As the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes continue to put pressure on Hollywood executives—who find themselves in the uncomfortable position of trying to make movies and TV shows without words for people to say, or actors to say them—an increased focus is falling on reality television. It’s not for nothing that the then-nascent reality TV industry got a huge bump in popularity back during the 2007-2008 writers strike, as networks reached for nice, cheap unscripted words (and dancing and singing) to shove into the waiting maws of their strike-depleted schedules.
But the studios might be facing an unexpected challenger to this strategy the second time around: Real Housewives star Bethenny Frankel, who’s apparently getting pretty serious about her recent call for reality stars to unionize themselves, with Variety reporting that Frankel has retained the services of big-name (i.e., we’ve actually heard of them) Hollywood attorneys Bryan Freedman and Mark Geragos to help in her efforts. In a statement today, Geragos said of reality TV that “Something has to change because the current system is broken,” while Freedman said he’s talked to more than 50 of the genre’s stars about how they were “used and unfairly” treated by networks and studios. (It’ll be interesting to see if and when any of those names appear in print, since Frankel’s crusade will need support from other named reality stars at some point if dreams of a union are going to come to fruition.)
Frankel began her campaign in earnest a few weeks back on Instagram, making the not-unreasonable point that, given that reality stars generate millions of dollars for studios every single year, they should share more fully in those profits. (Frankel put especial focus on the fact that pretty much no reality contracts include residuals, despite the fact that god only knows how many people have watched reruns of her Real Housewives episodes on TV or streaming.)
Frankel issued another statement on social media today, in response to the news about her retaining the attorneys. In the post, she wrote, “I’ve had a good run on television. I’ve been very successful and I’ve made others successful as well. I’ve made a mark in this industry and superficially continuing to make money in a way that feels fraudulent to me has changed my path.”
[ad_2]