Bonus: WGA/SAG Strike Update
We talk to Alex Press about her reporting on the ongoing WGA & SAG-AFTRA strikes, with additional commentary from some of the striking entertainment workers we met on the picket lines in LA and NYC.
Special thanks to the following for speaking to us:
Bex Taylor-Klaus
Catherine Schetina
Jess McKenna
John Hodgman
Max Calder
Read Alex's piece on the strikes in Jacobin here: https://jacobin.com/2023/07/hollywood-writers-actors-strike-studios-streaming
Comments (64)
Weird how Stevie Nelson never achieved the same success as her LTASMI costar Milana V. I wonder why. Lmao perhaps SAG is what will finally let her beat Milana
Thanks, great episode
Banger ep. I love Alex so much!
Good ep
Judge John Chapo
Move to LA Will, California needs you.
No slop? Only veggies? Ok, works for me! (Seriously, thanks for getting this out on a Saturday)
Also, while I got you Chapos here, let me say that I loved Chris's off-mic but still audible, hypemanesque laughs after Matt's and Felix's zingers on Friday's episode. The off-mic laughs are always a great add to an already good zinger.
Thank you for doing this. If its not public please make it available to everyone.
I feel like this could be submitted for some kind of award.
The studios are just desperate to do Phillipsvision from the Critic
I'm in love with Jessie Buckley.
I eagerly await the ability of Hollywood to have digital Jesse Ventura kill digital Ahnold and digital Maria Conchita Alonso in a digital arena
Yea, they used my likeness in a ton of gay porn. Hollywood sickos!
Love these episodes. Getting tired of the cynical shit. We know we’re all fucked we wanna hear what we can do about it.
Well obviously not watch a good tv show, it's over
Great material here. Everyone needs to hear this regardless of where they work.
I stand in solidarity with SAG and to prove it I have invite Jessie Buckley to use my face as a seat whenever she visits the states.
Any striker is a good striker. Happy to see Chapo back on their “giving a shit” era
Wow, John Hodgman! Years ago I met him and jokingly apologized for having bitten his writing style for a college creative writing assignment. He told me what every writer is a thief, and signed my book with an instruction to read Borges. John, if you’re reading this, I eventually did as you commanded, and you were right.
Hodgeman’s the man
Man-aker on the Street
Can’t believe Adam Friedland shamed Will into doing this. Truly a powerhouse of center-left podcasting
John hodge man is so irritating to my ears.
jeez, he's always said nice things about you!
I also appreciated at the 17:00 Mars where they bring up the topic I'm making things better for the next generation. I don't hear this thought process by most other workers and unions. Ironically, the one sector were actually here this being used the most is with professional athletes, arguably The most right wing of all American unions. Yes, most of their negotiations center around their own personal advancement But they still acknowledge that their personal contract negotiation paves the way for the next round. Specifically in the MLB, Which is the sport I love the most, The players are mostly made up of, "Good old boys from the south." Yet, they seem to be one of the unions that is most concerned with getting the bottom level members taken care of and setting the situation up for the future.
I was hesitating to say I felt like that was one of the least sympathetic statements. They’re not talking about future members knowing how to organize. They’re asking, “what will become of our storytelling?” (Something I personally care about, more than I probably should)
What's nuts is that companies generally aren't afraid that a big secret will be revealed like everybody working there is three kids in a trenchoat and they pull all their numbers from a fishbowl - the fear is that they'll lose A LITTLE BIT of money. Not that their stock price will plummet 97% on one crazy trading day, but that it'll drift down 3% year on year - as George Costanza once said, like an old man settling into a warm bath. It's what sets those people apart from labor: most of the people who produce value fear catastrophe but learn to shrug off slights and being devalued and getting ground down day after day. Say what you want about SUCCESSION - that last season got a little rocky imo - one of its most compelling aspects was showing how all these so-called power players (anyone who wasn't named Roy, really - but sometimes them too) had ice-cold fear behind their eyes 24/7 and had no other option but to keep smiling and saying things like "Well.... it's exciting!" when processing some new shitty idea or bad news. Part of that is the awareness of how expendable *they* are (thinking of, like, when Logan ordered Tom to fire Gerri because she couldn't negotiate a lower fine from that federal case), but also, Hollywood being Hollywood, another part is thoughts like "Fuck me, Ted has the new Audi R8 and I'm still leasing the 2023 model? How did he get it so quickly, does he have an in? My life is fucked I want to kill myself." No wonder these twats fail to understand how labor produces value and whatnot - they live in a complete fantasy. EDIT: It's true that there are many cases where CEOs will march a company over a cliff and somehow the calculus will work out that they get an even fatter bonus than if they, you know, did a good job and the company had a good year. But it's the people they have to deliver results to, quarter after quarter, the large stakeholder investors who literally have NO other driving force but to EXPECT infinite growth, one quarter at a time ---- they're the Germans hiding in the woods with the belt-fed machine gun. If the strikers get TOO GOOD of a settlement from all this, bodies are gonna drop.
This is why we can never expect to negotiate with them, they need to be usurped, dispossessed. It’s like trying to reason with an addict or an infant. The tragic irony of all this is that they would be happier if they could get off the treadmill you described and feel like they were doing right by others.
Solidarity forever
Look this is probably a useless exercise on my part but I will think about the IDW and Conservative people I know and how they would hypothetically respond to certain podcasts/talking points. It's a useless exercise because it's based in the Aaron Sorkin "best argument wins politics," that's been downloaded into American culture. With that said, I hear someone with the prominent heavy inflection cadence at 8:00-8:30 and my heart sinks a little. Here's someone telling their story, making some real tangible points, actually personalizing why this is an important issue. Yet, I know people that would immediately check out just because of that specific voice pattern.
around 29:00, Will recreating Bob Slydell in OFFICE SPACE asking "What would you say....... ya do here?"
If I discovered a new species of bird I’d name it the Striking Hodgman
Absolutely love this. I thought I had a very complete view of the strikes already, but still learned a lot - we love to see man on the street Chapo!
Chapo / Off Book crossover episode when
John Hodgman is my celebrity free pass.
love jess! off book is a joy
Hodgman on Chapo?? Now I've heard everything!
Art that isn’t made by humans that no one watches, people who want to work but can’t afford to, profit being pursued as a kind of high score without any ends or objective, all while the clock is ticking on the survival of the human species… my god it’s all so absurd. What is the point of living in a society? Isn’t it obvious that we’d be so much better off and HAPPIER living for each other and having a future??
The sad thing is that this is like a ship thats been pointed in one direct and the car ntroks have all been pulled out and the crew jumped overboard. So even with many passengers wanting to change course nobody knows how. We're just hellbent in one direction and that will end in cataclysm.
Writing is way harder than acting, including for AI. 3rd guy doesn't know what he's talking about.
Death to amerikkka
That was excellent! Very well produced and the editing really had my full attention the entire time which just flew by!
Speaking of Alex Press, anyone else think Felix sounds like Gabe Winant? Would love to hear an interview of those two
Ironic that Netflix made millions (billions?) off of buying The Office, as series that in part condemns and mocks lazy, clueless, fucked up bosses.
Wanna echo Andrew Rexroat - great episode and loved the format and editing. Thanks for putting up on public feed, this is perfect for sharing with friends who aren't regular listeners.
I'd give a 75% chance that the streaming companies also don't know how many people are actually watching their shows and really don't want anyone finding out how imprecise and useless their numbers really are, because they don't want investors to know how meaningless the stats they quote are. That's just based on my experience working in tech, though.
they know. they might not understand or interpret data well, but they know. i had a student that was interning for a netflix sub that was breaking down all the movies into their component, algorithmic parts.
yummy
Hearing a lot of complaining about being tossed into the gig economy. It is hell and such productive modes must be abolished. That being said I don't have a memory of these people saying anything when the lower tier of the working class started getting fed to this beast en masse over a decade ago. I support the strike and want them to succeed but it is very difficult to have sympathy for people in an industry that has never missed an opportunity to shit on the working class or fail to tip the dude who delivers them their food in their air conditioned writers rooms and sets. Hope the strike succeeds and fuck these people.
I didn't hear you saying anything either
This is the best thing you guys have done
More man on the street
I like this format! more man on the street chapo 🤩
Absolutely loved intercutting the interview with Alex with the man of the street interviews of workers. Best labor episode yet!
Jess McKenna! I love her episodes on Comedy Bang Bang, she’s so funny.
Pow! Pow! Power Wheels!
Bex! 🩶
Young people are fucked.
http://www.rdwarf.com/users/kioh/haxorec63.jpg
Hollywood producers are scum. The lot of them!!
one of the best labor journalists, folks, lots of people are saying it ❤️
first
Dammit