**Pinned Post**
If you haven't yet checked out my son's all-original hard rock band LaVaughn, please do. They're LEGIT. Their debut album is called A Silent Vendetta and here's the title track (full album @ the above link):
Facebook: LaVaughnBand
Album: Available at the above Bandcamp link and all major music streaming sites🤘
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“Brad Pitt is older than Archie Bunker was in the first two seasons of All In The Family.”
— Kelly Oxford, twitter (via inthefamilyway)
“ya know something, if the whole damn world was to go to the dogs, as long as I had you standing by my side, or sitting by my side, or laying by my side, everything would be just ok. I’ve been blowing my own horn for a lot of years. I’m gonna tell ya something, I ain’t nothin without you.”
“ya know something, Archie? You’re a pip… A real pip.”
- last lines on the last episode of All in the Family.
Seeing some nerdrage about the fact that if SAG-AFTRA strikes, actors won't be able to do promotional stuff for their projects including at SDCC and, anyway I am once again asking online fandom to recognize that there are real human beings behind your entertainment products. Their welfare and their ability to just like, have a career at all doing the things they and you love (because most people who act for a living are not celebrity superstar multi-millionaires) are in fact more important than whether you get to stand in line for hours just to pay too much money for a handshake and a scribble on a photo. And I say this as someone who has paid too much money for those scribbles myself. Also the future that studios want to create where acting and writing is replaced by AI is bad for consumers, too, bad for anyone who cares about art! And also just, more basically: artistic labor is labor and if you enjoy the products of that labor, you should want the people who make that for you to be fairly compensated and treated well.
Additionally, if you are feeling outraged that you spent a bunch of money on tickets, hotels, flights, etc. for an event that will no longer be delivering the experience you paid for -- please feel free to direct that outrage (loudly!) at the studios, networks, and streaming companies represented by AMPTP!
THEY still have (checks calendar) four days to offer a fair deal to writers and actors and end this strike in time for Comic Con. They can come back to the negotiating table at ANY TIME and offer a better contract. Instead of doing that, they're openly talking about their strategies to hold out until their employees are starving and homeless in the hope that desperation will force them to accept a lesser deal.
It's ok to be upset that big portions of SDCC are going to be impacted by the strike. We want to keep up demand for celebrity appearances just like we want to keep up demand for new shows and movies - it strengthens the striking workers' position that their work is valuable and worth a better contract so they can get back to work sooner.
The important thing is to remember WHO the bad guy is in this scenario. The actors who won't strike break for ComicCon aren't the bad guy, the writers and actors on the picket lines demanding fair contracts aren't the bad guy. The people you need to be angry with are major studios who turn record profits that they brag to shareholders about, then turn to the labor that makes their profit and says it's "unrealistic" to expect fair pay, workplace safety, and career protections. These companies are trying to squeeze maximum monetary value from their workers at minimal cost, with no regard for those workers ability to make a living.
This strike is meant to be disruptive. All strikes are. It is ok to be loudly upset that your plans have been disrupted... as long as you remember to aim your frustration at the right people.
If your ComicCon plans have been ruined by the strike, that sucks and I'm sorry. But keep in mind that the WGA and SAG-AFTRA are just workers who want fair protection and compensation for the work they do. Be as angry and disappointed as you need to be about your plans getting cancelled or ruined or downgraded, but do it in solidarity. Remember which side deserves your ire and which side deserves your support.
I thought the whole “we’re gonna use AI to write shows and movies and pay you garbage wages to fix the scripts” was vile, but “we want to scan background actors and then OWN THEIR LIKENESS TO USE IN PERPETUITY DESPITE PAYING THEM FOR ONLY A SINGLE DAY’S WORK” is just…
I don’t have words for this. There are no words that capture the sheer revulsion I felt at reading that actual, real fucking offer from the AMPTP.
everyone stop acting surprised Fran Drescher is leading all this! 1. she is the SAG-AFTRA president and 2. Do y’all not remember: “FINES do NOT cross PICKET LINES!!”?
One of the MAJOR fights in The Nanny between Fran and Max was when they showed up to one of Max’s shows/events or whatever and Fran refuses to pass the employees’ picket line in front of the venue. Fran refuses because her family for generations made a promise to never cross a picket line (ie, Fines do not cross picket lines) Max pulls her through it to attend the show and she like… almost breaks up with him over it! (it was later in the show so I think they were dating or close to at this point?) He had to apologize to her on like live TV!
Fran Drescher, heinous vaccine opinions, but she IS a union chica and has been for years we should not be surprised she is showing up putting her all into being president!
Fuck executives. They’re willing to break and utterly abandon the people that create stories all to make a profit using AI and get everything they want. What complete bastards
