Barbie, Ken and Wednesday Addams costumes are out. Ghosts and zombies are in.
Halloween this yr is difficult for actors on strike, underneath new union pointers that inform them find out how to keep away from crossing the digital picket line: Don’t costume as characters from main studio productions or put up pictures of the costumes on-line.
“Let’s use our collective energy to ship a loud and clear message to our struck employers that we’ll not promote their content material with out a honest contract,” the union, SAG-AFTRA, stated within the pointers on Thursday.
The union urged its members to “have a good time Halloween this yr whereas additionally staying in solidarity.”
SAG-AFTRA, representing greater than 150,000 tv and film actors, has been on strike since July whereas it negotiates a contract with the Alliance of Movement Image and Tv Producers, which represents main film and streaming firms together with Disney, Netflix and Warner Bros.
Typically, the union encourages placing members to share pictures of their union engagement and the picket line to be able to amplify their calls for, which embody elevated residual funds from streaming companies, a wage increase and protections concerning the usage of synthetic intelligence. However SAG-AFTRA stated its Halloween pointers had been supposed “to ensure our members don’t inadvertently break strike guidelines.”
The rules urge members to decide on generic costumes — of zombies, spiders or ghosts, say — or to base their costumes on characters from animated tv reveals.
In its protection of the brand new pointers on Thursday, The Hollywood Reporter highlighted among the guidelines’ technicalities. For instance, a fancy dress based mostly on Barbie, which is owned by Mattel, may counsel that the wearer was selling the summer season’s greatest film from a significant studio.
“Presumably, actors may costume up like struck characters in the event that they weren’t seen publicly of their costumes, however it’s in all probability finest to not danger it — in spite of everything, nothing is scarier than getting referred to as out for scabbing,” the publication wrote, utilizing the slang time period for somebody who disregards a strike.
Social media images of costumes impressed by content material coated by the strike may very well be thought of publicity work, in line with the union. It was not clear how actors would deal with dressing up as Barbie or J. Robert Oppenheimer at occasions that may not be publicized or whether or not actors would affect the costume selections of their relations.
“I sit up for screaming ‘scab’ at my 8 yr previous all evening. She’s not within the union however she must be taught,” the actor Ryan Reynolds stated in a joking post on X, the platform previously referred to as Twitter.
John Rocha, a union actor and the co-host of “The Scorching Mic,” a movie evaluate podcast, referred to as the choice “silly” and stated he hoped that SAG-AFTRA would reverse course.
“Partying at Halloween dressed because the characters their fellow SAG actors dropped at life (whereas they blow off some steam) ought to be ENCOURAGED,” he said on X.
Negotiations between the leisure studios and the union collapsed final week, with each side saying they remained far aside on probably the most vital points.
