Pop Culture Curmudgeon actor’s strike

Actors vs. Studios: Will It Ever End?

I was so busy focusing on the Oscars this weekend, that I didn’t even notice that SAG said a big hell no to the AMPTP’s “final offer” from last week. Can’t they all just get along?

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Newsy Tidbits

Here are a few of the interesting news stories of the past few days.

No one watches the Golden Globes
The Golden Globes brought in the smallest audience in years, down nearly 6 million viewers from the telecast two years ago.

Vanessa Hudgens as Leah Clearwater?
Vanessa Hudgens reportedly auditioned for the role of Leah Clearwater in New Moon, the sequel to Twilight. In related news, Taylor Lautner is only 4 pounds away from his promised weight gain to keep his role as Jacob in the next installment of the ridiculously successful vampire-werewolf tale.

Other sources, though, say this is a rumor and nothing more.

Actor’s Strike History?
SAG leaders appeared earlier this week to be ready to table a strike authorization vote. But, the hardliners seem to have won out, so the strike might still be on.

The Dogs Are No Longer No. 1
Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino took the number one spot at the box office last weekend, followed by Bride Wars (ugh!) and The Unborn. Will the dogs return to the top this weekend, with the release of Hotel for Dogs? Or will our friend Jensen Ackles rocket to the top of the box office with My Bloody Valentine 3D?

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Actor's Strike Could Mean Another Long, Cold Winter

According to Reuters, SAG leadership will ask members to vote on a strike authorization.

I support the actor’s union in doing what is needed to ensure fair payment for its workers. Even after all of the public education done before and during the writer’s strike, so many people still think everyone in the entertainment industry is rolling in money. And some are–the studio executives. Marquee name actors make a good living, but there are countless other no-name actors who are essential to the shows and movies we watch but who don’t have the name recognition to argue for more than the absolute minimum pay rate.

Salary.com gives a median income for actors living in the 90036 zip code of $55,0000. By comparison, the median income for a Chief Operations Officer in the same zip code is $471,000.

The struggle of the actors union mirrors the struggle of all organized labor in the U.S.

Workers have watched their wages stagnate, while the compensation packages of top executives have grown exponentially. Currently, the median income in the U.S. is $48,000. The median income for CEOs was $14 million in 2004. CEOs make 291 times what the average worker makes.

Business guru Peter Drucker believed CEO pay shouldn’t be more than 25 times average pay for a company. According to a recent Business Week article, Drucker “hated high CEO pay on every level: what it said about the individual as a leader, how it undermined the smooth functioning of the organization, and the way it tore at the fabric of society as a whole.”

Thus the outcome of this strike vote and these labor negotiations have a tremendous bearing on the future of labor in the U.S. And, more important, it will affect how we spend our evenings and weekends over the next few months. Remember the wasteland of reality television of last winter? I do, and it makes me shudder.

Remember the great shows we watched before the strike that didn’t come back until this fall? You know, Friday Night Lights, Pushing Daisies, Chuck, Heroes, 24, and Dirty Sexy Money? Only Chuck has shown any legs, getting critical acclaim and finally showing increasing ratings. (Friday Night Lights and 24 have not yet returned to the network airwaves.) Heroes has entered freefall and let some of its writers go in an effort to regain its ratings power. And Pushing Daisies and Dirty Sexy Money have been cancelled. Which shows will be destroyed be an actor’s strike?

Let me know what you think about all of this. Do you care about an actor’s strike? Do you care about the power of organized labor? Do you love reality programming and look forward to a winter and sring of American Gladiators, Exploit My Kids, and Lock My Neighbors Dog in the House so I Won’t Hear It Barking?

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