STRUCK DUMB: WHAT DO YOU THINK? Last week this column was just one of several media outlets to carry the results of a Pepperdine University poll on the Writers Guild of America strike that showed that an impressive 63 per cent of Americans supported the writers, while only 4 per cent were on the side of the producers, studios and networks. There’s an old saying that you can tell a poll from a pole by the fact that the latter is straight (actually there isn’t – I just made that up), and Hollywood Reporter Barry Garron couldn’t help but marvel that Pepperdine was able to get such a definitive result when he had a hard time finding anyone who really gave a damn.
He decided to find out why, and got no further than the question the thousand adults polled by Pepperdine were asked in the survey:
“The dispute between writers and producers is mainly that writers want a larger share of the royalties when shows they have written are sold on DVD or on the Internet, or downloaded to cell phones or other electronic media. Whose side of this dispute are you more likely to lean toward? The writers or the producers? 1) writers 2) producers 3) don’t know.”
The problem with the question is that it only gives the side of the writers in the dispute – it hardly encourages you to side with the producers unless you’re 1) a cold-hearted bastard who wants to make indentured servitude legal again or 2) quite familiar with the issues and sure of your stance, despite its likely unpopularity with 1) striking writers or 2) people who generally don’t know or care much about it but know that Letterman’s been in reruns for some damn reason.
Which is why I want to open the question up to my readers, and get their opinions about the writers’ strike and how it’s affecting them. I’ll make it simple: Do you give a good goddamn about the Hollywood writers’ strike, and why or why not? I could keep mining the trades for items about the strike and speculate till my arse falls off, or I could let you nice people – some of whom might actually watch TV – chip in with your two cents. Answers will be published here until the strike ends, or until I can find another dead horse to beat.
