These Gen Zers Are Fighting For Their Generation — And The Future Of Hollywood
HuffPost talked to seven Gen Z writers and actors about how they’re navigating the Hollywood strikes, what the state of the industry means for pursuing their craft and what comes next.
Sixteen years after the landmark writers strike of 2007, entertainment workers are back on the picket line. Since the last strike, new problems have arisen in the industry: the threat of artificial intelligence, smaller writers rooms, streamers erasing shows from platforms, and a lack of transparency about viewership numbers impacting residuals and workers’ livelihoods.
Actors and writers unions are fiercely combating corporate greed, advocating for fair, livable wages and fighting for the future of storytelling on-screen. Screenwriters and actors join workers across America — UPS workers, educators, animators, nurses, reality TV stars and celebrity stylists — who are calling for a much-needed overhaul of labor in this country. (The actors on strike are members of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, or SAG-AFTRA, while the writers are with Writers Guild of America. The WGA also represents HuffPost’s unionized staffers.)
For Gen Zers ages 18 to 26, today’s labor movement takes on particular relevance. The generation born between 1995 and 2010 is America’s most pro-union age group alive, according to the Center for American Progress. That desire to organize and advocate for fair working policies is likely rooted in witnessing powerful leaders wreck industries and fail the generations before them.
Some Gen Zers were teenagers when America navigated the Great Recession. We remember the whitelash that followed President Barack Obama’s election, plunging Donald Trump ― now indicted four times ― into the Oval Office. Many of us entered the workforce amid the COVID-19 epidemic and the threat of another recession. These political and economic climates impacted how we think about the future of work and achieving our dreams.
The American Dream that we were promised if we did the “right thing” and followed the “right path” has been pulled from underneath us. In fact, it may never have been attainable for us in the beginning. We’re critically aware of reality and what lies at stake — which is everything.
Gen Z entertainment workers are not just fighting for their own dream careers, they’re also fighting for futures in their industries. They’re taking a stand for the next generation. They’re fighting to ensure that storytelling remains a respected craft.
HuffPost talked to seven Gen Z writers and actors about how they’re navigating the Hollywood strikes, what the state of the industry means for pursuing their craft and what comes next.
Sofia Brown De Lopez
Sofia Brown de Lopez is a 25-year-old queer Mexican American screenwriter from Monterey, California. She graduated from Loyola Marymount University in 2019 and remained in Los Angeles to pursue her career in storytelling. But as she was gaining momentum, threats of a recession and a potential writers strike put a halt to her Hollywood career. In 2021, Brown de Lopez, who is working toward joining the WGA, took a job as a legal assistant to help pay her bills.
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