By ALEX VERDUZCO

Infographic made on Canva.com on October 3, 2023 in Redlands, California. (ALEX VERDUZCO/Ethic News Photo)

The 2023 Writers Guild of America strike took the world by storm when it began in early May. Infiltrating news headlines and social media pages, the event unfolded May 2nd and concluded September 27th. Why did it happen? The Writers Guild of America union members believed that they deserved a higher pay, protections from artificial intelligence drafting scripts, and residual payments once a project receives a lot of attention. The desired pay increase consists of about 11% in the initial first year and a 4% increase every year after.

 In trying to get their point across, members and supporters protested on the picket lines outside the Netflix, Amazon, Warner Bros, and Paramount studios. TV shows and movies were temporarily put on hold in all processes of production.

This later influenced the 2023 Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists to launch their strike starting on July 14, 2023. Breaking news as the most recent simultaneous writer’s strike since the ‘60s.

According to the WashingtonPost.com the negotiation was, “…three writers for six-episode series, five writers for shows with seven to 12 episodes, and six writers for shows with 13 or more episodes…” The contract was given to the union members to be signed within the time period of Oct. 2nd to 9th in order to solidify their negotiation.

Some of the participants of the strike were Nina Dobrev, Rob Lowe, Sarah Ramirez, Lamorne Morris, and Pete Davidson among many others. 

As a high-school student, it can be frustrating when your hard work in class goes unnoticed. As a journalist, you want the effort you put into your piece to be recognized and celebrated. As a human, we all want to do what makes us happy and feel rewarded at the end of the day after finishing a large project.

The arts are known for being a risky industry because wage and salary are fluctuating and cannot always be acknowledged as steady pay. However, pursuing an interest should never be met by financial consequences. Every American citizen should be able to professionally pursue their interest without worry of monetary matters. Unfortunately as the saying goes, American society tends to “live to work” rather than the other way around.

Though screen-writing and film-making aren’t held to the same standards as surgeons or politicians, their endeavors should never go overlooked. Similar to a surgical staff in an operating room, there are many people who specialize in different tasks. 

They are all equipped with the same goal of executing a film or show. According to StephenFollows.com, “The average number of crew credits in the top 1,000 films between 1994 and 2013 was 588.” This illustrates the amount of people that it takes to fulfill the labor of finishing a film.

If you think about it, TV shows and movies bring us together. Many icebreaker questions start with, “What’s your favorite movie/TV show?” It’s an easy and simple way to get to know someone without asking anything too personal. Most people can answer this question without thinking, especially because pop culture is something that revolves around our everyday lives. 

We see a character and they influence the way we dress or style our hair. Over time after watching a show for a while, we may mold our humor around its comedic style. Or, we might see a character endure hardship that we relate to and take comfort in their story line and how they overcame the circumstance.

Similarly, we can take comfort in specific shows because of the amount of times we’ve seen the series all the way through. For example, some people associate Gilmore Girls and Grey’s Anatomy with the fall and winter seasons because of the setting and weather. As well as how the characters dress, or just the overall mood of the show altogether allows the audience to associate TV shows with seasons.

These works of media influence us as a nation. Movie night with your friends and/or family is an activity guaranteeing quality time and community. The characters and storylines can move you to feel emotions–happy, anxious, excited, angry, etc. Emotions are what make us human, and the feeling of relating to the characters and other people watching helps to reinforce the human bond. The comfortable story-line and witty one-liners in Gilmore Girls allow the audience to feel at ease and laugh.

Think about all of the hard work behind the scenes next time you sit down to watch a late-night show, or at a showing of a new movie.