The Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike, which kicked off this week in Los Angeles and New York City, is evidence of a pretty grim situation: Over 11,000 unionized screenwriters are not being paid a living wage, and are currently out of work (and may be risking future work by picketing).
"Any viewer that says, 'Why are they striking? I don't get it.' My first question would be: Do you watch television the same way today as you watched television 20 years ago?'" he says."And the answer is going to be, for the vast majority of those people, 'No, we watch it totally differently.'"
While streaming services like Netflix and Hulu have dominated television in the last decade, writers' compensation simply hasn't caught up. Many of them feel they're not being paid properly for their work, with lower paychecks and less in terms of residuals. "If you are a writer, if you're a producer, if you work in Hollywood in the industry, these kinds of strikes are really bad," Thompson noted."Obviously you don't want long shutdowns of entire industries. And they not only are bad for the immediate shutdowns, but they're bad because they tend to reorient the way people view."
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