Thinking Through The Walls

The links of the not so decent past – and yeah, some pondering too.

We CAN choose the world we want, and the one we must reject.

“Just because you are paranoid, doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.” I must’ve be 15 years old or so when I came across that line. Joseph Heller was talking to me – more than I realized it.

I got rescued out of my small town, working class rut, and whisked away to private school that year. Privilege -- and I didn’t have a clue to what that meant. I only knew that now I felt I was in some sort of debt and I had to pay it back, but at the same time I had to show the fuckers who didn’t want me there that I deserved to be there and I was hell bent on showing the doubters & haters wrong.

That was when I grew to love the chip on my shoulder. I wanted my chip to be their pain in the ass. It gave me an energy those with the spoons never found, one that carried me to find the things that I loved and cared about (which is not to say others that those who did not have that chip installed didn’t find such things – as several I know did too). But yeah, they were watching me, and they never let me forget it. They corrupted other students and turned them into spies. Innocence dies fast.  And so I started watching them. And saw many for what they were. It generally resembled the smug look on a Supreme Court Justice’s face when he was remembering his time as a teenager too and despite that lying right into the public’s eyes. Such institutions and privilege teach some to lie, so us others learn to look through their lies.

I think the streamers and studios approach to the strikes is all a big lie, a plot, a land grab to get theirs yet again and not have to look back or apologize.  It may sound like another conspiracy theory in an era where everything we love is destroyed by conspiracy theories, but nonetheless they not only knew it was coming, but they planned to use it to get more of what they wanted. The strike is of the corporations’ making – not the unions. The studios and streamers been planning for it awhile. They saw it as inevitable. And they’ve strategized. They are playing the long game and everyone in the creative community is getting suckered. Unless, we all choose otherwise that is.

The strike is not about wages. It is only about wages if you are a filmworker. They are not workers of any shape, size, or kind. They are products of a system – a system that is about driving prices and thus wages down down down. And the way to do that is not about wages; it is about the other stuff. Wages are the smoke screen. They are prepared to pay the wage increase. It is part of the plan. They are prepared to pay significantly more than what they just offered. They’ve been planning it all along and the tells are obvious.  They want labor to demand more in wages and they are prepared to give it and give it large; they just don’t want you to worry about the other stuff because that is where the real win is.  That’s their trade-off and it is a very bad deal for everyone in the creative class, regardless of the field.

If SAG and the WGA settle for a massive wage increase but give up on data transparency, backend participation, and the use of AI, the creative realm is doomed. All of us filmworkers will suffer and the industry will never recover. Without understanding of the results of our work, we can never truly benefit fairly from our work. To deprive us from seeing how people respond to our work, is to never understand our work. When work is distributed on a massive scale and the only ones who understand the response are those with the machines to replicate those results, what do you think is going to happen? Why pay for the cow when you get the milk for free?

Call me paranoid, but it doesn’t mean they aren’t after us. Not only do I think the strike was planned, but I think their big idea was