Back in the dark, primordial days of early Hollywood, Jack Warner, the now legendary fat-cat founder of Warner Bros. Studios, famously declared that screenwriters were nothing more than “schmucks with Underwoods” (in reference to the state-of-the-art Underwood typewriters employed at the time). And while the craft and business of screenwriting has undoubtedly changed since papa Jack’s time, the truth is that screenwriters are still generally treated like the Hollywood equivalent of a urinal cake: no matter how hard they try to keep things fresh, they inevitably end up getting whizzed on.

Okay, so maybe my horrible urinary-tract style metaphor is a little on the extreme side, but the fact of the matter is Hollywood has maintained a long and proud tradition of marginalizing, neglecting and occasionally even abusing its screenwriters. It’s a tradition which came to a head last year during the messy Mexican stand-off that was the writers strike; a situation which resulted in countless film and television productions being dropped faster than Harvey Weinstein’s last colonic. Officially, the strike was fuelled by the WGA’s desire for a slice of the increasingly lucrative new media pie, but there’s little doubt that writers were equally driven by pent up frustrations after years of mistreatment and mismanagement at the hands of Hollywood studios.

Of course, eventually the strike was resolved, freeing audiences from overexposure to the terrifying “outside world” and brain aneurysm-inducing reruns of Let’s Make a Deal, but the strike also served to reinforce the general contempt Hollywood seems to have for its scribes. And while the majority of film and television audiences were clearly in support of the writers (if for no other reason than to watch new episodes of Battlestar Galactica and Lost), even after the frenzied media blitz last year, most people are still blissfully unaware of what screenwriters really do, or for that matter, who they even are. In fact, ask your standard John or Joan Q. North American who their favourite screenwriter is and chances are they’d be hard pressed to name even one screenwriter, let alone pick a favourite. Meanwhile actors, directors and even the occasional producer, bask in the adoration of the masses while writers generally remain a little known quantity in the entertainment industry — with the exception of the occasional Diablo Cody or Joe Eszterhas appearing as the screenwriting raison d’être.

So why exactly are screenwriters mistreated and ignored by both Hollywood and the movie-going public alike? The obvious answer is the nature of writing itself. Writing is after all, a solitary and highly introverted profession and in the case of screenwriting, with the exception of an occasional collaboration between writers (or a handful of writers in the case of some television scribes), the screenwriting process generally consists of some poor bastard sitting alone in front of a blank page chugging Pepto-Bismol and bourbon and trying desperately to create something that people will actually want to see. It’s a strange and highly personal process and one that also varies from screenwriter to screenwriter. Sure anyone can pick apart the plot and the characters, but only the writer really understands the process and challenges of developing that particular script. What’s more, like any art form, screenplays are also highly subjective with one man’s Citizen Kane being another’s Battlefield Earth. As a result, Hollywood executives and the public remain generally clueless about what goes into screenwriting or for that matter what actually makes a good screenplay (all of which explains the millions of dollars Hollywood spends each year simply optioning screenplays that are never made into films). Is it any wonder then that studio executives are suspicious of writers, viewing them as a necessary evil at best and a parasitic life form at worst?

The negative and overlooked perception of screenwriters gets even stickier when you stop and consider that writing itself often seems like an effortless task. After all, reading and writing are something most of us do on a daily basis, regardless of our profession, and for most people it seems all too easy to try and hop a ride on the writer gravy train. That in and of itself isn’t such a bad thing – after all, even the most successful screenwriter has to start somewhere – but it would also explain why an entire industry has conveniently cropped up based on the idea that anyone can become a screenwriter; with countless books, seminars, magazines and DVD sets flooding shelves in an effort to convince would-be screenwriters that they too can become a Hollywood wordsmith. For many people it’s as simple as taking Robert McKee’s legendary “Story” seminar or reading Screenwriting for Dummies and then assuming they’ll be the next Tarantino. It also doesn’t help that there are indeed plenty of shitty movies out there with scripts that seem to have been written by mildly-autistic crack addicts (Daddy Day Camp, anyone?). The end result however, is a poisonous concoction of ignorance, exploitation and Hollywood flops that only adds to the public misconception and devaluing of talented professional screenwriters.

This also ties in directly to the concept of implementation. Unlike a novel, a screenplay isn’t the end product; rather it’s more of a blueprint which directors, producers, actors and crew members use to create a complete film. In this sense, a screenplay is for all intents and purposes, only a small part of the film making process (albeit an important one). It’s easy then for Hollywood studios to overlook the screenwriter as only one cog in the wheel of production, particularly when they’re managing A-list directors and actors, multi-million dollar budgets and international marketing campaigns. Translating a script onto the big screen however, can also mean that an initially great script can become pure cinematic garbage once it’s out of a screenwriters hands. Case in point: screenwriter Vincent Ngo’s script for the recent Will Smith super hero flick Hancock. The initial script (originally optioned in 1996 when it was entitled Tonight, He Comes) has been systematically picked apart, chewed up and spit back together again by countless additional screenwriters and Hollywood execs resulting in a finished shooting script far different (and some would argue, significantly shittier) than the one Ngo originally wrote. For good or for ill, transforming a screenplay into a feature film is a difficult and demanding process and as an unfortunate side effect it often means that Hollywood views writers as an expendable and exploitable resource.

It also doesn’t help that both studios and the movie going public see writers as pampered artists, cranking out scripts for huge pay outs — an image that’s been exacerbated over the years (particularly in the early 90s) by high profile screenwriters like Shane Black who were often paid millions for a single treatment. In point of fact, screenwriters like Black are the exception that proves the rule. Take the 2007 annual Hollywood Writers Report, a study commissioned last year by the WGA to determine the state of employment and earning among writers. The report found that feature film writers earned, on average, roughly $90,000 USD a year, which in Los Angeles is probably the equivalent of most studio executive’s annual frappuccino budget. That’s not to say there aren’t screenwriters getting paid insane amounts of cash for their work; it’s just that the majority of Hollywood screenwriters (including those on the picket lines during last year’s strike) seem to be getting by on only a relatively modest income.

Maybe being a wannabe screenwriter has clouded my judgment and I’m lavishing far too much praise on Hollywood scribes. After all, these are individuals who are paid to write movies, something which a lot of us I suspect, can only dream of. Yet, simply because screenwriters work in what’s often perceived as an glamorous industry shouldn’t detract from the notion that they be fairly compensated and recognized for their work. The truth is that the majority of Hollywood screenwriters are dedicated, talented and hardworking in addition to being underpaid and overlooked; a far cry from the “schmucks with Underwoods” label Jack Warner unfairly applied decades ago. But while it’s easy to be pessimistic about the screenwriting profession, if last year’s strike is any indication things may indeed be changing for the better. That’s not to say there isn’t a long, hard road ahead in order for writers to gain the respect and financial security they deserve, but if screenwriters have taught us anything it’s that the most impressive changes of all can start with nothing more than a single word…