Review and news hub for movies, music and video games

4070 guests and 8 members online

Tyler Perry is better off hiding in his crossdresser disguise for the next few weeks because things are getting pretty ugly. In addition to a boycott movement, over 70 of TV's top showrunners—including Kevin Falls, Alan Ball, Tina Fey, Al Jean, Marc Cherry, Shawn Ryan—just signed a letter issued at Tyler Perry urging him to stop acting like an asshole and rehire the writers he fired last week.

Here's what happened: Tyler Perry fired four writers from his very successful TBS sitcom House of Payne (a fifth writer has since quit the show out of solidarity) because they were asking for Writer's Guild benefits. You know, that thing that gives them entitlement to residuals and health care and minimums and all that stuff no TV writer should ever care about.

After working for 5 seasons and over 120 episodes (which is insane, since the show only started summer '07), four of the seven staff writers had started asking for a WGA contract in the past few months, as the show just got syndication and spin-off deals that would bank mucho dinero. Tyler Perry said no, and threatened to replace them if they keep pushing. They kept. He did. He even fired the show's head writer Kellie Griffin. This, by the way, isn't just a dick move. It's also f-cking illegal. As explained in an issued statement by the WGA:

The House of Payne actors are covered under a Screen Actors Guild contract, and Mr. Perry, who has directed every single episode to date, is covered under a Directors Guild contract. However, House of Payne is one of the only scripted shows on TV that isn’t covered under a WGA contract.

So Mr. Perry, who I should mention is worth around $500 million, gets to reap the benefits while his writers were left in the wind. This whole thing obviously didn't go over well with a lot of people in the biz. The WGA picketed the opening of his new studio and filed unfair labor practice charges, some people are already calling for boycotts, and now we've got the big names of TV writing condemning his bullshit as unacceptable. Here's the open letter:

This season, scripted television programming will consist of about 150 shows employing 1,200 writers.

Of that universe, 149 shows and 1,193 writers will produce shows covered by the Writers Guild’s Minimum Basic Agreement. The MBA guarantees minimum compensation, residuals, health coverage, and pension in addition to other benefits.

The big exception? Tyler Perry's House of Payne and the seven writers who, collectively, played a key role in producing over 100 episodes of one of television's most successful sitcoms.

Right now, these seven writers are in a struggle with you, the producer of House of Payne, to extend Guild coverage to the show. This past Monday, after months of negotiations with the Guild, four of the writers were abruptly and illegally fired because of their efforts to secure the same minimums and benefits as their peers.

We all know that producing television is a tough and uncertain business. But some things are simply not acceptable.

We have a simple ask – reinstate the writers and make a fair deal with WGA.

Respectfully,

John Altschuler, King of the Hill, The Goode Family
Rich Appel, The Cleveland Show
Lee Aronsohn, Two & a Half Men, The Big Bang Theory
Neal Baer, Law & Order: SVU
Rene Balcer, Law & Order, Law & Order: Criminal Intent
Alan Ball, True Blood
Carol Barbee, Swingtown
Carter Bays, How I Met Your Mother
Ed Bernero, Criminal Minds
Jenny Bicks, Men in Trees, Sex and the City
John Bowman, Frank TV, Martin, In Living Color
Shane Brennan, NCIS
Henry Bromell, Brotherhood
Marc Cherry, Desperate Housewives
Alan Cohen, Held Up
Elizabeth Craft, Dollhouse
Bob Daily, Desperate Housewives
Elias Davis, WGAW Secretary Treasurer
Gary Dontzig, Murphy Brown, Suddenly Susan, Becker, State of Grace, Hannah Montana
Sarah Fain, Dollhouse
Kevin Falls, Journeyman
Michele Fazekas, Reaper
Tina Fey, 30 Rock
Larry Gelbart, M*A*S*H
Mike Gibbons, Talk Show with Spike Feresten
David A. Goodman, Family Guy
Glenn Gordon Caron, Medium, Now and Again, Moonlighting
John Gray, Ghost Whisperer
Walon Green, Canterbury’s Law
Marc Guggenheim, Eli Stone
Hart Hanson, Bones
Warren Hutcherson, Everybody Hates Chris, The Bernie Mac Show
Michael Jamin, Glenn Martin
Al Jean, The Simpsons
Mike Kelley, Swingtown
Anne Kenney, Greek
Bill Lawrence, Scrubs, Spin City
Michael Leeson, Bill Engvall Show, The Cosby Show
Steve Levitan, Just Shoot Me
Chuck Lorre, Two and a Half Men, The Big Bang Theory
Bill Martin, 3rd Rock from the Sun, Grounded for Life
Chris McGuire, Mind of Mencia
Carol Mendelsohn, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: Miami, CSI: NY
Ted Mulkerin, Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson
Peter Murietta, Wizards of Waverly Place
Marti Noxon, Mad Men, Private Practice
Pamela Eells O'Connell, Suite Life On Deck
John Peaslee, Operating Instructions
Steve Peterman, Hannah Montana
Clyde Phillips, Dexter
Judd Pillot, Operating Instructions
Bill Prady, The Big Bang Theory
Matt Pyken, Knight Rider
Jeff Rake, Cashmere Mafia
Michael Rauch, Love Monkey, Beautiful People, Life is Wild
Andrew Reich, Friends
Shonda Rhimes, Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice
Shawn Ryan, The Shield, The Unit
David Sacks, Lewis Black's Root of All Evil
Steve Skrovan, ’Til Death
Mike Schiff, 3rd Rock from the Sun, Grounded for Life
Robin Schiff, Former WGAW Board Member
Gary Scott Thompson, Knight Rider, Las Vegas
Naren Shankar, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation
Chris Sheridan, Family Guy
Amy Sherman-Palladino, Gilmore Girls
David Simkins, Warehouse 13, The Dresden Files, Blade: the Series, The Book of Daniel
Robert Singer, Supernatural
Dan Sterling, The Sarah Silverman Program
Matt Tarses, Worst Week
Alison Taylor, Just Jordan
Betsy Thomas, My Boys
Peter Tolan, Rescue Me
Eric Tuchman, Kyle XY
Marc Warren, Cory in the House
Michael Warren, Happy Days, Family Matters, Step by Step, Hanging with Mr. Cooper
Matthew Weiner, Mad Men
Dan Wilcox, M*A*S*H, Newhart, Growing Pains, WGAW Board Member
Larry Wilmore, Former WGAW Board Member, The Bernie Mac Show

I'm wholeheartedly supporting the boycott. Just because that takes no effort on my part since I was already avoiding Tyler Perry's work like the plague, anyway. Now I have a good cause to justify it!

In all seriousness, though, Mr. Perry... TBS gave you $200 million for your crappy sitcom. You're Oprah rich, dammit. Get the people who write your material some goddamn health care.

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (6)

October 07, 2008, Saul Berenbaum said:

	Multo bastardo.
	Votes: +0 report abuse vote down vote up

October 07, 2008, Marcus Beasley said:

	Hey Perry pay your f--king writers you douche bag!!!!
	Votes: +0 report abuse vote down vote up

October 08, 2008, Sean Anthony said:

	What do you know a upright religious righteous man who doesn't want to pay people their union dues...I would be surprised but this is nothing new in this country. Perry is making a career threatening decision here and could ruin his rep further if he doesn't make up for this. He disgusts me.
	Votes: +0 report abuse vote down vote up

October 24, 2008, Keith said:

A lot of people seem to have a lot of opinions. People have said that Tyler Perry is trying to bust the union. I don't think that is the case. He has created all of his own material. He writes all of his plays, and movies. All characters are his creation. He is an independent writer/producer and as such, he is entitled to forgo a guild agreement. The other thing is that I happen to like Tyler Perry's material. The material may be a little silly at times, but the material is relevant. Most of all, his work tries to uplift and show people a better way to live. If you don't like his material, you don't have to watch it.

Votes: +0 report abuse vote down vote up

November 12, 2008, He should be ashamed of himself said:

I love the show and furthermore all of Tyler Perry's movies BUT will not support his decision and actions to act so unfairly to his employees that have made this show a success. He of all people who had to start from the bottom and crawl his way to the top to be worth that 500 million should have more empathy for his employees trying to do the same thing. I refuse to support any Tyler Perry projects until he gives his employees their contract and reinstate them. I call for all other supporters of the employees to do the same.

Votes: +0 report abuse vote down vote up

November 17, 2008, Kiela said:

	Tyler Perry Addressed this issue already: http://sistastalking-tylerperry.sampasite.com/favorites-2-1/Movies-Sites-Blogs/TYLER-PERRY-EXCLUSIVE.htm
	Votes: +0 report abuse vote down vote up

Name

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (Registered users only)

Write the displayed characters

Add Comment Preview