Drew Barrymore Excited To Help Striking Writers By Crossing A Picket Line And Scabbing

Josie Grossie indeed.

You don’t even want to know how long it took me to find one scene of Drew Barrymore writing in this movie where she plays a writer. Source: Never Been Kissed (1999)

Sad news for fans of both organized labor and 1990s/2000s era romantic comedies — your girl Drew Barrymore is a scab.

In an Instagram post published this weekend, Barrymore announced that her daytime talk show would return soon, in spite of the ongoing WGA strike. She also appeared to be somewhat confused about how strikes work and what is and is not helpful to do during one.

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She wrote:

I made a choice to walk away from the MTV, film and television awards because I was the host and it had a direct conflict with what the strike was dealing with which was studios, streamers, film, and television. It was also in the first week of the strike and so I did what I thought was the appropriate thing at the time to stand in solidarity with the writers.

Well, yes. That was, in fact, the appropriate thing to do, but not just because it was the “first week of the strike.” That is not how strikes work. You don’t just do a gesture of support at the very beginning, call it a day and then go about your business, crisscrossing whatever picket lines you want.

And to be clear, our talk show actually wrapped on April 20th so we never had to shut down the show. However, I am also making the choice to come back for the first time in this strike for our show, that may have my name on it but this is bigger than just me.

Yes, it is, which is why she should support the strike and not be a big ol’ scab. She’s clearly suggesting that the reason she is doing this is for the crew members on the show, but those crew members are union workers themselves. They belong to the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), which only narrowly averted its own strike recently. It doesn’t help them to cross the picket line, because weakening strikes in this way affects their ability to successfully negotiate their own contracts going forward.

I own this choice.

Just because you say you “own” something doesn’t mean you’re doing the right thing.

We are in compliance with not discussing or promoting film and television that is struck of any kind.

No, you’re not, because the show itself is struck, which means that by doing the show, you are very specifically not in compliance. If she were in compliance, her writers would not be out today picketing outside of where her show films, chanting “Hey Drew, hey Drew, we expect better from you”.

She continued:

We launched live in a global pandemic. Our show was built for sensitive times and has only functioned through what the real world is going through in real time.

What does this even mean? Does she mean that she thinks her show is doing some kind of service to “sensitive times” by airing in spite of the writers’ strike? How?

I want to be there to provide what writers do so well, which is a way to bring us together or help us make sense of the human experience.

Does she actually think it is somehow helpful to the striking writers for her to try to “provide what writers do so well?” Like this is honoring them in some way? Because it’s actually just being a scab. The whole point of the strike is to show how necessary the workers are so that they can get the fair compensation they deserve. By doing the show anyway and trying to do that work herself, she is undermining their whole cause.

I hope for a resolve for everyone as soon as possible.

Except what she is doing is actually going to extend the length of the strike by lessening its impact. Studio executives are hoping to wait out the strike without sitting down with the WGA and this “the show must go on” approach only makes it easier for them to do that.

“The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses,” a studio executive told Deadline in July.

We have navigated difficult times since we first came on air. And so I take a step forward to start season 4 once again with an astute humility.

With what now?

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You know what doesn’t exactly say “astute humility?” Kicking audience members out for wearing pro-WGA strike attire. But that’s exactly what the show did!

Does Drew Barrymore understand exactly what she’s doing here? I’m going to give her the benefit of the doubt and say that she does not. It’s possible that she does not quite fully appreciate the position that the writers are in. In Never Been Kissed, she played a 25-year-old newbie copywriter at the Chicago Sun-Times with her own office and a not-even-just-an-intern assistant, who was put on an assignment to go undercover at a high school for at least a month and only produced one single article about … falling in love with her English teacher? Or something? It’s been a long time. Maybe she thinks that’s how we all live — getting paid enough to live by ourselves in what I think was an actual house by writing 1200 words a month about our own personal hopes, dreams and crushes. If true, perhaps she does not get why her writers are striking, because that would be a pretty sweet gig.

If she really doesn’t understand what is going on here, she is gonna need to get with the program, listen to her writers, listen to the WGA and call this off, ASAP.