(JTA) – In the second season of “The Nanny,” the sitcom she wrote and starred in, Fran Drescher’s character, Fran Fine, refuses to enter a hotel where the busboys are striking.
She tells the father of her family’s business, “I’m so sorry, but Fines do not cross picketlines.” It’s against our faith.”
Drescher’s laugh line is one of the many times she served her trademark mash-up of brashness with liberal politics and Jewishness in her series from early 1990s and beyond.
Now, three decades later, Drescher is one of the most prominent advocates for organized labor – and it’s hardly a joke. Screen Actors Guild – the union Drescher has led since her appointment in 2021 – went on strike last week over studios’ treatment of actors at a time when digital streaming is rife. Joining with the union representing writers, which is also on strike, the guild has effectively caused Hollywood to grind to a halt – and Drescher is leading the charge.
“What we received from them was what my mother would call “a leck and shmeck,” “a tiny amount that you could barely smell, or taste,” she said in a press briefing last week.
Drescher has joined a long line of Jewish women who have been active in labor activism. In 1909, Clara Lemlich, a 23-year-old Jewish garment worker, gave an impassioned speech – also in Yiddish – that ignited a 20,000-person general strike consisting mostly of women, reshaping her industry and strengthening the power of unions.
The “Great Revolt,” or a subsequent strike by 50,000 mostly male clothing workers, is considered a turning point in the history of labor. Pamela Nadell is the director of American University’s Jewish studies program and the author of America’s Jewish Women: a History from Colonial Times To Today. She said that the women were the ones who started the Great Revolt.
Lemlich’s not the only one. Rose Schneiderman was also instrumental at the time in helping the state pass fire safety legislation after the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in 1911. Bessie Abramovitz was one of the founding members of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union. She launched a major strike in 1911 against the menswear retailer Hart Schaffner and Marx.
The American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the second largest teachers’ union in the United States, and one of the 10 biggest unions on a global basis, was led twice by Jewish women. This includes its current president Randi Weingarten.
Nadell stated, “What you are seeing is that Jewish women have a tendency to stand up for injustices when they see them.” “Stories about Jewish woman’s social activism… It’s passed from generation-to-generation.”
Drescher was raised in Queens by Sylvia Drescher (a bridal consultant) and Mort Drescher (a naval systems analyst). Her character’s parents in “The Nanny”, had the same name. She said in an interview that her father taught to her “refine what already exists, and not accept what’s there.”
Drescher has always made her Jewish identity a central part of the characters she plays on screen. Fran Fine, the main character of the show teaches the Sheffields Yiddish and Jewish holidays. The show has drawn criticism for perpetuating stereotypes of Jewish women who are whiny, obsessed with marrying doctors and always looking for a sale – but it also has enduring Jewish fans, including writer and actor Ilana Glazer, who cast Drescher as her aunt on “Broad City.”
In the 1997 romantic comedies “The Beautician and the Beast”, Drescher’s New York City beautician Joy Miller ends up in a fictional Eastern European nation ruled by Boris Pochenko. In one scene she visits a factory and talks to a worker who is upset that he has to stay late for work and miss dinner. She reminds him that he can still earn overtime.
When he states that he does not understand the concept, her eyes get a dreamy appearance. Then she is shown passionately speaking to the workers.
Pochenko lashes out at Miller for her uncalled-for behavior when they meet outside.
She replies: “You might have heard me say the word “strike.” I say lots of things! Who is listening?”
Drescher received criticism during her tenure as SAG-AFTRA President for her opposition to vaccine mandates within the film and TV industry, even though she claims she received all doses the COVID-19 vaccination.
Days before the contract with the AMPTP was set to expire, Drescher was the focus of more criticism as reality TV star and businesswoman Kim Kardashian – whose net worth is around $1.2 billion, according to Forbes – shared a photo of the two of them together in Puglia, Italy, in the middle of guild negotiations. Kardashian has 362,000,000 Instagram followers.
Later, Drescher clarified that she attended the event in Italy as part of her role as Dolce and Gabbana’s brand ambassador (she claims she did not meet Kardashian before the photo was taken) and the negotiating team was aware that she was there.
It is not the first strike she has taken against studios. She said that in 2020 she was asked by a network to make her “Nanny’s” character Italian rather than Jewish. At first, she said, she considered making the switch to facilitate her big break – but she decided against it.
“I don’t like to live with regret and I do not want to rush to do something just to get a job. Then, when things go wrong or fail, I kick myself, because I think, ‘Why did we not follow our instincts’? Why did you listen to them?” She said this on the podcast. I thought to myself, “I can’t bear that regret.” I knew this character needed to be close to me, and to all the wonderful characters I’ve grown up with.
She continued, referring to her then-husband Peter Marc Jacobson as co-writer: “Peter Marc Jacobson and I have a style of comedy that is rich in specificity. Not only could we not have written it this way, but I also couldn’t perform it that way. We mustered our courage and said “No, Fran Fine has to be Jewish”.
Drescher hopes that this same courage will lead to a better deal being offered to actors who claim they aren’t getting paid fairly for online streaming work. The SAG-AFTRA site states that the main issues of contract negotiations are: “economic justice, residuals and regulating the use artificial intelligence.” Guild members have been concerned by the AI proposal of AMPTP.
Duncan Crabtree Ireland said, “They want to scan our background actors, pay them for a full day’s work, and then their company owns the image of that person, their likeness. They can use that for eternity.” If you think this is a revolutionary proposal, you might want to reconsider.
In June, almost 98 percent voted in favor of a strike. It began Friday. Guild members cannot shoot, nor can they promote films or TV shows already made. This includes posting on social media, taking part in radio and print interviews and appearing on late-night talk shows. This strike follows the Writers Guild Strike, which started in May. Studio and AMPTP estimates that the strike will continue into October.
A studio executive told Deadline in regards to the writers’ strikes that “the endgame” is to continue to drag things out until union members lose their apartments and houses.
Drescher, who is also a WGA union member, expressed in May her support for both unions.
Drescher said to the AP that he was “in earnest” about moving forward with actors’ strike. He hoped they would gain more ground, and give us meat on the bones so we could have a meaningful discussion.
“They locked themselves away behind closed door, they cancelled our meetings, so we thought maybe they are really fighting in there,” added she. “Maybe, they’re going to come back with some meaningful information that we could have a meaningful debate about,” she added. She said “but we got bupkis”, using the Yiddish for zero. “And I’m afraid that we have been duped.”