abstract
| - Any portrayal of Hollywood in TV or film is going to feature a lot of jokes at the expense of the writers of the Show Within a Show, or writers in general. Note that this doesn't apply to the product (which may or may not be any good); merely the people writing it, who will be portrayed as butt monkeys and subject to a lot of Executive Meddling. This partly stems from a perception that in Show Business, writers really are frequently at the bottom of the creative totem pole; they might write the words on the page, but the executives will tell them what to leave in or take out before the work even gets to the production phase, the director (often, in the world of film, considered the "auteur" ultimately responsible for everything) will freely re-write, rework or drop material when filming, the actors will ad-lib or creatively reinterpret the lines, and so forth. This, naturally, tends to produce both self-depreciating humour and bitter resentment on part of said writers, which tends to consequently crop up in their work. Not to mention the age-old stereotype of the struggling novelist alone in a dark room trying to overcome their writer's block if they're lucky. A subtrope of this, somewhat frequent in literature especially, pokes fun at actors, artists or, yes, writers -- basically anybody whose primary means of support comes from the "production" of creative expression rather than a truly tangible, practical product. The effect can be anywhere from genuinely humorous, satirical or simply a light-hearted jab to full-blown Anvilicious, especially if one stops to think of how on Earth the author got rich and famous in the first place, or indeed the very medium and method said anvilicious message is sent across. Sort of a reverse version of This Loser Is You. Compare Biting the Hand Humor. A form of Self-Deprecation, obviously -- the writers wrote that writer-bashing script, of course. Often a result of Most Writers Are Writers. Examples of Writers Suck include:
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