Parody: The Screen Writers Stick It to the Producers with Fake Website
December 13, 2007 by Eric Eggertson
Filed under Marketing
In every cliched labor relations situation, management is supposed to appear stolid and humorless, while labor appears human and overly aggressive.
Cue lighting and switch to Hollywood, where the picketers are witty and urbane. Not so many boring, 1950s-era protest chants and constant references to "brothers and sisters".
Hell, no. The Writers’ Guild of American is so much hipper than the producers, they’ve even launched a parody site, posing as the producers’. A typical snippet:
Instead of negotiating, the WGA organizateurs have made demands, then expected us to counter with our demands, and for them to adjust their demands, and for us to do likewise, until we reach a mutually acceptable resolution in some sort of "give-and-take" process. Needless to say, we consider this to be a roadblock to progress (of both boldface and italic proportions).
Meanwhile, over on the real producers’ website, there’s an ad informing hard-working Americans that the average TV/screen writer makes more than a Surgeon. No word on what the average producer makes, but it’s definitely more than the Pope, the President and the UN Secretary General combined.
The writers are winning the popularity contest in this battle, but there’s no saying what the end result will be. In the NHL strike, the players seemed to have the upper hand of public opinion, but the owners ended up winning the war.
Thanks to David Weinberger for the link, and the good advice: If you’re a dot org, consider getting the dot com version of your domain as well.
Tags: wga, amptp, writers guild, producers, strike, hollywood, parody, satire
Oh, how I love a good smartass. Thanks for pointing this out. I don’t have a dog in the hunt, per say, but guess I would align with the writers if I thought about it much. As a writer, though, the more than the average surgeon thing makes me want to head to Hollywood … once they get all that stuff cleared up, of course.
Jason:
I suspect a comparison of “mean” salaries would show that many writers make a lot less. Averages tend to skew high, because of a few big earners. In general, there is no “average” person, so using the mean shows where the greatest number of that group are.