Former SAG-AFTRA president slams Halloween costume restrictions

With Halloween quickly approaching, SAG-AFTRA has urged its members not to dress up as characters from struck studios, but former SAG president Melissa Gilbert has slammed the costume guidelines as “silly bullshit.“

Melissa Gilbert, who served as SAG president from 2001 to 2005, took to Instagram to comment on the Halloween costume guidelines. “THIS is what you guys come up with?” Gilbert wrote. “Literally no one cares what anyone wears for Halloween. I mean, do you really think this kind of infantile stuff is going to end the strike? We look like a joke. Please tell me you’re going to make this rule go away….and go negotiate!“

Gilbert then tagged current SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher as well as chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, writing, “For the love of God, people are suffering mightily and this is what you have to say… c’mon guys… This is the kind of silly bullshit that keeps us on strike. ‘Let’s enact a policy that makes us look petty and incompetent at the same time.’“

SAG-AFTRA’s Halloween costume guidelines encourage its members to “celebrate Halloween this year while also staying in solidarity.” This means choosing costumes “inspired by generalized characters and figures” such as “ghost, zombie, spider, etc,” rather than recognizable characters from struck studios. However, members are free to dress up as characters from non-struck content, such as animated TV shows. The guild also suggested that members “don’t post photos of costumes inspired by struck content to social media.“

Following the conclusion of the WGA strike, SAG-AFTRA had been in new round talks with the AMPTP, but those talks broke down, with the guild claiming that the studios have been using bully tactics. “[The studios] intentionally misrepresented to the press the cost of the above proposal — overstating it by 60 percent,” reads a statement from SAG-AFTRA to their members. “They have done the same with AI, claiming to protect performer consent, but continuing to demand ‘consent’ on the first day of employment for use of a performer’s digital replica for an entire cinematic universe (or any franchise project).”