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Comedian and HBO late-night host Bill Maher said that the ongoing WGA strike came at the “wrong time,” adding that the Hollywood writers have “no leverage.”
Speaking with fellow comedian Jim Gaffigan on the Club Random podcast, Maher, whose own show Real Time on HBO was shut down due to the strike, felt that the writers had some “kooky” requests.
“They’re asking for a lot of things that are, like, kooky,” Maher said. “What I find objectionable about the philosophy of the strike [is] it seems to be, they have really morphed a long way from 2007’s strike, where they kind of believe that you’re owed a living as a writer, and you’re not. This is show business. This is the make-or-miss league.”
While Maher agreed that streaming platforms need to be more transparent with viewership data, he also believed that people are missing the “big other side” to the story in the strike, likening it to America’s growing divide.
“I feel for my writers. I love my writers. I’m one of my writers. But there’s a big other side to it,” Mahersaid. “And a lot of people are being hurt besides them — a lot of people who don’t make as much money as them in this bipartisan world we have where you’re just in one camp or the other, there’s no in between.”
“You’re either for the strike like they’re fucking Che Guevara out there, you know, like, this is Cesar Chavez’s lettuce picking strike — or you’re with Trump. There’s no difference — there’s only two camps. And it’s much more complicated than that,” he continued.
Worse still, Maher said that the writers have virtually no leverage in their fight, given that the studios and streaming services have a massive library of content they can have people watch.
“[Streamers] have tons of stuff in stock, so they have no reason to wanna settle this strike,” he said. “They struck at just the wrong time; they have no leverage. Has anyone who is watching TV recently noticed a difference? Has it affected the person down the pipeline? I don’t think so. I haven’t noticed a difference. At some point, I guess that will happen. What day is that when Netflix runs out of what they have in the warehouse?”
In response to the candid statements, certain members of the WGA strongly criticized Maher on X, formerly known as Twitter.
If anyone needs another reason to ignore Bill Maher.
He loves his writers, he just doesn’t think they deserve a living wage. ὄ
pic.twitter.com/5aQXikiz5g— Ryan Shead (@RyanShead) September 5, 2023
Bill Maher complaining about writers wanting special treatment is a great opportunity to remind everyone about the time I went to Maroon 5’s Halloween party and Maher was screaming at the bouncer because they didn’t have a special line for celebrities.
— Guy Endore-Kaiser (@GuyEndoreKaiser) September 4, 2023
Bill Maher being woefully misinformed (once again)… Does he think the WGA’s demands are for unemployed writers?! If someone is hired to write something for a billion-dollar corporation, they are, in fact, OWED A LIVING YOU NITWIT
— Nic Curcio IS ON STRIKE (@NicCurcio) September 4, 2023
Bill Maher has always sucked. And the few times he hasn’t sucked entirely are because a writer created something for him to say that briefly made him seem smart. But at his heart, he sucks. A thousand times sucks. A million sucks. The suckiest suck. A talentless suck.
— Alex R. Johnson/WGA Cap’n on covid break (@HaciendaFilms) September 4, 2023
Once the strikes have been settled to the benefit of SAG and the WGA, I sincerely hope that Maher’s entire writing staff takes a shit in his office and walks out…
— Geek Salad: I support SAG-AFTRA & WGA Pass it on (@geeksaladradio) September 5, 2023
Paul Roland Bois joined Breitbart News in 2021. He also directed the award-winning feature film, EXEMPLUM, which can be viewed for FREE on YouTube or Tubi. A high-quality, ad-free stream can also be purchased on Google Play or Vimeo on Demand. Follow him on Twitter @prolandfilms or Instagram @prolandfilms.
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