Why You Should Pay Attention to the Hollywood Writers’ Strike

The picketing has begun. After weeks of negotiations, Hollywood screenwriters have decided to strike. According to the Writers Guild of America, the union representing film and television writers, members are gathering in front of the offices of major studios in Los Angeles and New York starting this afternoon.

This isn’t the first time the minds behind popular films and TV shows have stepped away from their keyboards after failing to reach a deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents production companies’ interests. The WGA has gone on strike several times before, most recently in 2007 for a shutdown that lasted 100 days. But in the 15 years since that strike ended, monumental changes have occurred within the industry. The “streaming wars” began. Peak TV emerged. Movie-theater attendance declined, and film studios prioritized franchises. Meanwhile, the coronavirus pandemic disrupted, well, pretty much everything about last week, these shifts have led to “an existential crisis in the profession.”