The Writers Guild of America (WGA) went on strike recently, with Drew Barrymore announcing days before the MTV Awards that she would stand down from hosting duties “in solidarity” with scriptwriters. Now some high-profile sapphics have joined the bubbly bicon in defending writers: Wanda Sykes and Cynthia Nixon have entered the chat.
The strike involves more than 11,000 members of the WGA. It’s the guild’s first strike in 16 years. It came after “failing to negotiate a new three-year contract with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), the trade group which represents major Hollywood studios such as Netflix, Sony, Disney, Paramount, NBC Universal, Amazon and Apple,” according to CBS.
The WGA wants to address two main concerns. Firstly, artificial intelligence (AI) could write future scripts, threatening human writers’ livelihoods. Secondly is the impact of streaming platforms like Netflix on properly compensating writers today.
Three weeks into the writers’ strike, the WGA took over Rockefeller Plaza in New York City to make it clear to the AMPTP that they’re not stopping until writers are valued, protected and properly compensated.
The rally took place on May 23, below the 30 Rock building – home to Saturday Night Live and The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. The WGA wasn’t alone in the fight. Members of other guilds and labor unions showed up, along with some big-name celebrities, in solidarity with writers.
Cynthia Nixon outlined that the AMPTP has more than enough money to properly compensate writers. “We’re demanding for the AMPTP to take less than 2% of their massive profits and distribute them among the people who are creating the content, to begin with. Make no mistake, this refusal to come to the bargaining table is a bid to turn TV and film writing into a freelance position,” she said.
Wanda Sykes spoke about how it’s more important than ever for writing jobs to be respected, with the increase in diverse voices telling stories over the last couple of decades. “We shouldn’t have to be out here doing this, but I am so proud to see so many faces. And these faces, it’s a lot different than what it was back in 2007 because of how rooms have changed.
“I see so many women, young women. I see so many brown faces, I see my Asian brothers and sisters out here. It’s beautiful. … It really is about the survival of our industry right now, the survival of our craft, if we don’t get this deal that we need, right? I just look around and I can see all these different faces, and we get to tell our stories, we get to hear your stories, right? It’s not just from that straight white guy perspective anymore.”
