High anxiety from Hollywood’s first Chinese superstar to China

Anna Chen – First published 11 July 2025, Anna May Wong and containing China

Anna May Wong and China facing the same western fears

Anna May Wong Must Die! but the China dynamic lives on

China catches up and America fires off a frenzy of Yellow Peril mania ever since Trump’s first trade war doubled down on Obama’s Pivot to Asia.

Western anxiety about Chinese getting too big for their foot bindings has been with us ever since the Opium Wars of the 19th century. The mountain of guilt, fear, loathing and desire that went into defining them as a dehumanised Other is still with us today, turbo-charged by neocon ambitions.

Yep, desire is in there as well: you fear the thing you crave. And, so often, vice versa. Powerful it may be, but the impulse is also paralysing.

One way to escape the pain is to destroy the object of desire. What was Captain Ahab’s vengeful pursuit of Moby Dick about if not the control of the entity that was more powerful than him, making off with his leg in a classic image of castration? Some societies eat their enemy. Some have hot wars. Many seek resolution in territorial pissing turf wars.

Green Hornet Syndrome

In the light of all-pervasive sinophobic insanity, I’m coining the term Green Hornet Syndrome to designate the white saviour cohort which insists on Chinese being underlings, or invisible even –— especially! — when outclassed by them.

Be a sidekick or die.

At the macro level, it means tearing down China for being so damn good.

At the micro level, it means tearing down Chinese for being so damn good.

And that’s across the political spectrum.

It’s not just the usual suspects of the usurped Masters of the Universe who cling on to the delusion of supremacy. Purported progressives who can’t resist the system’s white domination blandishments, even subconsciously, are also doing the work of the state. If there’s no visibility, there’s no empathy. No empathy means less resistance to war on a group you barely recognise as human. Look what happened to Muslims after 9/11.

Colonialism rules

Deletion, cancellation, erasure and invisibility are the boss group’s boys-club stock-in-trade in the New Colonialism. But it’s not a recently-minted strategy — it has a tedious history.

In America’s economic downturn of the 1870s, it took ten “Chinamen” to equal the voice of one white man. Demagogues like Denis Kearney were able to whip up a diversionary wave of hate among European workers who were losing their livelihoods, culminating in the Exclusion Act of 1882, specifically aimed at the Chinese.

We see the same attitudes today despite the lip-service of enlightenment. Chinese are written off as copyists, incapable of original thought. They lack an inner life. The ruling group must speak for them. Nothing is true until a white person says it is true.

This regression into archaic relations from a bygone era exposes a widespread lowering of consciousness that’s depressingly become the norm in what we vainly think of as our sophisticated age.

The template currently coded into the Matrix seems to be: occupy the space and clear out the inhabitants. Absurdly, in the face of World War III, the urge to be an asshat eclipses urgent communal efforts for the collective good. A colonial mindset prevails when more self-knowledge, generosity and solidarity in the face of disaster might be more helpful than indulging residual Gamergate impulses.

Mandelbrot Set’s repeating China patterns

It’s an imperialist throwback that needs challenging. In 2005, I wanted to make a programme about Anna May Wong, Hollywood’s first Chinese screen legend, for her 1905 birth centenary. I was astonished that so few knew who she was. It was disappointing when the BBC’s commissioning editor turned down our first pitch on the grounds that “No-one’s heard of her”. Fortunately, my brilliant producer persisted and we eventually made A Celestial Star in Piccadilly in 2008, broadcast in 2009.

Anna May Wong’s story beautifully illustrates the dynamic of imperial power relations which remain embedded in the cultural codes. Our perceptions are invisibly shot through with it at every level like a repeating pattern in a Mandelbrot Set and, as it is ubiquitous, the situation is accepted as a given.

China has been suppressed and degraded in the public eye through the press, literature and the screen arts, ever since the Opium Wars carve-up by Britain and the Eight Nation Alliance which put down the Boxer Rebellion. Yellow Peril untermenschen tropes abound in the cultural undergrowth. Wong’s oppressive experience provided a miniature synechdochal example of the whole process.

I wrote a poem (below) about Wong’s unique pioneering position, wanting to satirically distil its essence and flag it up to a wide audience. It’s not something I was aware of doing while writing it. I was simply unloading what I immediately felt about the hypocrisy and oppression to which I could relate. But the subconscious is an amazing thing. Only in reading it back did I realise what was nailed, the heart of the matter coalesced and exploding out of the final two lines.

The West’s Heart of Darkness

Wong was born third-generation Chinese-American in Los Angeles, 1905. Not only did she face race discrimination in her everyday life, her successful film career in early Hollywood turned her into a symbol of it. The same forces present in Anna May Wong’s life-long struggle within and against a hostile system are here today in America’s bid for supremacy over a rising China.

In her movies, whether playing angel or devil, she had to be punished for the white hero’s attraction to her, sex being one of our fundamental drivers. From a 17-year old playing a tragic Madam Butterfly character in Toll of the Sea, to the daughter of Fu Manchu, her character always had to die.

As in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the ultimate threat to the white man’s world is embodied in a non-white woman of Freudian nightmare: mysterious, untamed and powerful. The horror! A feminised China in Western eyes similarly represents to timid minds the unknowable, unconquerable entity at the centre of their own id: their fears made flesh.

Even though the white hero could flirt with Wong, find her amusing, be besotted with her exoticism, they were never allowed to kiss onscreen. Similarly, the West may play with the exotic East, admire China’s cleverness and buy its cheap goods, but will never recognise it as an equal. As long as the object of desire never excels, reminding them of what it is they lack, it is tolerable.

However, being cleverer, more able when let off the leash, repositories of secret knowledge held in dark corners of the mind alien to the big lugs who seek dominance, is not tolerable.

Never mind that this threat is mostly paranoid projection. How insecure do you have to be to hold Chinese from Anna May Wong to the nation of China responsible for your own neurosis surrounding their outstanding distinction? Never truly welcomed as a strategic partner, China will always be defined as the strategic competitor; forever smacked down for someone else’s inadequacy.

As above, so below.

So here is a poem: my political analysis, cultural response and artistic endeavour in 32 lines.

Anna May Wong Must Die!

By Anna Chen, 2009

Down in the alleys of old Chinatown,
In the gawdy bawdy backstreets of sinister renown,
Dope pedlars peddle, the dragon gets chased,
It’s the same old story, the same yellowface
The Man with the Fu Manchu opium embrace
Could kill you in an instant and never leave a trace.
He knows all the tricks how to get you high
And that’s why Anna May Wong must die.

Down in the sewers of Chinatown way,
Chinamen get chinkified every single day.
Little yellow people all merging into one,
You eat their rice for punishment, their noodles are no fun.
Robotic ant-like army with phasers set to stun,
Marching cross the countryside, nowhere left to run.
Here’s a tall poppy soaring in the sky
And that’s why Anna May Wong must die.

Silver screen dreams in black and white
But without the black bits, so that’s alright.
Along came a flapper, a cute little score,
The women went ‘Ooh!’ and the boys went, ‘Phwoah!’
Black hair, almond eyes, a figure to adore,
Yellow skin glistening, sticking in their craw,
There’s a comet in the heavens, the end is nigh
And that’s why Anna May Wong must die.

Who’s that upstart flouting all the rules?
Not one thing or the other, fall between two stools.
It’s Anna getting cocky, Anna out of line,
Anna take your punishment, Anna do your time,
Scary Chinee nemesis looking mighty sly
Crush the Dragon lady, the mastermind of crime.
Anna kissed a white boy and made him cry
And that’s why Anna May Wong must die.

More about Anna May Wong in the BBC profile: A Celestial Star in Piccadilly (2009)

Anna Chen — Writer, presenter and broadcaster: BBC and Guardian before the pivot to China; ResonanceFM. Asia Times, New Internationalist, South China Morning Post. TED speaker, Orwell Prize shortlisted, cultural outrider.

Lauren Bacall dies at 89: Bogey and Slim reunited in the hereafter

Oh, this really, REALLY hurts. Yesterday Robin Williams passed away; today, I find out that one of my all-time favourites, LAUREN BACALL, one of Hollywood's great beauties, also died aged 89.

Bronx-born Betty Perske was the star of To Have and Have Not at 19, going on the weave her screen magic in The Big Sleep, Key Largo and How To Marry A Millionare when they grew proper screen goddesses in America.

Wooed by 44-year old WASP Humphrey Bogart, her co-star in To Have and Have Not, she was so horrified by the casual anti-Semitic banter among her movie industry friends that it took a while before she felt safe enough to admit to her lover that she was Jewish. Thankfully, it wasn't an issue.

They married, had two children, came out as leftists during the McCarthy political witch-hunt era and were then scared off, leaving them open to unfair charges of being rat-finks but they avoided the blacklist.

I saw her on stage in Tennessee Williams's Sweet Bird of Youth in London and was mesmerised.

"You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow."

RIP LAUREN BACALL, Mrs Humphrey Bogart (or was he Mr Lauren Bacall?).

My poem about Lauren ...

Ode To A Detox On Returning From St Ives

I'd hoped to grow old like Lauren Bacall
Elegant, willowy, tall
Tight arse, tons of class
An enigma on a pedestal.

Once slender and considered quite tasty
In a thin thong and pasties
The pasties are now Cornish pasties
And I can't thing the thame thong without crying.
My legendary six-pack is now a six-pack of cider
My inner Size Zero grows a whole lot wider
Finds the hacksaw hidden inside the cheesecake
And hacks her way free,
Pausing only for a swift one with pork scratchings on the side
Deep fried.
If only I ate apples instead of being shaped like one
I am a woman of many appetites but fruit salad ain't fun.
My overactive mandibles leave love handles the size of trees
I love my food but my food hates me
Treacherous, it deposits clues
In my jelly belly
it's a jelly belly, it's a jelly belly, it's a jelly belly, it's a jelly belly
I tried sleeping with the fishes
Even they didn't fancy me
They flashed their fins and went upscale
And threw me out of the sea.

A whale washed up
A chubby cherub after the Fall
I roll across the land, a shapeless fog
Devouring all in an epic trawl.
I wish the fog was a pea-souper
‘Cause I could scoff that an' all
Scarf the lot like a hog.
Nom, nom, nom.
No! This lardy bard must recall
Lauren Bacall was no butterball.

Fat threatens to settle in folds,
In rolls of old cholesterol.
The make-up thickens
Like clotting cream
Like several inches of plasticene
Like fossil strata from the palioscene.
My bags are now luggage
My breasts are baggage
In body angst overdrive
My reflection is savage.
I will rivet closed my gaping maws
My beak snaps shut
My greedy paws gathering greenery
My jaws chewing up the scenery
Filling the hole inside me,
‘Cause I recognise the metaphors.
Grimly I scan the vision before me
And understand why no-one adores me.
I do not enthrall like Lauren Bacall
Tons of flaws, open pores,
I'm growing old like Diana Dors.

Anna Chen, September 2010

DREAMS THAT DIE: misadventures in Hollywood — review

EDIT JUN 2021: Well, another white male lefty puts the boot in. A year or so ago, as sinophobia deepened and spread, I appealed to John Wight, now making a name for himself on the UK Left, for some sort of support instead of reinforcing the left hostility and blackout that was going on. We'd been in communication for a few years and I regarded him as a friend, impressed enough with his writing to review his autobiography favourably. His response to my reaching out was not to talk, engage or exhibit any curiosity or comradely concern, but to courageously block me on Twitter. So no solidarity for me but brownie points earned for himself within a wretched left.

Dreams that die, indeed.

I've decided to leave up my review of his book I posted on 3rd March 2013 as what I wrote was genuinely felt and written in good faith. Rewriting history is something I'll leave to others.

More background here.

REVIEW

In Dreams That Die, lefty journalist John Wight tells a good yarn very well, which is to be expected from a budding screenwriter who had the nerve to take off for Hollywood Mecca with nothing but a script and a few hundred quid to his name.

Charm and a Scottish accent only get you so far in La La Land. Luckily, his 6ft-plus frame and sheer determination earn him the just about liveable wage of two hundred bucks a week working as an elite bouncer and film extra while he touts his script round town.

He's punched out bullies at the Mondrian Skybar; been trapped in an enclosed space with Matt LeBlanc and his methane emissions without so much as a "how d'ya do?"; worked as Ben Affleck's movie stand-in; and guarded Jimmy Hoffa Junior in the midst of a Teamsters union war. He's been an extra in Friends, Alias, ER and CSI among a slew of TV series.

He also got stuck into the American anti-Iraq war movement after 9/11, helping to organise events, culminating in the huge 70,000 strong San Francisco demonstration in 2003.

Full of lively detail laced with juicy Tinsel Town gossip, this autobiographical tale of an awakening political consciousness set against the backdrop of capitalism's own Sodom and Gommorah stands out from the usual Hollywood stories by bringing a class dimension to Wight's experience.

He describes the delusion that keeps the "oppressed, humiliated, maligned and bullied" in their place so well you can taste it. The promise of fame, fortune and the intoxicating prospect of taking their higher position up the food chain like lost princelings and princesses regaining their rightful status and restoring some sort of cosmic equilibrium ensures nothing changes. Nowadays they don't just shoot horses; they feed them back to you in fast-food Soylent Green stylee and all you can say is "yummy!".

"In this dystopia of desperation and delusion, the American Dream remained a living, breathing entity, one that belonged to all who were willing to abase themselves before it. Thus any attempt to instill a class consciousness was doomed from the start."

Well, duh. But it's fun watching him try.

I read this with a certain pleasure of recognition as there are a number of amusing parallels with my own experience of trying to balance cultural warrior with political activist. My screenwriting led to time in the early 1990s as a script editor and consultant, working like a dawg by the swimming pool round the corner from the Carolco building, Tower Records and the Viper Room, shaded by palm trees and drinking cocktails with brightly coloured paper umbrellas and laughing at the cheek of it all. I have had the entire restaurant menu recited to me by the most stunning movie-stars in waiting and then had to apologetically ask them to do it all over again as I was too overwhelmed by the oddity of such a pointless hierarchy-enforcing task to take it in the first time around, multi-tasking going to the wall under the pressure of the novelty.

Wight and I must have overlapped at the Mondrian as I stayed there in 2002, failing to recognise a single sleb in the Skybar and opting for early nights so I could go sight-seeing. I have ridden horses in the same Aguora Hills where Wight managed to make an extra couple of grand in a rather unconventional walk-on part from which he was lucky to escape with his teeth intact. Verily, I have drunk from the same pool of vulgarity and I understand its lure. And, like Wight, I have been aware of the contradictions.

And made the same bone-headed choices that meant — in his case — turning down a potentially career-making meeting with Sean Connery in order to attend an antiwar conference in New York. I am infuriated with his decision but I understand it utterly. That's what happens when politics get in the way of ambition.

It's certainly a whole lot more attractive than the charlatans of the British left who I've seen drop all principles the moment something was up for grabs.

This book is a page-turner with substance, clear as a window-pane to make George Orwell proud, and should be read by anyone interested in working-class leftist culture. In the time-honoured tradition of all great Hollywood stories, the hero fails in his original quest, gains his soul and (almost) gets the girl. What could be better than that? Apart from world revolution, an end to war and a million quid in the bank?

Lena Horne dies at 92: Hollywood's first major black signing

She was one of the great Hollywood beauties, but being black meant she could perform only as torch-singer or maid.

Lena Horne died yesterday at 92, having pioneered the visibility of black performers in the entertainment industry. She was a mix of African-American and Native American with a fascinating background as a member of the middle-class black intelligentsia. Her relatives included actors, an inventor, and an adviser to FD Roosevelt.

She joined the Cotton Club as a nightclub singer in the 1930s and signed to MGM, becoming the first black artist to have a long-term contract with a major Hollywood studio. Films included Stormy Weather (on loan to 20th Century Fox) for which she sang the title song, and Cabin In The Sky, an all-African-American extravaganza.

Race laws and codes prevented her from being given leading roles and her appearances were often edited out for screenings in the most backward states. Lenny Bruce had a routine contemplating the racists' choice between Kate Smith (a patriotic Valkyrie famous for glass-shattering performances of "God Bless America" and not known for pulchritude) and the divine Ms Horne.

"You are a white. The Imperial Wizard. Now, if you don't think this is logic you can burn me on the fiery cross. This is the logic: You have the choice of spending fifteen years married to a woman, a black woman or a white woman. Fifteen years kissing and hugging and sleeping real close on hot nights. With a black, black woman or a white, white woman. The white woman is Kate Smith. And the black woman is Lena Horne. So you're not concerned with black or white anymore, are you? You are concerned with how cute or how pretty. Then let's really get basic and persecute ugly people!"

She was blacklisted (pun fully intended) in Hollywood due to her progressive views: support of the civil rights movement alongside Paul Robeson, Harry Belafonte and others, working on anti-lynching laws, and refusing to perform before segregated audiences when she played for American troops. Due to army bloody-mindedness, she ended up with a bizarre mix of black GIs and white German POWs.

Her movie career in the doldrums, she focused on her nightclub work and eventually did well in television.

Nevin recommends an appraisal of Lena Horne's life by Amy Goodman here


Lena Horne as the vamp, Georgia Brown, in Cabin In The Sky

Lena Horne dies at 92: Hollywood's first major black signing

She was one of the great Hollywood beauties, but being black meant she could perform only as torch-singer or maid.

Lena Horne died yesterday at 92, having pioneered the visibility of black performers in the entertainment industry. She was a mix of African-American and Native American with a fascinating background as a member of the middle-class black intelligentsia. Her relatives included actors, an inventor, and an adviser to FD Roosevelt.

She joined the Cotton Club as a nightclub singer in the 1930s and signed to MGM, becoming the first black artist to have a long-term contract with a major Hollywood studio. Films included Stormy Weather (on loan to 20th Century Fox) for which she sang the title song, and Cabin In The Sky, an all-African-American extravaganza.

Race laws and codes prevented her from being given leading roles and her appearances were often edited out for screenings in the most backward states. Lenny Bruce had a routine contemplating the racists' choice between Kate Smith (a patriotic Valkyrie famous for glass-shattering performances of "God Bless America" and not known for pulchritude) and the divine Ms Horne.

"You are a white. The Imperial Wizard. Now, if you don't think this is logic you can burn me on the fiery cross. This is the logic: You have the choice of spending fifteen years married to a woman, a black woman or a white woman. Fifteen years kissing and hugging and sleeping real close on hot nights. With a black, black woman or a white, white woman. The white woman is Kate Smith. And the black woman is Lena Horne. So you're not concerned with black or white anymore, are you? You are concerned with how cute or how pretty. Then let's really get basic and persecute ugly people!"

She was blacklisted (pun fully intended) in Hollywood due to her progressive views: support of the civil rights movement alongside Paul Robeson, Harry Belafonte and others, working on anti-lynching laws, and refusing to perform before segregated audiences when she played for American troops. Due to army bloody-mindedness, she ended up with a bizarre mix of black GIs and white German POWs.

Her movie career in the doldrums, she focused on her nightclub work and eventually did well in television.

Nevin recommends an appraisal of Lena Horne's life by Amy Goodman here


Lena Horne as the vamp, Georgia Brown, in Cabin In The Sky

Iris Robinson cougar queen: What would Jesus say?

Jesus would tell you this, hun. Nil desperandum, Iris Robinson: deposed, reviled, shamed former First Lady of the Irish Assembly. Your career in politics may be over but, you know what? You are a star. What is politics anyways? Showbiz for ugly people and you have the looks if not the nouse and the principles. That's for the birds. You are a COUGAR, baybeh, and no mistake.

Banter at Splinty's has yielded a fab plan. Don't slit your wrists when you could head for Tinseltown and leave the stiffs in your wake. Harry, Splinty and I will be your agents, advisors, whatever, and knock you into shape.

Get yourself a PR (anyone got Max's mobile?), a placcy surgery job, which I'm sure your, ahem, business acquaintances can front for you like they always do. Puff out those thin mean lips with collagen and get some warmth into those pitiless blanks and you're away. Maybe there's a community fund somewhere that might loan you the air-fare outta town to save them the trouble of sharpening the pitchforks and firing up the torches or whatever it is they do over there. But try to steer clear of the ducking stool in these chilly climes even if it does tighten the wattles and closes the pores a treat.

You won't be the first politicians to make this trek. And you won't be the last. Not with Tommy Sheridan waiting in the wings.

Hollywood is yours for the taking. La-La-Land doesn't do shame. They love sinners who repent and they eat hypocrisy off a stick. But you may have to shut up about gays. Have your pic taken with RuPaul. Open up a gay bar or sumthin'. Ask that nice Kirk to help out — he knows about catering and I hear he's going down a storm.

Right-wing Christian shock-jocks will welcome you to their bosom and I'm sure that'll be reciprocal. Have a chat to St Stephen Baldwin when he's evicted from the Celebrity Big Brother House. Soon. A sixty-year WOMAN old schtupping a 19-year-old MAN? A 19-year-old whose nappies you might have changed? Did you take tips from Hefner? (Maybe he shoulda told you the one about not chucking stones in glass abodes, or was it casting the first stone when you are stoned yourself which I will never do as I am all green-eyed and looking forward to trying this out myself.) Way to go, Iris. Kudos. You are the Queen of Cougars. You got it made.

Iris Robinson cougar queen: What would Jesus say?

Jesus would tell you this, hun. Nil desperandum, Iris Robinson: deposed, reviled, shamed former First Lady of the Irish Assembly. Your career in politics may be over but, you know what? You are a star. What is politics anyways? Showbiz for ugly people and you have the looks if not the nouse and the principles. That's for the birds. You are a COUGAR, baybeh, and no mistake.

Banter at Splinty's has yielded a fab plan. Don't slit your wrists when you could head for Tinseltown and leave the stiffs in your wake. Harry, Splinty and I will be your agents, advisors, whatever, and knock you into shape.

Get yourself a PR (anyone got Max's mobile?), a placcy surgery job, which I'm sure your, ahem, business acquaintances can front for you like they always do. Puff out those thin mean lips with collagen and get some warmth into those pitiless blanks and you're away. Maybe there's a community fund somewhere that might loan you the air-fare outta town to save them the trouble of sharpening the pitchforks and firing up the torches or whatever it is they do over there. But try to steer clear of the ducking stool in these chilly climes even if it does tighten the wattles and closes the pores a treat.

You won't be the first politicians to make this trek. And you won't be the last. Not with Tommy Sheridan waiting in the wings.

Hollywood is yours for the taking. La-La-Land doesn't do shame. They love sinners who repent and they eat hypocrisy off a stick. But you may have to shut up about gays. Have your pic taken with RuPaul. Open up a gay bar or sumthin'. Ask that nice Kirk to help out — he knows about catering and I hear he's going down a storm.

Right-wing Christian shock-jocks will welcome you to their bosom and I'm sure that'll be reciprocal. Have a chat to St Stephen Baldwin when he's evicted from the Celebrity Big Brother House. Soon. A sixty-year WOMAN old schtupping a 19-year-old MAN? A 19-year-old whose nappies you might have changed? Did you take tips from Hefner? (Maybe he shoulda told you the one about not chucking stones in glass abodes, or was it casting the first stone when you are stoned yourself which I will never do as I am all green-eyed and looking forward to trying this out myself.) Way to go, Iris. Kudos. You are the Queen of Cougars. You got it made.

Hollywood loses balls, actors find theirs: Golden Globes cancelled

Is that poor wee bairn, solidarity, raising its orphan head over in the City of Angels? Astoundingly, actors are refusing to cross the striking writers' picket lines, meaning no designer frocks on loan, no goody bags and no awards ceremony as this year's Golden Globes is cancelled.

Instead, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the organisation that owns the Golden Globes Awards, will be announcing the winners at a Beverley Hilton press conference on Sunday when the event was scheduled to take place.

Being so used to posties and tube workers who defend their rights and their service against rapacious carpet-bagging privatisers being trashed in the media here in the UK, it quite brings a tear to my eye to see some fairly pampered talent sacrificing their spot in the limelight in support of the hard-working writers who think all this stuff up in the first place.

It's amazing that four lousy cents on a DVD is all it would take to make the writers happy and end the strike. But the studios seem intent on breaking the Writers Guild of America. Still, it could be worse. They could have a government bringing in draconian anti-strike legislation like Labour is attempting to do here. I still remember the slogan: only a slave may not withdraw their labour. And here's Labour demanding we call them "massa".

Call me an old romantic but I'll always be the starlet who slept with the writer - good luck guys.

Support is coming from all over as self-interest is superceded by principles. Joss Whedon, who gave the world Buffy The Vampire Slayer, is one of our generation's finest writers whose influence is felt in Britain from the Dr Who stable to Eastenders. He has many projects in the pipeline and yet he's encouraging his legion of fans to support the strike and take pizza and chocolate to the picket lines. Comfort as well as nutrients - now that's what I call a protest!

"None of the writers – or anyone – I’ve spoken to have ever heard of fans organizing and supporting a strike the way you guys have. Supporting our right not to entertain you. Seriously, that’s rare."

Jay Leno got off to a good start but lost his nerve and wrote himself a set for his TV chat show. What happened to spontaneity and improvisational skills? I hope he pickets himself.

George Clooney denies masterminding the latest militancy, but scores a labour movement hat-trick by being a member of the actors', writers' and directors' unions. Wadda guy. Shame about his taking the Nestle shilling.

It's hard to think of the equivalent happening here.

Anyone planning on hunkering down and watching their screen heroes' old exploits on DVD for the duration of what promises to be a long action, be warned if you are investing in the latest hardware. Make sure you buy Sony Blu-ray technology as the rival Toshiba HD-DVD now goes the way of Betamax with Paramount's decision to back Blu-ray.

Thankfully, this household is always a good ten years behind the current technology - I will miss the cathode ray tube - so we are never caught out buying the Wrong Stuff. I'm still hanging onto my favourite videos 'cause I don't entirely trust those shiny little discs. Assuming we survive the dystopian downturn headed our way, we'll probably be ready for our first plasma screen the day civilisation finally crumbles to dust. But at least there'll be writers to write about it.

Hollywood loses balls, actors find theirs: Golden Globes cancelled

Is that poor wee bairn, solidarity, raising its orphan head over in the City of Angels? Astoundingly, actors are refusing to cross the striking writers' picket lines, meaning no designer frocks on loan, no goody bags and no awards ceremony as this year's Golden Globes is cancelled.

Instead, the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, the organisation that owns the Golden Globes Awards, will be announcing the winners at a Beverley Hilton press conference on Sunday when the event was scheduled to take place.

Being so used to posties and tube workers who defend their rights and their service against rapacious carpet-bagging privatisers being trashed in the media here in the UK, it quite brings a tear to my eye to see some fairly pampered talent sacrificing their spot in the limelight in support of the hard-working writers who think all this stuff up in the first place.

It's amazing that four lousy cents on a DVD is all it would take to make the writers happy and end the strike. But the studios seem intent on breaking the Writers Guild of America. Still, it could be worse. They could have a government bringing in draconian anti-strike legislation like Labour is attempting to do here. I still remember the slogan: only a slave may not withdraw their labour. And here's Labour demanding we call them "massa".

Call me an old romantic but I'll always be the starlet who slept with the writer - good luck guys.

Support is coming from all over as self-interest is superceded by principles. Joss Whedon, who gave the world Buffy The Vampire Slayer, is one of our generation's finest writers whose influence is felt in Britain from the Dr Who stable to Eastenders. He has many projects in the pipeline and yet he's encouraging his legion of fans to support the strike and take pizza and chocolate to the picket lines. Comfort as well as nutrients - now that's what I call a protest!

"None of the writers – or anyone – I’ve spoken to have ever heard of fans organizing and supporting a strike the way you guys have. Supporting our right not to entertain you. Seriously, that’s rare."

Jay Leno got off to a good start but lost his nerve and wrote himself a set for his TV chat show. What happened to spontaneity and improvisational skills? I hope he pickets himself.

George Clooney denies masterminding the latest militancy, but scores a labour movement hat-trick by being a member of the actors', writers' and directors' unions. Wadda guy. Shame about his taking the Nestle shilling.

It's hard to think of the equivalent happening here.

Anyone planning on hunkering down and watching their screen heroes' old exploits on DVD for the duration of what promises to be a long action, be warned if you are investing in the latest hardware. Make sure you buy Sony Blu-ray technology as the rival Toshiba HD-DVD now goes the way of Betamax with Paramount's decision to back Blu-ray.

Thankfully, this household is always a good ten years behind the current technology - I will miss the cathode ray tube - so we are never caught out buying the Wrong Stuff. I'm still hanging onto my favourite videos 'cause I don't entirely trust those shiny little discs. Assuming we survive the dystopian downturn headed our way, we'll probably be ready for our first plasma screen the day civilisation finally crumbles to dust. But at least there'll be writers to write about it.