I support the writer’s guild strike because they are not part of the bourgeoisie. The same can’t be said of a lot of these rich actors who own a ton of capital themselves. So on the one hand, it kind of seems like the bourgeoisie is fighting the bourgeoisie on this one. On the other hand, not every actor in the guild is as successful as Tom Cruise, so some of those striking actors are working class.
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Actors are not part of the bourgeoisie. They control no methods of production or productive capital. 5% of them are labour aristocracy at best while the other 95% are living paycheck to paycheck trying to survive.
Bourgeoisie does not mean “rich”, the class structure is built around your position in relation to productive capital. If you do not control the capital, no matter how rich you are, you cannot be part of the bourgeoisie.
This reflection is truly accurate, if you’re not owner of methods of production, you’re working class.
If you do not control the capital, no matter how rich you are, you cannot be part of the bourgeoisie.
This presumes that the richer ones won’t still carry the bougie’s water like they do control capital, though. Richie fucks don’t often step down off the gilded plinth, in my experience.
That’s a tiny percentage of the actors. Vast majority are not at all rich
A valid point to raise; I’d always figured extras, and small-timers were doing that kind of thing as a ‘between jobs’ endeavor, rather than that actually being a job for them-- and holy fuck, my heart. I can’t imagine trying to scrape it as a small-time actor without other avenues of work lined up.
Most of the rich actors that I’ve seen seem to be pretty supportive of this strike luckily, not sure how long that will hold though
Good points, but I thought that capital could be just having large sums of money and not necessarily equipment that workers use to produce goods? Would the amount of money the 5% own not be considered capital then?
Not really, because methods of production essentially create that money. For example what is more worthwhile? A machine that creates products worth 1 million dollars a year, or a million dollars cash? Obviously the machine as it allows a capitalist to essentially endlessly fill their pockets.
Capital trumps money every single time (money can also be used to purchase capital but itself is not capital). It can be used as investment as well, which acts as capital because it accumulates interest and return, turning it into productive capital. But money itself is not capital.
only 2% of actors even make enough money from the profession to sustain themselves. The most prominent actors may get to become bourgeois themselves, eventually owning studios or becoming producers, but in reality the vast majority of the actors are proles and those are the ones who need this strike the most. Just look at the full credits of any movie you like and you’ll see at least ten times more “Unknown Actors”, than “Tom Cruises”.
Even if actors as a profession are more prominent in the public mind than UPS drivers or script writers, it doesn’t make their class bourgeois and this is still an organised labour class issue and any demand for better conditions with direct action such as strikes should be supported. Besides that there’s also the pragmatic aspect of showing proletarians worldwide what can be achieved through organised labour.
It’s like a tiktok I saw recently about delivery drivers that were on strike for a company. The comments were saying “you make X (maybe like $40+)amount per hour, that’s really good and you get raises consistently, why go on strike? Is nothing good enough for you?” To which the delivery driver replied “I personally make enough and am satisfied with MY working conditions, but the new people are making x (I think it was $16.50) per hour and that’s unacceptable. Solidarity is what matters above all” that’s how I view this. I’ve been to a few standup shows and talked to comedians after shows, they say pretty consistently that a writing job for TV isn’t as much of a draw as it was back in the day, pay is awful to start and most writers barely get credit for their writing, it’s just associated with the success of the show, it’s tough to prove yourself as a consistently good writer because you’re always in someone’s shadow who will inevitably take credit for the success of whatever program it is. If it’s a failure, the writers sucked. It’s a Catch 22. Even on a comedy podcast, one of the hosts said that he’s been an extra in movies and Tv and ads so many times but there’s usually no credit for them being there. They get a few bucks that day and hope for more work
One point I haven’t seen yet is how high-profile strikes like this get media attention, and how people we’d like to bring around to communism perceive that and communists’ reactions to it.
We want labor actions to be popular. We want to be positively associated with labor action, and known as the ones who will go to the mat for workers. We don’t want to be libs who may cheer at first but quickly hem and haw and undermine.
As far as the rich actors go, sure. But plenty of labor orgs have wealthier people at the top running them. Something like less than 5% of SAG-AFTRA members make a living acting. The studios are also trying to make it so that even the lowest paid actors (one-liners) are giving away rights to their “likeness” so they can be replaced by AI. That’s predatory af.
The film industry is much more than A-list bourgeois actors. The acting industry is mostly composed of overworked wage earners who also are working at Starbucks, restaurants, temping, teaching, etc. just to get by. Under capitalism and in the Hollywood system it’s mostly a petite-bourgeois trade (hence being a guild, not a union), but the strike still has the ability to raise some class consciousness.
Plus a major arm of the US propaganda machine being shut down for the foreseeable future is an objectively good thing.
The rich actors aren’t bourgeoisie because they get paid millions, most of them are bourgeoisie because they take those millions and reinvest in capital. The rich actors aren’t the ones who make billions in profit like the companies, they’re just compensated much better than other actors because they more bargaining power individually
Also, all the reporting I’ve heard has described SAG as union?
Please do the bare minimum of research, the SAG is huge, vast vast majority of the actors in it are not famous superstars making millions (and even they are still deserving of being in a union). One of the major contention points is the studio’s proposal for AI for background actors is they will get scanned once, get paid like 1k dollars and the studio will own their image and voice for like forever
Please do the bare minimum of research
What do you think they’re doing by posting in communism 101?
Asking for other people to do the research for them, you can learn this info by reading or listening to like 1 news article
Ok great yeah please go listen to the mainstream media to get your understanding of labor action 😵💫
This is a question that a lot of less politically conscious people have, the answer is obvious if you know it, this place should be for sharing that information with people who are seeking it. Introductory info, 101, no??
yeah please go listen to the mainstream media to get your understanding of labor action 😵💫.
We’re not qanon. Lib news is very useful, but has to be read critically.
Lib news is fine if you know what you are looking for. If you are asking “is the actor strike good” you don’t know what to look for.
You’re gonna get “both sides make good points” from lib news on that. So why tell newbies they should go read that instead of us? It’s pointlessly hostile, spiting ourselves for no reason
Lib news is fine to understand the basic facts of what’s happening, like imonadiet mentions:
Please do the bare minimum of research, the SAG is huge, vast vast majority of the actors in it are not famous superstars making millions (and even they are still deserving of being in a union). One of the major contention points is the studio’s proposal for AI for background actors is they will get scanned once, get paid like 1k dollars and the studio will own their image and voice for like forever
“Hey there fledgling leftist who is asking to be propagandized, unfortunately I do not deem your question worthy of my time, please go read CNN instead”
Is the painfully dumb to me sorry. Simply saying nothing would be a significant improvement. In a normal discussion, sure. This is not a normal discussion, it’s 101 for a reason I feel like I am taking crazy pills here it’s like some people are actively hostile to the idea of growing leftism, which has always been true, but also they decide to hang out in a place called ‘communism 101’ for some fking reason
The people who own these companies ARE THE BOSSES that the actors are striking against!
