The writers’ strike has now been ongoing for a month, and there is little for a bystander to add about the issues, prospects, or relative staying power of the opponents. The Hollywood labor wars have not had much bearing on the socio-political life of the country in the modern era. However, if the current conflict continues for another few months, it will begin to shift the cultural balance of power.
The Influence of Hollywood on the Socio-Political Life of the Country
Hollywood is a powerful, vocal, left-leaning cultural and political force, and the Oscars and Emmys annually underscore its core beliefs. Most of it requires writers, who, for the moment, are not writing. In the near term, this may not make much difference, but already the late-night crowd is poised to miss a round in the battles over just-arrived Pride Month, even as their cultural adversaries are mounting social media-driven boycotts against Target, Bud Light, the Los Angeles Dodgers, and other companies or brands they perceive to have gone overboard in supporting a gender agenda.
If the strike continues into September, the new TV series would remain mute as current events pass them by. Some unlucky, unfinished, politically oriented feature films might miss the awards season, leaving movie warriors in the mold of Robert De Niro, who used the Cannes festival debut of Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon to unload on Trump supporters, without a platform.
The Impact of the Writers’ Strike on Late Night Shows
Late-night shows may find a way to come creeping back, as they eventually did in early 2008, either by working without writers or reaching a separate agreement with the Writers Guild. But absent that, or an overall settlement, Hollywood’s removal from the culture wars will soon begin to tell. If the strike pushes into September — still within the 22-week precedent set in 1988 — the new TV series presumably would remain mute as current events pass them by.
Already the late-night crowd is poised to miss a round in the battles over just-arrived Pride Month, even as their cultural adversaries are mounting social media-driven boycotts against Target, Bud Light, the Los Angeles Dodgers, and other companies or brands they perceive to have gone overboard in supporting a gender agenda. A few more weeks of re-runs and the writer-deprived talk hosts will have missed any number of Trump moments, much of the early presidential positioning, and the next few rounds between DeSantis and Disney.
The writers’ strike has the potential to shift the cultural balance of power in Hollywood. Hollywood is a powerful, vocal, left-leaning cultural and political force, and the Oscars and Emmys annually underscore its core beliefs. However, without writers, Hollywood’s removal from the culture wars will begin to tell. Late-night shows may find a way to come creeping back, as they eventually did in early 2008, either by working without writers or reaching a separate agreement with the Writers Guild. But absent that, or an overall settlement, Hollywood’s influence on the socio-political life of the country may begin to wane.
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