SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher clarifies disappointing picket line comments
After some weak sauce last week, Drescher made a more compelling case for solidarity
SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher had one job last week. Well, she probably has many jobs, but that’s not the meme. Either way, the most important job last week was supporting the writers’ strike. But, in one of those crushing scenes, Drescher showed up on the picket line at Paramount Pictures Studios last week and told Deadline that the SAG-AFTRA negotiations with AMPTP would be “very different” from those with the WGA. “It’s a very big, complicated conversation, and I don’t think what’s very important to writers—and I’m a writer, too, in the WGA—is the kind of stuff that [SAG-AFTRA] is going after,” Drescher said. “I feel like our conversation is going to be very different, and I feel very hopeful that we won’t get to this point.”
Ultimately, many in the WGA were disappointed that Drescher characterized the needs of writers and actors as that different. Both unions are attempting to secure residuals, get fair wages, and keep AI out of the creative process. Is that really so different? Thankfully, Drescher gave a much better statement on SiriusXM’s The Julie Mason Show, where she pledged solidarity with the WGA, saying, “it’s important that we sit by our sister unions in solidarity.”
“That’s what makes labor powerful,” she said. “And it’s a very interdependent and collaborative art form. And everybody’s contribution needs to be honored. And the industry at large has changed so significantly with the advent of digital and streaming that it’s inevitable that when this time where, you know, many of the unions are about to renegotiate, SAG-AFTRA included, that serious and significant adjustments have to be made to the contract because the whole business model of the industry has changed.”
Drescher’s right. Everyone’s contribution should be honored, and fellow unions need to join the fight and not simply feel “very hopeful” that SAG-AFTRA won’t strike. That isn’t going to help anybody. Through the collaboration of the unions, the artists who make the dang things can band together and hold up production. But if one breaks, it weakens the rest.
Anyway, Drescher also said that the strike might hold up a Nanny reunion to celebrate the show’s 30th anniversary. “At least pre-strike, we were in conversations with Sony, our parent company, to figure out what we could do that would be fun and exciting for the fans to tune into, she said. “Hopefully, the strike will be over soon enough, a deal can be forged with the Writer’s Guild and the AMPTP, and we’ll be able to go back to figuring out what we want to do for a Nanny kind of reunion, maybe backdoor pilot.”
While a backdoor pilot for a Nanny spin-off is pretty low on the list of concerns, there will be no ride from Flushing to the Sheffield’s door without a fair contract. So if the networks want a new season of The Nanny, might we suggest AMPTP pay the writers what they’re owed?