(New York) New episodes of The Drew Barrymore Show are about to be broadcast, starting Monday. In doing so, the studio where the talk show is taped has become the latest battleground in Hollywood’s ongoing union dispute.
Drew Barrymore – daughter of a proud acting dynasty – is producing and hosting a new season of her talk show despite protesters outside her studio and the fact that her three main writers are on strike.
“This strike has been going on for about four months: it’s not surprising that there are defectors,” says Michael H. LeRoy, professor of labor and employment relations at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
“Everyone has a breaking point in a labor dispute,” he adds.
The Drew Barrymore Show is not the only daytime show to be resumed. The View is back for its 27the season on ABC, while Tamron Hall and Live With Kelly and Ryan have also produced new episodes. The Jennifer Hudson Show And The Talk also resume on Monday.
As long as the hosts and guests are not discussing or promoting works covered by television, film or streaming contracts, they are not technically striking.
In fact, talk shows are covered by a contract separate from that of actors or writers. This contract also covers reality TV, sports, morning news, soap operas and game shows.
The ongoing strike pits the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents Disney, Netflix, Amazon and others.
The return of animators, producers and studio crews will lead to delicate exchanges, foresees Zayd Ayers Dohrn, writer, professor and director of the MFA in writing for screen and stage at Northwestern University.
It’s quite surprising that they are returning to work with their own screenwriters who are demonstrating in front of the studio doors, he notes. They are literally walking past the picket lines of the workers they claim to support.
Zayd Ayers Dohrn, writer, professor and director of the MFA in Writing for Screen and Stage
Mr. LeRoy, who has studied worker-employer struggles for 30 years, warned that television shows like Drew Barrymore’s could pay the long-term price of not using union writers.
“No member of the Authors Guild will work on this series again,” he said. It’s a short-term feel-good moment or a moment of respite for Drew Barrymore and maybe others, but in the long run, in my opinion, they’ve really given themselves an early retirement. »
He pointed to other strikes in the past that left bitter feelings for decades, such as when Major League Baseball umpires went on strike in 1999. New umpires were hired and integrated with veterans, but tensions persisted.
Bill Maher, who also announced he would return to his late-night talk show, explained that he wanted to help his entire staff, saying that the perpetrators “aren’t the only people who have issues and concerns “.
Mr. Dohrn doesn’t believe it. “They talk about wanting to support people who are struggling to get by. But Bill Maher and Drew Barrymore and the hosts of The View could very easily side with their industry colleagues and say that they are not going to feed the studio pipeline until they make a fair offer. They decide, for a whole series of complicated reasons, to return to work and, ultimately, attempt to break the strike. »