Friday, November 9, 2007
Page 11
AT THE SIDEBAR (Column)
Hoping Writers Don’t Strike Out
By J’AMY PACHECO
Hollywood writers are on strike. If I hadn’t read it in the newspaper, I probably wouldn’t have noticed.
It’s not that I don’t watch television. I don’t watch it that much, but I listen to it quite often. When the television is on, I’m usually listening to an episode of “Hannah Montana” or “The Suite Life of Zack & Cody.” It’s almost always an episode I’ve already seen — and very likely memorized.
There was a time I probably would have noticed a writers’ strike. Long ago, when my ‘tween daughter was just a toddler, I watched “ER” and many other grown-up shows. I anxiously awaited each new episode, and didn’t care if their late night hours gave me perpetual under-eye bags. It was worth it.
I watched these programs on mute, and read the subtitles to shelter my little girl from the often inappropriate language. But as soon as she learned to read, those days were gone — and so was my control over the television remote.
For years, our television has remained in Disney Channel mode. Frankly, I’m not even sure if my television could find the Fox Network if I asked it to. So disinterested am I in television these days that our picture has been green-tinted since March, and I haven’t bothered to do anything about it.
So if David Letterman suddenly started repeating his Top 10 lists, I’d never know until I read about it in the paper.
When it comes to feature film writing, I’m a little concerned. I love to watch movies. And while I haven’t had the time or inclination to set foot in a movie theater since I saw “Night in a Museum” three times in three weeks last Spring, I have a great time watching them later on DVD. Fortunately, I’m so behind on DVD watching that it will be a very long time before I see an impact from the writers’ strike. By then, there will hopefully be some new material on television.
While I won’t miss television, I do feel a tremendous amount of sympathy for my fellow ink-slingers. Writers have labored at the dinner end of the food chain in Hollywood almost since somebody figured out that pictures could move and talk.
In fact, if I had the time (and didn’t mind the drive), I think it would be great fun to walk the picket lines with the Hollywood scribes, just to be supportive. The way I see it, the funny people who write Dave’s Top Ten lists are probably there. I’m sure that while they’re marching in circles carrying signs, they’re chatting with one another. And I’ll bet they’re just as funny in life as they are in the written word.
Maybe they’d get a chuckle out of my own Top 10 lists. (No charge, of course.) My personal favorites include the “Top 10 List of Things You Hope You Don’t Get For Christmas” (Chia Buddha, rhinestone studded bath towels, etc.) and the “Top 10 List of Things You’ll Never Hear Mary Kate & Ashley Olsen Say:” (“Buddy, can you spare a dime?” and “I’d like to read ‘War and Peace’ when you’re finished with it…’”)
I imagine that since it’s early in the strike, nobody’s going hungry yet, so they might all be in a pretty good mood. I envision lots of laughter and shop talk and gossip. The picket line would probably be an interesting place to be, if there was valet parking.
I feel bad for the writers, and I’d definitely vote their side. But I doubt I’ll be directly impacted by their strike efforts.
I did manage to get hooked on one adult television show this season. It was a legal thriller called “Damages,” and I stumbled across the premiere quite by accident. It was riveting, and I saw every episode, thanks to whoever invented TiVo.
But the season finale aired a few weeks ago, so even that outstanding show is fading from memory. It seems like on the rare occasion I decide to flip around the TV to see what’s on, all I get are commercials.
Every month, I pay for a service that brings me hundreds of channels, all of which go to commercial at the same time. I wish the people who write commercials would go on strike. Only if they did, I wouldn’t feel any particular compulsion to visit with them on the picket line. (Except, maybe, for the people who wrote that funny commercial where a group of guys find a magical beer producing refrigerator…but that’s not going to happen.)
I hope things go well for the writers. I hope they win, and move up a notch on the Hollywood food chain. But if the strike drags out, maybe someone could film each day’s pickets for a new reality show.
I’m betting the dialogue would be good.
Copyright 2007, Metropolitan News Company