Ron Rifkin: Return of the Gay Jewish Trade Unionist?

Jon Robin Baitz, the creator of my favorite show currently on TV, Brothers and Sisters, has been spending his time penning mini-diatribes on Huffington Post, instead of scripts for the network drama.

He's been making a lot of good points about the need for unions in Hollywood and in the US as a whole, and defending the actions of the WGA against a number of harsh critics.

And Ron Rifkin, the actor playing the 60-yr-old-closeted-Jew Saul Holden, in one of B&S's best current storylines has been walking the picket line with him in solidarity with the writers saying things like "in perfect French, that he is here 'because without the word, what is there?...There is nothing...'"

It's been pointed out on Brothers and Sisters fan websites, that Rifkin has a history of paying closeted older men, and there is a clear old-skool, Ashkenazi, NY quality to his acting and dialogue as Saul Holden, despite that the family is born & bred California. Well, Rifkin was born in 1939 Brooklyn, near the end of the powerful Jewish trade unions in NY, but at the height of the Communist Party's power in the US and involvement by Jews in the CP. Not to suggest that Rifkin is, himself, gay, but if you blur the lines a bit, a picture starts to develop of the old stereotypical gay, Jewish trade-unionist, working in Hollyood. A picture which would not be entirely invaluable in this day and age when Jews seem to be tied to every Republican scandal that's uncovered.

A friend of mine spent the better part of 2007 working for the WGA-west, before moving on to a current job with the Teamsters. To be honest, at the time, I was incredibly skeptical of the value of her work in promoting any kind of vision of social justice, especially because she was working with reality TV show writers. Although I still don't understand the value of reality TV shows at all, I think the strike has made me understand her work a bit more.

Although I tend to believe that TV is for the most part contributing to the downfall of our society, seeing as how I have not yet sworn it off (and probably won't, although due in part to my love for CSPAN), it seems a bit hypocritical of me to not see the value of unionization in a sector that, rightfully or not, is at the center of the public eye. Maybe this strike will actually workers' rights to a larger audience than any awareness campaign, or even the NYC MTA strike could have. People seem more upset that their favorite shows might be off the air, then they did when they couldn't to (or home from) work 2 years ago during the MTA strike.

Anyway, I salute Baitz and Rifkin, for both their work on the screen, portraying the courageous struggle of Saul Holden, and off the screen sticking by the integrity of their craft and their fellow foot soldiers.