It's So Nice Watching Scabs Get What They Deserve!
Seeing strike-busting losers like Bill Maher and Drew Barrymore scuttle away with their tails between their legs is fun for the whole family.
No matter how advanced our society may seem, the sentiment of reveling in the absolute collapse of those who would oppose you remains a powerful intoxicant — particularly when applied to those who would gleefully slip on the jackboots meant for crushing the working class while feigning sympathy for their cause. What I’m saying here is that it’s been an absolute pleasure watching scabby TV personalities eat platefuls of shit after they’d attempted to weasel their way around the ongoing WGA/SAG-AFTRA strikes that have brought Hollywood to a standstill.
First up, Drew Barrymore. After initially defending her decision to ignore an industry-wide labor action by posting a weepy (since-deleted) video testimonial about how bad she felt, and how the world needed her show to get it through the dark, scary times (like covid and also people on her staff asking for a living wage), Barrymore made an abrupt about-face this week, vowing to stay off the air “until the strike is over.”
A generous reader of Barrymore’s statement might reasonably conclude that she had genuinely engaged with her critics, and come to her decision out of a sense of sincere regret and desire to be on the right side of a basic moral issue. A marginally less generous reader would probably just say “bullying works.”
Bill Maher, on the other hand, deserves zero generosity or credit for walking back his decision to scab during the writers’ strike, after initially threatening the public with more episodes of his Real Time talk show.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Discourse Blog to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.