this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
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The pessimist/pragmatist in me agrees with you, that this strike probably won't come to any real meaningful changes.
However, the one big difference now is, actors and writers today have been earning such paltry amounts that almost all of them have full-time side hustles, so nobody is going hungry. I have a lot of friends who work as actors and writers in LA, and even if they do that "full-time" they all have full-time side careers too, as the pay for acting/writing is so crazy low and LA's COL is so high. So if the studios hope to wait it out until people lose their houses and can't afford food, they may be waiting a long time.
The ones hurting the most in LA are the mid-level and senior producers, who earn a good 6 figures, but not millions. They don't have side hustles, and they have mortgages on million dollar homes, and also no income coming in. And they're on the studios' side, so they may actually be the first to fall before anyone from WGA/SAG.
I know I'm being a debbie downer, and my mostly-off topic follow up question is going to be in the same vein: Are you implying that these actors with second jobs can pay all their bills with only their second jobs? Does acting really pay so little; that's nearly "hobby" territory.
There's a pretty wide gap between A/B listers that are household names making a guaranteed 7+ figures per role and people that fight for every small role they can get, often going weeks between roles, and often only earning SAG minimums.
Sorry, I didn't mean to give the impression that I thought all actors were the mega-rich ones; only that if acting pays so little, it's the second job, if you ask me.