As SAG-AFTRA’s strike continues through the fall, the actors union is preparing for Halloween. Since Halloween is typically the time of year when celebrities load up their Instagrams with photos of themselves dressing as other actors’ characters, SAG-AFTRA is encouraging striking workers to dress in anything other than costumes inspired by struck work. And while there are easy workarounds, such as dressing as the Wednesday Addams from The Addams Family animated film series instead of Netflix’s Wednesday television series, it’s not really in the spirit of solidarity to use them.
Halloween has become a good measure of what year’s most popular pop-culture properties were and, by proxy, some easy consumer-level advertising for studio tentpoles. It’s why striking actors should take a page from Paul Rudd, who dressed as Weird Al in 2021, instead of his daughter, who dressed as The Wasp. The Wasp would be a no-go these days.
Additionally, SAG-AFTRA encourages dressing as “generalized characters,” like ghosts, zombies, and spiders. This could also mean things like hammers, water bottles, or even products that have yet to be turned into cinematic universes, like Wet Wipes.
If one simply has to dress as Barbie or even Barbenheimer, SAG-AFTRA gets it. The union simply requests that Barbies and Kens not post photos on social media, which defeats the whole point of Halloween, but hey, no one ever said strikes were easy. Trick-or-treaters can also dress up as characters from non-struck work, like animated TV shows. This means Heidi Klum can still move forward with her Peter Griffin costume, a relief to all, we’re sure.
There’s also the hope that maybe the strike will be over by the time Halloween rolls around. However, earlier this week, talks broke down last week after SAG and the AMPTP ran against a $480 million gap in streaming residual pay. SAG’s demand will cost the studios $500 million a year, and the AMPTP is offering $20 million in payouts. With that in mind, nothing is stopping SAG-AFTRA members from dressing up as their favorite studio executive, a costume sure to live in the nightmares of children for years to come.