strike rules

Halloween 2023 Costumes That Don’t Count As Scabbing

They’re actually more similar than you’d think. Photo-Illustration: Vulture. Photos: Disney; A24

Update October 21: Trix are for kids, but SAG-AFTRA wants to clarify that costume guidelines are for adults. In a statement obtained by THR, the guild said children can dress as any struck character. “SAG-AFTRA issued Halloween guidance in response to questions from content creators and members about how to support the strike during this festive season,†the clarification read. “This was meant to help them avoid promoting struck work, and it is the latest in a series of guidelines we have issued. It does not apply to anyone’s kids. We are on strike for important reasons, and have been for nearly 100 days. Our number one priority remains getting the studios back to the negotiating table so we can get a fair deal for our members, and finally put our industry back to work.†In other words, go off.

Original story follows.

Perhaps the scariest aspect of this Halloween is not the costumes that are there, but the ones held hostage by studio greed. This Halloween, day 109 of the SAG-AFTRA strike, members are barred from wearing costumes that relate to struck work and posting them on social media, as that could be considered promo for the work they’re dressed up as, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Of course, the actors could technically just not post their costume on social media, but these are actors we’re talking about. Attention is like water to them. So that means we won’t get to see Brie Larson dressed as Bowser from Super Mario Bros., Chloë Grace Moretz can’t be Kendall Roy, and Sarah Silverman can’t go as any of the characters from BAPS. Quelle tragédie!

SAG recommended the actors “choose costumes inspired by generalized characters and figures (ghost, zombie, spider, etc.),†but we think that’s no fun and would instead recommend taking a more creative approach. Any productions that were given promotional waivers are an option, for example. Music videos are fair game, as are commercials, reality TV, concepts, and even that old classic, books. So we’d like to make some very specific recommendations for the characters, people, and concepts that they should dress up as this Halloween. And to the celebrities reading this: No stealing each other’s costumes. That’s rude.

  • Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling as the Sewer Boys from Dicks: The Musical
  • Cate Blanchett as Flo from Progressive
  • Kit Harrington as Troye Sivan in the music video for “One of Your Girlsâ€
  • Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr., Emily Blunt, Florence Pugh, and Matt Damon as the Spice Girls (Sporty, Scary, Ginger, Posh, and Baby, respectively)
  • Jeremy Strong as Princess Diana
  • Hilary Duff as Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA negotiator
  • Jonathan Groff as Squirtle
  • Lady Gaga as the unnamed narrator in Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation
  • Ben Platt and Noah Galvin also as the Sewer Boys from Dicks: The Musical
  • Shailene Woodley as a River Nymph
  • Jeanine Garofalo as the rumor that Frank Sinatra is Ronan Farrow’s real father
  • Millie Bobby Brown as Michelle Visage
  • Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio as dueling divas ready to blow the roof off this place with their rendition of “River Deep Mountain Highâ€
  • Idina Menzel as the Pioneer Woman
  • Skylar Gisondo as a pioneer woman (not the Pioneer Woman)
  • Margaret Qualley as Zendaya in her big hat
  • Lea Michele as Tyra Banks pretending to get rabies
  • Lukas Gage as Tyra Banks pretending to be homeless
  • Allison Williams as a cursed bird
  • Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Mariah Carey’s elusive 20th No. 1 hit
  • Liza Minnelli as Kristen Wiig as Liza Minnelli in “Liza Minelli Tries to Turn Off a Lampâ€
  • Meghann Fahy as mother (not difficult; she does that every day anyway)
  • Timothée Chalamet as a collection of sticks blowing in a lazy breeze
  • Michelle Williams and Busy Philips also as the Sewer Boys from Dicks: The Musical
  • Taraji P. Henson as an Auntie Anne’s pretzel
  • Lucas Hedges as an actor who may appear in a movie again

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Halloween 2023 Costumes That Don’t Count As Scabbing