The 2023 Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike has brought Hollywood to a standstill. The ongoing dispute has halted several major projects. Now, The Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) has joined the writers on the strike.
More than 170,000 actors, and writers are striking against big studios like Disney and Sony, as well as streaming companies like Netflix and Amazon. Recently, director James Gunn’s brother, actor Sean Gunn slammed Disney’s CEO highlighting the difference in his salary and his lowest-paid worker’s salary. Initially, WGA went on a strike and demanded better pay and job security with AI taking over the world, now SAG-AFTRA has also made the same demands.
Sean Gunn slammed Disney’s CEO
With the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists strike kicking off earlier this week, actor Sean Gunn, James Gunn’s brother, criticized Disney’s CEO, Bob Iger in one of his interviews,
“I think when Bob Iger talks about, ‘What a shame it is,’ he needs to remember that in the 1980s, CEOs like him made 30 times more than what the lowest worker was making. Now Bob Iger makes 400 times what his lowest worker is and I think that’s a f***ing shame, Bob. Maybe you should take a look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself, ‘Why is that?’ and not only why is that, is it okay? Is it morally okay? Is it ethically okay that you make much more than your lowest worker?”
Sean Gunn’s statement basically sums up the whole idea behind the strike. Workers are unfairly paid, which is a valid demand considering they are in an industry that churns out billions of dollars every year.
WGA and SAG-AFTRA have united
The 2023 Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike already put a lot of Hollywood’s major projects on hold. Now, the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) also approved a strike for the first time in 43 years.
The use of AI has also worried these workers. Screenwriters worried that big studios like Disney, Universal, Sony, and Paramount would use artificial intelligence to generate scripts. On the other hand, actors worry that the same technology could be used to create their digital replicas without their approval or fair payment.
Source: Twitter
