CAST: Holly Hunter, Mahadeo Shivraj, Allyson Sereboff, Ashley Smith, George Hickenlooper
CREATIVE TEAM: George Hickenlooper, Alan Sereboff, Kamala Lopez, Jill Kushner
MUSIC: Anthony Marinelli
TECHNICAL TEAM: Joel Marshall, Justin Shumaker, Clint Bennett
This is the first of the Writers Guild Of America member-conceived Internet videos for Project "Speechless" featuring A-list Screen Actors Guild talent. They are being hosted exclusively by DeadlineHollywoodDaily.com over Thanksgiving Weekend. For the first time in the TV and movie industry, high-profile SAG actors are together taking their talents directly and exclusively to the Internet, the very medium which is at the center of the current WGA labor strike against the Alliance Of Motion Picture & Television Producers. The project, conceived by director/writer George Hickenlooper and writer Alan Sereboff, will be releasing three videos here in the morning, afternoon and evening throughout this weekend. See them all!
(Mac users, the problems with Safari have been fixed.)
[In the interest of fairness and objectivity, I would be pleased to also debut a similar campaign conceived by members of AMPTP. But, as a journalist with a journalism outlet, I couldn't pass up any opportunity to have an exclusive.]
From Chile and Spain:
Incredible!!!
Holly Hunter is great…
Congratulations to the actors, directors and for you guys (Deadline Hollywood) to make this possible.
I can’t wait to see the others videos.
Congratulations and Happy Thanksgiving Day.
Comment by Felipe Costabal — November 22, 2007 @ 9:36 am
This is the kind of thing that sways public opinion. Very, very well done.
Can’t wait for the AMPTP response. I bet it will be very entertaining.
Comment by DA in LA — November 22, 2007 @ 10:22 am
Very nice! A tad bit unrealistic, but the point gets across. “I’ll transfer you to level 2 support”
Comment by David Desjardins — November 22, 2007 @ 10:39 am
Nice job George, et al!
Comment by A Writer — November 22, 2007 @ 11:05 am
Great start. And a scary vision of our future. We really should call this the “Why We Fight (Hollywood) Series”
Comment by anotherWGAmember — November 22, 2007 @ 11:31 am
Hopefully just a jerky-player issue on my end, but it was very clever and meaningful despite serious technical difficulties in delivery.
Comment by Bon — November 22, 2007 @ 12:40 pm
So the plan is to promote writers by making fun of people who do tech support (and Indians as well). Maybe not the brightest of ideas… I have to say, having watched this my sympathy for the WGA went down a few notches.
(I compare this to the lemonade stands, which I thought illustrated the WGA’s point quite effectively, as did a number of the other bits.)
Comment by Tom — November 22, 2007 @ 11:05 pm
Bashing hard-working tech support personnel in Bangalore helps our cause, how?
Comment by Sean — November 23, 2007 @ 12:14 am
Just a thought: since the slogan is “We’re all on the same page” why not have the actors all read the same one page prepared statement that explains why the writers are on strike. Something like “This is the last thing the writers have written and they won’t write anything else until these issues are resolved to their satisfaction.”
With the addition of A-list names, it seems that people who might not normally be interested in the strike will be watching, and it might be nice to fill them in on the why, not just the what.
Comment by BBB — November 23, 2007 @ 6:30 am
this one needs a serious rewrite… Connecting the strike to outsourcing jobs to India? Okay, I get it… but it’s weak.
Comment by dante writer — November 23, 2007 @ 9:48 pm
They have to get the writer on the phone? Why isn’t the writer on the set to answer questions and make revisions?
Comment by Seamus — November 24, 2007 @ 5:16 am
I support the strike. I admire writers. But I’m tired of seeing Indians, Asians and other minorities portrayed in stereotypes (Chinese maids, Japanese nerds, Filipino nurses, Indians answering customer complaint calls, etc.). Hollywood is a lot more creative than that. Right?
Comment by MRT — November 24, 2007 @ 10:07 am
As an Indian American who is supportive of the WGA efforts, I was disappointed to see this video mock the intelligence and hard work of Indian laborers. It is a disappointment to see creative people, who are fighting for their own respect and rewards for their work, use their power to demean and generalize another community. Likewise, unfortunate to see an esteemed actor like Holly Hunter participate in such a mockery…
For those who know anything about Bangalore, most workers in the outsourcing business likely have better writing and grammar skills than most Americans.
Comment by Mallika Chopra — November 24, 2007 @ 1:43 pm
Bashing Indians and connecting the strike to outsourcing ? I think the others are fantastic, and loved Andre’s clip but this one is a slap in the face of the Indian community. Outsourcing has been going on for the last ten years to countries like Ireland, and other Eastern European countries. Does the WGA have any clips making fun of other ethnic communities ?
Comment by Mark — November 24, 2007 @ 1:44 pm
Maybe they should have brought in an A-List writer to make this funny. If people wanted to see actors not being able to be funny, they could just go to most any mainstream movie.
And seriously, the first episode starts with racial humor? They couldn’t have found a way to get their point across without mocking people?
Comment by Kevin — November 24, 2007 @ 4:02 pm
Stale as 10 year old ham.
Comment by kathy o'brien — November 24, 2007 @ 4:58 pm
It’s nice to see the writers in their “pencils down” mode.
I guess it’s OK to conceptualize just as long as there are no words, right?
Comment by Scott — November 25, 2007 @ 12:21 pm
I love how there’s an Indian who thinks it’s not OK to use an outsourced Indian national in this clip, but it’s perfectly OK to bash the average American’s command of the English language..!
You can have your cake, or you can eat it… Not both!
Comment by Anonymous Hollywood blacklist dodger — November 25, 2007 @ 2:51 pm
Perhaps they’re trying to be meta here. If the writer’s weren’t on strike, this clip wouldn’t have been mildly offensive and unfunny.
Comment by Ali — November 25, 2007 @ 3:54 pm
I have to agree with the other posts here…not the best way to start out with a tired cliché and a fairly racist one to boot. Is this the best they could come up with? If they’re going for intentionally bad, this doesn’t come off that way, just pretty bad and insensitive.
Comment by mike — November 26, 2007 @ 8:20 am
WTF….maybe cinema is better served by these writers being on strike….why bash Indian tech support???!!!!!
Comment by poojadist — November 26, 2007 @ 12:04 pm
yeah - let’s start the campaign off with a dumb, racist video. that’ll get support. maybe Faux News will pick it up.
Comment by anon — November 26, 2007 @ 11:24 pm
Too Funny! Too True!! Thanks for sharing! Goodluck Shivraj!
Comment by Lakshmee Singh — November 27, 2007 @ 8:30 am
If writers are trying to show that they are a pivotal group, starting off in this vein makes them their own worst advocates. I support the strike, but it’s been awfully, awfully tarnished by this kind of stupidity.
Why don’t they follow up with some performers in blackface, doing some of those great minstrel numbers? Great job, folks. When you employ strategies like this, it undermines the validity of your position. It’s not necessary to be particularly thin-skinned to be offended by this: it’s both racist and puerile.
Comment by Saddened — November 28, 2007 @ 10:34 am
I have now watched 1-15. This first one is outright offensive.
I can’t tell anybody to watch any of them for fear they will see this.
Comment by charlotte — November 28, 2007 @ 11:51 pm
I’ve never understood that maxim: have your cake/eat it/don’t eat it. Surely you must have it in order to eat it, and surely it makes sense to eat it once you have it, or else you’re walking around with cake that goes bad and it’s a waste. Can someone explain that? And especially how it relates to this video? Because as far as I can see, the point is that without writers in Hollywood, actors and industry professionals might be subjected to the same frustrations the rest of us have when we call up tech support… It’s a very weak joke - but I don’t think it is entirely ‘bashing’ indians since they are the business savvy ones here, not americans. The offensive bit is this woman’s acting: blind person? stumbling around like that? talking crap about what she’s missed out on? Made me cringe.
Comment by Jay — December 29, 2007 @ 4:18 am