her earlier roots, and doesn’t understand that yes, she is the president of the Screen Actors Guild, but no, us common folk don’t share her concerns as we scrounge to pay our bills.

There is a disconnection with the actors and the general public, and we can live without their craft as they argue about money, and ways for them to make more of it.

And remember, many of those news reporters covering this strike are themselves union members, and although these news people are in a separate and different division of the union that is not on strike, you can bet their sensibilities are with the strikers, because whatever concessions the strikers get will probably pass down to them in the future … so don’t think that you are getting unbiased reporting here.

You clearly aren’t, and that is why on all the local news shows that I watch, after a report covering the strike, the talking head reminds us that some of their news staff belongs to the same union that is striking, but a different division of it that is not on strike.

They have to say that so the public does not get the impression that we are getting biased reporting here, but let’s face it: we are getting biased reporting, so we are not getting a clear picture of the strike from any angle.

As I told you last week, this is my week of doctor visits, and tomorrow, I have an early one, so I will have to skip tomorrow’s Rant and speak to you again on Thursday.