A New York moving landmark: the strike rat (photo: swissmiss)
The celebrities have come out and walked the picket lines. Very reasonable editorials, like this one by Lost head writer Damon Lindelof in the NY Times have been published. Writers have blogged, created viral videos and come up with un-memorable picket line chants like “Eva Longoria! — We write the story-a!”
Time to bring in the rat.
In New York, the inflatable union rat is a traditional weapon deployed when any given group of workers is striking. It gets setup outside the building in which there is a picket line. And it just sits there, looking disgusting and calling attention to the picketers’ cause. As much as I enjoy seeing Tina Fey on the street, I think I’d rather see the rat come out for the writers.
Where should the WGA East should deploy the giant rodent? How about next Monday and Tuesday, in front of 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Ellen DeGeneres is scheduled to tape her show there next week and I see that tickets are still available, which is odd considering the loot and swag she likes to give to her audience.
I am not sure if the writers’ strike will have an effect on the turnout, or if New Yorkers (who walk past homeless people on the streets on a daily basis) don’t care to see another show hijacked by the tyrannical bureaucracy of a private animal adoption agency in the greater Los Angeles area. Put another way, according to WGA East, she “spent an entire week crying and fighting for a dog that she gave away, yet she couldn’t even stand by writers for more than one day“.
The argument is her show is syndicated and therefore “contractually obligated” to maintain production on the shows. Yet, the show went dark for - as the WGA mentioned - one day, presumably breaking that obligation. And while it’s honorable to keep your commitments, I have a hard time believing that Letterman, Leno, etc don’t have similar contracts obligating them to a certain number of shows per year.
I know Ellen likes to wear suits, but I can’t imagine her as one of the greedy Hollywood suits. Maybe when there is an animal involved, Ms. DeGeneres will find the WGA’s picket line a more compelling cause to halt production on her show. So bring on the rat.
I was just listening to Public Enemy - Can’t Truss It