With the ongoing actor strikes, film and television promotions are being totaled, and it’s difficult when actors aren’t allowed to promote their movies and are slandered when they do. However, it’s more difficult for people’s favorite influencers when they’re approached by production companies to do promotion, who then have to ask themselves: is this considered scabbing?
Being a scab is just a fancy word for a strike-breaker. It is as if someone is physically crossing a picket line to go do work that they shouldn’t be. Actors who scab by promoting their work in TV shows and movies on social media or in interviews are threatened with fines or removal from the union, the Screen Actors Guild, usually referred to as SAG-AFTRA, “The actors aren’t getting paid for the work that they’re doing, so it makes sense to kick them out if someone tries to interfere with the promotion aspect, and it stops all of them from getting paid even longer because producers are making more money,” junior Youssef El-Herraoui said.
When the main stars can’t promote a movie, it is nearly impossible to get people hyped for the film, and production companies usually seek out the directors to go on a press tour. If directors choose to stand in solidarity and refuse, production companies have no choice but to either delay the film or accept the flop.
On the other hand, production companies don’t want to delay their film due to the amount of money and effort they put in. They want to get that money back quickly somehow, so they go straight to social media influencers and ask them to post promotion for the movie, which is considered another way of scabbing because it bans them from ever joining the union in the future. “These influencers exist within the digital space and make their livelihood off of promoting their content. Their audiences may not always align with the same demographics actors reach, but they have considerable reach regardless,” senior Zeze Ganzorig said.
Indie studios like A24 and NEON are allowed to go to movie premieres and get press done because they pay their actors fairly. “They put lots of hard work into it, and it’s fair and just that they get to promote their films because they’re following the rules of the strike,” freshman Nikhil Arya said.
At the end of the day, standing in solidarity with the actors while they are on strike is highly encouraged by the union. Standing in solidarity means different things to different people, and it is important to show support for a cause that in one way or another needs to somehow find a way to create change. There are resources and ways to show solidarity, “It can be as simple as taking the time to educate yourself on the entire matter through various perspectives and offer resources for others to learn and support in their own way. Everyone lives through different circumstances, opportunities and confidence,” Ganzorig said.
