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The SAG-AFTRA strike has gotten a huge amount of attention in the past couple of weeks, with actors walking out of premieres and productions of new projects shutting down until their demands are met. These demands in question are mentioned in a list and range from streaming, AI, and equity.
One of the biggest content-creating countries has also joined this conversation, but their problems are specifically with the streaming giant, Netflix, and how they treat the people who earn then extremely large profits.
Also Read:“They’re so pivotal”: One Piece Creator Eiichiro Oda Warned Netflix About His 2 Demands Before Agreeing for Live-Action Adaptation
Netflix’s Expansion of Korean Content
Netflixannounced at the start of this year, that there would be a major expansion to its Korean movies and shows slate for 2023. This resulted in their library of Korean content growing very largely and earning a huge amount of profits through this, including many Korean Netflix original projects.
“One of their first priorities when entering the local market should be to establish some channel of communication with groups like us. But there’s no answer at all…”said Chang-gon
Song Chang-gon, an actor and current president of the Korea Broadcasting Actors Union, has talked about how most organizations when moving to the local market of any region, would attempt to get in contact with and establish a channel of communication between them and groups like the KBAU, Netflix has made no efforts, even refusing to do such a thing, despite of the KBAU’s many efforts.
Also Read:“It would cost like half a billion dollars”: Keanu Reeves Almost Saved Us from Disastrous Netflix Cowboy Bebop Adaptation by Playing Spike Himself in Unmade Movie
South Korea Has Had Enough Of Netflix Exploitation
While this may not sound like such a bad thing, this tends to get much more serious when the norm is becoming underpaying actors and overworking them, due to organizations like Netflix. Song Chang-gon elaborated on this, stating that in Netflix projects, budgets aren’t evenly distributed, with a majority of it going on big-name actors or screenwriters, and what is left over is given to everyone else. This has resulted in a severe decrease and even stagnation in the wages of actors.
“Netflix has made a lot of money from South Korean content,”Stated Kim Ju-ho, secretary-general of the rights association.“It’s now time to meet.”
On top of this, Netflix, a $160-billion company, owes a lot of its success to massive Korean projects likeSquid Game, which to this day remains Netfix’s most successful show and made the company $1 billion. While one of SAG-AFTRA’s main goals is to increase the amount of residual actors are paid, it would seem that South Korean actors aren’t paid any residuals at all as Netflix isn’t legally obligated to. This means that the people who worked on the massively successful series,Squid Game, are basically being robbed.
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Source:LA Times
Ananya Godboley
Senior Writer
Articles Published :2219
Ananya Godboley is a Senior Entertainment Writer at FandomWire, majorly focusing on TV shows, with over 2,000 articles published. She has been an entertainment journalist for the past two years. Currently pursuing an undergraduate degree in psychology from K.R. Mangalam University, Ananya also likes to fangirl as a full-time job. She covers news and analyses on anything from Rick and Morty to Hannibal and even Arcane. In between these lines, she also enjoys superheroes and Taylor Swift.A philosophy enthusiast, Ananya enjoys digging deeper into the media she consumes, trying to understand the root of her favorite characters' behavior.
