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Stars Choose Sides as SAG Strike Apocalypse Descends
Posted by Defamer Hollywood at 4:25 AM on June 26, 2008
Everywhere we've been around the LA Film Festival this week, the chatter du jour is either oversexed studio minions or how folks plan to spend their off-days during the increasingly inevitable-looking SAG strike. The latter conflict came into even sharper relief today in Variety, which published a SAG-AFTRA Bullshit Scorecard (hardly an improvement over our SAG Strike Mad Libs™, but whatever) breaking down the lies, celebrity endorsees and various other spin the unions are wielding in their steel-cage labour war:
As SAG begins its 38th day of negotiations with the majors today, the pro-AFTRA forces have added Alec Baldwin and Kevin Spacey to their list of several hundred endorsers, led by Tom Hanks and Sally Field. ...
SAG announced Tuesday it had added high-profile supporters including Jack Nicholson, Ben Stiller, Josh Brolin, Ed Harris, Amy Madigan, Viggo Mortensen, Nick Nolte and Martin Sheen. It's also amped up its PR campaign via print ads.The SAG-AFTRA brawling also raises the key question of clout. SAG has blasted the notion of the AFTRA deal serving as a template, because AFTRA's last primetime contract generated $40 million for members while SAG's last three-year feature-primetime pact generated $4 billion over the same period. Observers say the argument makes little sense, because SAG has so many more members working in the primetime and film arena.
Elsewhere in the paper, the AMPTP gets the backhanded benefit of the doubt: "Studios could stop haggling over pennies, but that's sort of like telling an insurance company to quit low-balling you. That's just what they do — relying on any sane person to give up first." Which suggests to us there's only one solution — a fun, unscripted, winner-take-all slugfest that would conveniently circumvent any potential work stoppage following AFTRA's ratification vote next month: Ladies and gentlemen, let's play the Feud!
- SAG, AFTRA in Spin Cycle [Variety]
- SAG Misses its 'Norma Rae' Moment [Variety]
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
bess marvin, girl detective
Posted 4:57 AM 26/6/08
i heard rumors that SAG is going to disband after the strike and come back as a new union with only working actions included. is that true?
bess marvin, girl detective
laura23
Posted 5:58 AM 26/6/08
Viggo, Ed Harris and I should get together and discuss this thoroughly in a hotel for, like, two weeks. What are we talking about again? SAG-AFTRA? I'm for it/against it/whatever. Viggo. Ed. Me. Hotel.
laura23
Decebal
Posted 5:54 AM 26/6/08
>
and also totally NUTS.
Decebal
Wendy_Kroy
Posted 5:40 AM 26/6/08
I have less sympathy for this strike than I did the WGA strike. First, the WGA consists of working writers - you're kicked out if you go too long between gigs - which meant a strike had an immediate effect on them, and which thus gave gravitas to their complaints. Also, most of their income came from writing work, meaning they were making real sacrifices. In contrast, SAG consists of waiters at the Griddle Cafe who wouldn't have an acting job in the near future no matter what - it's no skin off their nose if the studios shut down.
Also, actors are annoying.
Wendy_Kroy
NoGrumpys
Posted 5:39 AM 26/6/08
Kristen Dunst is a member of SAG and I'm talking about her boobs
NoGrumpys
Losin_it
Posted 2:55 PM 26/6/08
Where does Denise Richards come down on this issue? That will be the deciding factor for me, personally.
Losin_it
pushingPixels
Posted 6:30 AM 26/6/08
This is a ploy to take the spotlight away from the real implications of what a strike will do. For the greed of the actors and union, they will destroy families and business's that survive on productions. I see that the SAG union and its followers, are nothing but greedy employees to the nth degree.
pushingPixels
pushingPixels
Posted 6:17 AM 26/6/08
Amazing how this is all focused on SAG/AFTRA, taking away any spotlight on how this will affect the 1000's that do not work or serve under a union. This issue with AFTRA is a ploy by SAG to take the real spotlight of how a strike will affect the people that work onset, fx houses, and the productions. How its strike will affect the economy. Funny how a union can strike, for there own benefit, without the worry of how it will affect those not in the union. Im siding more with the studios and less with Unions.
Families, productions and other non production related companies will be devestated and the union wont do one thing to help those it damaging finacially. How selfish can you get.
pushingPixels