Dear Gossips,   

We are now entering the first full week of the Hollywood strike as actors have now joined writers in the work stoppage in the hopes of getting a fair deal from the AMTPT. Work stoppage, for actors, means no filming, no red carpets, no interviews, no promotion whatsoever. Yesterday Sarah initiated a discussion with our team about publishing film and television reviews because there’s been some question about whether or not that would constitute the “promotional work for struck companies”. 

 

She proposed that we would continue to promote the movie or the series with a disclaimer: 

“This review was published during the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes of 2023. The work being reviewed would not exist without the labor of writers and actors.”

We will apply this retroactively and we will add this to reviews going forward. Because these projects are indeed the work of the artists, they would not be possible without the artists. And on a similar note, I saw something on Twitter that I’m sharing here about whether or not to continue going to see movies. 

 

The unions are not calling for a boycott on the content that THEY have created. What they want is for their work to be valued and appreciated fairly. As an audience member, if you value and appreciate the content, you buy a ticket, and you spend your precious time on that piece of entertainment. 

As for the continued misunderstanding that this is just about rich, spoiled actors and writers who just greedily want more – once again, SAG-AFTRA is 160,000 members. We probably only knew three or four hundred, if that, by name. The other many thousands are far from wealthy. Leslie Jones explains: 

 

The person who shared that tweet, Anna Brisbin, is a voice actor with, as you can see, a pretty healthy social media following but not a household name. And that’s who we’re talking about when we say that this strike isn’t about the big movie stars wanting more millions. The people who will benefit from what the unions are negotiating for are not famous and may never be famous – but they’re essential to the business. 

There’s already been a lot of misinformation and disinformation out there about the strike and, for the most part, that will only advantage the corporations. So here’s something to remember as you navigate the news about the situation: 

Yours in gossip, 

Lainey