By ATRIA PACAÑA
For the past 116 days, the Screen Actors’ Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) have been on a strike, demanding better pay and working conditions from major Hollywood film and television production companies.
Just recently, the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) — the trade association that represents these companies — have given their “last, best, and final offer.”
Soon, the world will know if the longest actors’ strike in history will end.
With the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) using the likeness of actors’ faces and voices to be modified in clips without their consent, and the advent of digital streaming culture slowly replacing cable television, the motion picture industry’s stakeholders have been struggling to keep up with the latest effects of technology in media.
For instance, actors have been reportedly paid so little in residuals (payments a writer, actor or director can earn when their work gets reused), due to various circumstances like the show being transferred to different video streaming services (to name a few: Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, Paramount, HBO Max).
Even actors on hit shows have been affected. An example is Kimiko Glenn, who shared her check from Netflix’s “Orange Is The New Black” on TikTok and it amounted only to a total of $27.
SAG-AFTRA issued the strike order July 14. Due to this, members must halt their ongoing projects, stop engaging with press junkets and participating in promotional tours, and avoid talking or posting about their works that have premiered.
This has been going on for almost four months.
Representatives of SAG-AFTRA have been agonizing over countless revisions of proposals and counter-offers against AMPTP until both parties come to an agreement that will inevitably end the strike.
That is, more importantly, when actors are finally better compensated for their efforts.
Which brings forth the main argument of why the strike is even happening in the first place: amidst the glory and splendor of fame, actors are still laborers. Every worker, no matter what field, deserves to be paid for their employment.
But we’re in the Philippines. Why should we care?
One might say that since we are so far away from Hollywood, it means that this is solely a US problem. To some degree, this is valid.
But just because Filipinos aren’t directly affected by the strike, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t matter at all to us. If one of the biggest film industries is home to exploitative companies, then it won’t take long until we realize that our own entertainment industry may also have unfair working practices and environments.
Offhand remarks are made about how shooting until midnight is normal here, or how extras are underpaid but made to stand in the sun (or rain) for hours while they wait for their turn in front of the cameras, or how teleserye directors scramble and rush production because what they shoot in the morning will air immediately at night.
Regardless, around 160,000 media professionals from theater performers to broadcasters are quite literally putting their livelihoods on the picket line to advocate for the deal they bargain for right now in the States.
It’s time there should be a recognition of eerily similar faults in our country too.
Besides, we don’t necessarily have to relate or put ourselves in their specific situation in order to sympathize. The use of AI in general as an alternative to human-made creation will contribute to misinformation, disinformation, and media illiteracy. It may lead to — if not complete death — the deterioration of art.
It seems excessive and hyperbolic, but fast times equate to fast changes, and it is unreasonable to expect humans to adapt to the same speed as these changes have been manifesting.
In other words, the merging of commerce and art (in this case, consumption of film and performance of actors) is difficult, but when hundreds of thousands of people raise their voices to stand for what they deserve to receive, then perhaps that difficulty may become achievable.
With the latest deal this week of full AI protection among fulfillment of other aspects in SAG-AFTRA’s proposal, there is hope for these foreign actors to be paid fairly. The question is just a matter of when.
Hopefully, the answer is soon, but as actress Briana Cap says in her tweet with #SagAftraStrong, “As long as it takes.”
