Sunday, October 28, 2007

The Crux of the Impending WGA (Writer's Guild of America) Strike in Hollywood

HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA--My brother works in advertising. He creates commercials for shit-heads (businessmen). He produces, writes, does the 'cinematography,' directs, and even edits them. We had a conversation recently where he really nailed it: "Producers are like any employer--they think you have to do physical work to be paid. They don't want to pay for ideas, they don't see that as 'work.' " Indeed, Hollywood producers are like all other asshole employers, meaning that they're vulgar, greedy scumbags, just as most American businessmen are. Why pay for new material? Why indeed when one knows everything? Never mind those silly artists and writers--what do they know about creating? Well, everything producers don't, which is why the bastards hate creative people. They can't fly as artists can (no imagination), so out of jealousy, they clip their wings.

If you wonder why there have been so few new ideas in Hollywood in the last 10+ years, wonder no more. The suits won, the artists lost, and now we see the results of what it looks and sounds like: boorish shit. Many of these Executive Producers (usually just another term for the backers of a film) own previously made "properties" anyway, so why pay a writer to do something that's new? This is a big reason for all of these stupid remakes (I exclude Rob Zombie's reimagining of 'Halloween' since he was paid to rewrite it). Why even hire a real writer? Just get some yes man hack-writer to doctor the property a bit, and...there is no "and," audiences hate the movies overall. This is not rocket science if you aren't a coke-sniffing Hollywood producer. You know, the rest of the entire human race, the audience, the people who have stopped coming to the theaters.

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