Funny Flashback

One of the perks about living in Los Angeles - such as it is - was a theoretical placement right smack in the center of the media capital of the world. It does make sense - most of the major conglomerates who produce media content these days (movies, TV, the elusive "catch-all" known as new media) are centered in LA, and every major newspaper, magazine, network, and "adult" company has at least a satellite post there. A bank robber holds up banks because that's where the money is, and the thousands of aspiring stars for tomorrow scurry about Los Angeles for the exact same reason.

Like everything else though, being in proximity to the money and power comes at a cost. In a lot of ways California hasn't changed all that much between the days of the Gold Rush and the late 2000s. Namely, that in exchange for the chance to live and work among the huddled masses with the possibility of someday maybe hitting paydirt, you implicitly agree to take what is given and expect nothing more. It's a wonderful little social contract probably drawn up in the lunch room at Paramount by Harry Cohn and David Selznick which has unofficially been grandfathered in to every studio exec ever since.

Did that stop the Writer's Guild of America? No. That's why, after years of apparently bending over for the Hollywood majors who control and produce nearly all content these days, they stood on principle last fall and went on strike, putting many people out of work (literally) and many many more people out of work theoretically (all the estimates about "lost income" centered mainly on money that could've been made off of productions that might've gotten started if everything else had gone exactly according to plan). I count myself in the latter group; there of course were no guarantees of more work had the writers not gone on strike, but put it this way: bringing all episodic TV production and nearly all local, union-sanctioned film production to a halt between November and April was not a recipe for young up-and-comers without plum hereditary connections.

Still, the strike accomplished what it set out to (mostly), and I can't say it hurt me too bad in the long run. In hindsight, I'm sure that if you put it to a vote everybody would've preferred to skip straight to the bottom line and resolve things without a labor stoppage and three and a half months of nasty name calling and bickering in that oh-so-shallow and quintessential Hollywood style. But I think out of all the madness a new nerve of creativity was struck - think about it this way: if the WGA and the studios had settled their issue like responsible adults, would we have been treated to comedy gold (and sweet, sweet irony) like this clip from the Colbert Report? I think not.

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