It is a fiery speech that the CGT would not deny. To announce that the 160,000 unionized Hollywood actors were going on strike on Thursday, a known face came forward at the microphone to denounce the “greed” of the studios: that of Fran Drescher, president of the powerful comedians’ union SAG-AFTRA, the “Nanny” of the famous sitcom of the 1990s, co-created with her husband at the time. With already, a certain idea of the class struggle.
This is the first time in over 20 years that actors have gone on strike. They join the screenwriters, mobilized for two months, for the first double movement since 1960, which occurs in the midst of the streaming revolution. On Thursday, the contract with the association of producers (AMPTP), which notably includes studios (Disney, Fox, Warner Bros, Paramount), TV channels and Internet platforms (Netflix, Amazon, Apple TV) expired. . Without an agreement being reached to revise upwards the residual rights of streaming or to regulate the use of the image and the voice of the actors at the time of generative artificial intelligences.
“In danger of being replaced by the machine”
“If we don’t stand up now, we’ll all be in danger of being replaced by the machine, big business cares more about Wall Street than you and your families,” Fran said with a raised fist. If her laugh is known by all Americans born before the mid-1980s and their parents, the president of the SAG is no longer laughing. The studios “plead poverty, say they’re losing money while giving hundreds of millions of dollars to their CEOs, it’s a shame,” she insists.
In his sights, the boss of Disney, Bob Iger, has just renewed his contract for more than 27 million annual dollars, and denounced as an exasperated parent the “unreasonable” demands of the unions, all on the descent of his private jet at an annual billionaire summit in Idaho. Warner Bros Discovery (HBO) president David Zaslav also symbolizes the tensions, assuring that the sector needs to tighten its belt as it hit $246 million in 2021 thanks to a generous stock package -options at the wedding between the two media giants.
An anti-capitalist activist
In nanny from hell, she shook like a tornado the hushed daily life of a wealthy New York family. At 65, Fran Drescher finds herself today catapulted to the front of the stage in a showdown that could put Hollywood on hold for several months. Elected president of SAG-AFTRA in 2021, she regularly gives voice on social networks with the captions “STOP CAPITALISM GREED” (“Let’s stop the greed of capitalism”).
After a fierce battle against actor Matthew Modine (Eleven’s “daddy” mad scientist in Stranger Things), Drescher worked to unify the two main factions of the Actors Guild, which voted 98% to allow the strike if negotiations failed. Thursday, she warned the studios: “We are the workers and we are united. We ask you to share the profits because you wouldn’t exist without us. You are on the wrong side of history. The final struggle has begun.