Previously, the only way you’d see Tom Hanks fighting Mel Gibson was to watch the unmade movie Forrest Gump Punches Mad Max In Space.
But now Tom Hanks and Mel Gibson have emerged as figureheads on opposing sides of a dispute over whether actors should go on strike because there aren’t enough fame-blinded young nymphomaniacs who’ll indulge their every fleeting sexual whim or whatever.
Mel Gibson is for the strike, Tom Hanks is against it. Sadly Mel Gibson will win, because the dispute will be settled by charging at each other across a field. Poor Tom Hanks – if only it involved growing a crap mullet and ranting about Jesus.
Our favourite part of this year, hands down, was the writers’ strike. It was brilliant – fed up with not being paid enough royalties for material shown on the internet, film and television writers all put their tools down and deliberately crippled the industry.
Except what actually happened in the writers’ strike was this a) the Golden Globes got cancelled, b) Lost got to make a shorter-than-usual season that wasn’t full of guffy episodes about nothing and c) 24 was forced to take a year off, allowing its producers to think of a way to make it less embarrassingly rubbish. In short, only brilliant things came from the writers’ strike.
And that’s why the actors have decided to have a go too – the Screen Actors Guild has long been brewing over whether or not to go on strike for similar reasons to the actors and, despite George Clooney’s efforts, ballots will be sent out to members first thing next year.
Imagine what’ll happen if the actors do go on strike – not only will your favourite shows get screwed for another season, but actors will have to spend most of their time sitting around not doing any real work. We genuinely can’t imagine what that’d be like.
But some actors don’t want to go on strike. They’re claiming, quite sensibly, that another strike-crippled winter wouldn’t be fair on all the piecemeal crew members forced out of work and that, with a global recession looming ever closer, the last thing that the public wants to see is a load of manicured moviestars stamping their feet because they only got $18 million for pretending to be a hard-bitten policeman who doesn’t follow the rules instead of $19 million.
And that’s why these actors have taken a stand and, um, written a strongly-worded letter. The New York Times reports:
?We support our union and we support the issues we're fighting for, but we do not believe in all good conscience that now is the time to be putting people out of work.? Beneath that was what might have been the cast list for a tentpole blockbuster: George Clooney, Glenn Close, Cameron Diaz, Charlize Theron, Matt Damon, Morgan Freeman and Tom Hanks.
That’s quite a list of names – who’d be stupid enough to argue with nice guys like George Clooney and Tom Hanks, powerful girls like Glenn Close and Charlize Theron, the actual voice of God in Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon, a man who once made a comedy about some cojoined twins?
Actually, Mel Gibson would. And so would Sandra Oh. And Holly Hunter. And Jerry O’Connell. And this disagreement has driven a wedge through the middle of Hollywood, a community which usually prefers to publicly rub its own tummy until it gets a hardon.
What happens next remains to be seen, but there is one obvious solution staring everyone in the face here – let Mel Gibson and Sandra Oh and Holly Hunter and Jerry O’Connell go on strike and everyone else doesn’t have to.
That way the striking actors get to make the point they so firmly believe in, and we get to go a few months without having to watch Grey’s Anatomy, Saving Grace, any new Mel Gibson films at all or Kangaroo Jack 2: Jack Bounces Back. Everyone’s happy.