Writers Guild of America members speak from the picket lines

But when she arrived on the corner of 19th Street and Broadway to join the picket line forming outside of Netflix’s offices, her mood changed. “Once I saw my friends, and [started feeling] like maybe we can make something happen, I got excited about it,” Hawkins said. “We’re all keeping each other’s spirits up.”

After a breakdown in negotiations between the Writers Guild of America (WGA) and the Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP), the WGA and its 11,000 writers formally began a strike just after midnight on Tuesday morning. The AMPTP maintains that it offered “generous increases in compensation for writers,” but as the WGA put it in a news release, “the studios have taken advantage of the transition to streaming to underpay writers at all levels.”

The strike took effect Tuesday after weeks of escalating bitterness. But on Wednesday, the physical manifestation of it — picket lines outside major studio headquarters in New York and Los Angeles, the two cities where the WGA is based — was surprisingly joyous.

Outside of Netflix on Wednesday, where Hawkins marched alongside roughly 1,000 other writers and supporters from other unions, the crowd was lively. Most carried signs handed out by WGA officials, their slogans ranging from the earnest (“Support writers to save movie theaters”) to the smirking (“Live from New York, it’s the Writers Guild on strike,” “Don’t pay us peanuts to write ‘Billions’”).

Scabby the Rat, the famous inflatable rodent that materializes at the scene of many a labor demonstration, stood near the entrance to Netflix’s 888 Broadway location, as did a folding table with baby-pink paper boxes on it. Picketers grabbed cookies from them as they passed, chanting both classic labor-rights slogans (“Who’s got the power? / We’ve got the power”) and clever riffs (“No wages, no pages,” “Hey, hey, ho, ho / Pay us or you’ll lose your shows”).

Like Hawkins, Iturri Sosa — a WGA captain and a writer credited on crime and drama shows including “Narcos: Mexico” and “The Deuce” — was energized by the turnout. “We were very disappointed that the studios refused to negotiate in good faith. Not shocked,” she added. But in TV writing, “We work as a team. So we need to support one another.”

Michael Winship, president of the WGA East, was involved with the Writers Guild back in 2007, the last time the guild organized a strike. It lasted 100 days and had wide-ranging implications throughout the TV and film industry. This strike, he said, has enjoyed even greater outside support than the last one: SAG-AFTRA and the American Federation of Musicians among others, Winship says, were involved then and remain so now. But this time, he said, other unions including the American Federation of Teachers and the AFL-CIO have pledged support as well. “It’s just really heartening,” Winship said.

Sosa’s and Winship’s words were repeatedly drowned out by beeps of solidarity from cars bumping down 19th Street toward Broadway. As the picket line began to snake all the way around the block, a handful of men in dress shoes and quilted vests stood on the steps of the neighboring Warner Bros. Discovery headquarters, silently observing, and a man passing by on the corner of 18th and Park Avenue muttered, “Ah, the lefties are upset.”

In Manhattan’s Flatiron District, of course, it can take a second for the brain to untangle who’s a famous beautiful person and who’s a regular downtown Manhattan beautiful person. But on Wednesday there were indeed celebrities in attendance. Actor Michael Rapaport and “Saturday Night Live” star Bowen Yang walked the picket line, as did actress Zoe Kazan with a bundled baby strapped to her front.

Yang, a longtime comedy writer before joining the cast of SNL, said the strike dealt with issues that felt personal to him. “I’m a proud member of WGA East,” he said. “It seems like there are writers from every kind of lane here, and the union solidarity is really, really encouraging.”

“Broad City” co-creator Ilana Glazer, “Rent” actor Anthony Rapp and Yang’s SNL colleague Andrew Dismukes were on hand, too, as was Cynthia Nixon — the “Sex and the City” actress who ran for governor of New York in 2018 on a platform that championed economic justice.

“My profession is largely based on writers,” Nixon said. “Without the writers we’d be, you know — Lassie, essentially.” Compared to the many other protest events throughout New York over the past several years, Wednesday’s picket line felt “much more populous, and excited, and exciting,” Nixon added. “Much more joyous and hearty.”

On the opposite coast, the chorus was the same. Outside of Paramount Pictures — perhaps the most visible vestige of “Old Hollywood” — hundreds of striking writers chanted and waved signs, demanding better compensation.

The weather was Los Angeles perfect, and the atmosphere jovial. Rihanna’s “B—- Better Have My Money,” blared through a portable stereo, and a truck from a company called Like A Boss Coffee served up free lattes, despite its name. And the crowd erupted in cheers as cars passed on Melrose Avenue, letting off a near-constant stream of supportive honks.

One disgruntled moped driver, stopped at a red light, interrupted the solidarity: “You’re all going to be replaced by ChatGPT, suckers!” he called out before speeding off. The writers were unfazed. In fact, that was the point of all this. Rapid technological change — streaming services and now, perhaps, artificial intelligence — has made it more difficult to scratch out a living writing for TV or film.

But scribes, everyone here agreed, are the unseen architects of Hollywood’s dream worlds, and they cannot be replaced.

“We are the bedrock of Hollywood and the bedrock of culture,” said Jacob Tobia, an author and TV writer. “There is a reason history remembers writers. Can you name someone who was in the government in ancient Greece? No, but you f—ing know Homer.”

Tobia, who identifies as nonbinary, framed the strike as a battle between a diverse union and “old crusty cis hetero White men who make $300 million a year.” Tobia said they have seen trans creators sidelined and their shows scrapped by an industry that likes to boast about its liberal, tolerant credentials.

“We deserve to see ourselves represented, and that will not happen unless writers are paid fairly,” they said.

The handsome compensation of studio executives — publicized in a flier circulating online — came up often.

When Corey Dashaun joined the WGA, he thought he had made it. After years of hustling, and at one point moving back to his parents’ house when he no longer could afford rent, he hoped he was on his way to middle-class stability.

“But it feels like the goal posts are moving,” said Dashaun, a writer on the series “One of Us is Lying.” “It seems like it’s strategically setting us up to hurt. All while execs are making hundreds of millions of dollars.”

About a mile from Paramount, hundreds more picketers gathered along Sunset Boulevard outside of Netflix, a studio many say embodies the streaming-led changes that have made writers’ lives harder.

David Schulner, who created the hit show “New Amsterdam,” was playing traffic cop on the picket line, signaling when marchers needed to stop for cars pulling into the studio. Schulner said his show, which premiered on NBC, has been streamed on Netflix for more than 3 billion minutes. But because Netflix pays only a flat fee up front, Schulner did not see his compensation rise as the series dominated platform charts. “So success looks exactly like failure,” he said.

In the cultural imagination, Los Angeles is a city of stars. But really, it’s more like this week’s demonstrations: legions of working people punctuated by the occasional celebrity — Jay Leno doling out doughnuts to strikers, or Rob Lowe marching in the picket line. “It makes a huge difference,” Schulner said of these cameos. “People don’t know our faces, but they sure know the star of their favorite show.”

Pamela Adlon, the actor and writer who created and starred in “Better Things,” walked in picket lines with her father, a WGA member, in 1988 and again in 2007. On Wednesday she was there again, cheering as a passing cement truck let out a thunderous honk.

“They hate that in there,” she said, gesturing at the Netflix office. “It’s like that scene in ‘Ghostbusters’ when they play the piano notes.”

Solidarity — a word invoked repeatedly — can be an elusive feeling for writers, many of whom do much of their work alone, tapping away in coffee shops or home offices. But in New York and Los Angeles, those on strike said they felt a sense of unprecedented togetherness.

“It’s very different than in the past. What I’m seeing is belief and hope,” said Luvh Rakhe, a member of the WGA negotiating committee whose credits include “Dave” and “New Girl.” “There is a positivity here, a pride you get in standing up for yourself.”

“It’s easier to do this when you’re confident you’re doing the right thing,” Andrew Goldberg, the co-creator of the series “Big Mouth,” replied. “We will be out here as long as it takes to get a fair deal.”