Abstract

"Shifting Discourses of Authorship & Above-the-Line Labor in Hollywood"

Shawna Kidman, University of California, San Diego (skidman@ucsd.edu)

Changes in public discourse about the nature of authorship can greatly illuminate the way power dynamics in Hollywood shifted over the course of the 20th century. While above-the-line jobs (writer, producer, director, actor) were almost always romanticized, specific conceptions of the nature of creative work reflected whatever creative hierarchies and business practices were dominant in that moment. For example, in the Classical studio system of the 1930s, artistic credit was often bestowed on studio bosses or high-powered producers who, at their whim, assigned a stable workforce of writers and directors to whatever project required their labor. In contrast, in the 1960s, when the package-unit system allocated resources and determined employment on a short-term film-by-film basis, artistic credit increasingly went to the directors and stars that could secure financing for individual projects.

This means that industry pivots, e.g. from the studio system to independent production, or from blockbuster Hollywood to the franchise era, not only impacted creative laborers’ everyday working practices (directly via sector reorganizations), but could also deeply influence their conception of professional identity and self (indirectly via public discourse). Industry conceptions of how and why creativity mattered, and which creative laborers mattered most were also used to justify systems of compensation, with corporate executives often taking advantage of the power of authorship and creativity narratives to push their own agenda in union conflicts, salary discussions, and controversial layoffs. These dynamics have certainly been at play in more recent conversations about creative labor. The shift away from original content and toward IP-based source material have noticeably diminished the public profiles and power of today’s above-the-line workers during contentious negotiations. Comparative analysis of authorship narratives of the past and present can thus tell us a lot about the opportunities and dead-ends the current generation of creative workers will face.