For disabled writers, the stakes of the WGA strike couldn’t be higher
In Hollywood, ableism compounds issues of low pay, shrinking writers’ rooms, and vanishing residuals for disabled writers -- check out my article in Prism!
This month, I had the opportunity to write about the intersection two topics near and dear to me — health justice and television. While this newsletter is a testament to the time I have obsessed over the explosion of shows by, for, and starring disabled, POC, and LGBTQI+ creators in recent years, it wasn’t until the writers strike began that I started to understand some of the issues behind this streaming Renaissance.
As I write in my piece for Prism, published yesterday:
Some 11,000 members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) will soon be rounding out their first month on strike. With the explosion of streaming—and its recent contraction—TV writers have seen paychecks dwindle, competition for staffing positions grow as writing rooms shrink, and residuals, the royalties writers get when a program re-airs, evaporate.
The issues these writers face are compounded for marginalized groups, including writers of color, LGBTQIA+ people, and disabled people. While media representation of these groups has made enormous inroads over the last decade, in some ways enabled by the streaming boom, TV writing as a profession has become more precarious. Writers face less stability, shorter seasons, and less overall compensation for their work. For disabled adults, who represent some 25% of the U.S. adult population yet account for only 0.7% of WGA members, these inequities can be especially stark and compounded by ableism in the industry.
I go on to discuss these issues in greater detail, from how smaller writers’ rooms exclude newer writers, especially those from marginalized groups, and how low residual rates for streaming shows are a huge problem for disabled writers who need to keep their health insurance. I talk about the accommodations disabled writers need both in the writers’ room and on the picket line. I had an amazing conversation with Jamey Perry, the co-chair of the Disabled Writers Committee, who is paraplegic, about how her guild insurance allowed her to get a better, more comfortable wheelchair, so she could strike all day. Here's Jamey on the picket line in her new chair.
Disabled writers face additional barriers, from discrimination and assumptions about their conditions to struggles to get the accommodations they need. According to the Inevitable Foundation, 33% of disabled writers reported discrimination, and 69% of disabled writers say they were excluded from certain opportunities due to their identity. Sometimes, after all the challenges of getting hired, disabled writers find they can’t even get into the room because they are located upstairs in a building without an elevator.
As Aoife Baker, a neurodivergent television writer summarized so well, “It’s so common for accommodations to be counted as a financial hit against the person.”
But that’s not the reality.
Studios and networks often assume that accommodations will be expensive when the reality is they are much lower than they think on an average production. According to the Inevitable Foundation, accommodating a 25% disabled staff and production crew only increases a total series budget by 0.5%. These accommodations could include building ramps for wheelchair-users, providing an assistant for neurodivergent writers, allowing writers to work from home, or providing interpreters for deaf or hard-of-hearing writers.
I talked to comedian, writer, and actress extraordinaire Keisha Zollar, who has learned to have the hard conversations with show-runners about the accommodations she needs to work. “I have so much to offer, so I'm confident enough to ask for the accommodation when I need it,” she told me.
There is so much from these conversations (and more) that didn’t make it into the article, but that resonated so much with me, both as the sibling of someone with muscular dystrophy, and as a person dealing with chronic illnesses.
I’m so excited to see the amazing show of solidarity between the WGA and other unions involved in television production across coasts, and hoping these talented writers who keep us entertained can get what they’re owed.
Read the rest of the article here.
What I’m Watching: My partner and I have been laughing our butts off at seasons 2 and 3 of “Miracle Workers,” an anthology series starring Daniel Radcliffe, Steve Buscemi, and Geraldine Viswanathan. It’s been such a delight to watch Daniel Radcliffe give it his all in a number of recent comedic turns, from his outrageous drag routine to a techno version of “She’ll be coming ‘round the mountain” (yes, he vogues) as a reverend on the Oregon Trail (go with it) to his absurd embodiment of Weird Al Yankovic in his fake biopic. After all his struggles as a mega-famous child star, I’m so happy it seems he’s having a great time. (And I hope the show’s writers are fairly compensated!) This show is hilarious, and so slept on. The first season is okay, but the second (Miracle Workers: Dark Ages) and the third (Miracle Workers: Oregon Trail) will have you laughing aloud.