402 posts
Idotha - Untitled - Tumblr Blog
August 4 - Hollywood Food Insecurity Spikes Amid Strikes
The entertainment industry’s most vulnerable workers are increasingly unable to feed themselves amid a historic double strike with no clear end in sight, according to non-profits tasked with addressing the food insecurity crisis. They describe Hollywood’s ongoing work stoppage — prompted by the contractual impasse between the writing and acting guilds on one side and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers on the other — as a humanitarian emergency broadly affecting the community, not just striking union members.
The Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, which runs pantries for those in need throughout the county, attributes a meaningful portion of its nine percent uptick in year-over-year distribution to the strikes’ impact. “When income stops immediately, the demand rises very rapidly,” explains chief development officer Roger Castle.
“This is happening right after the pandemic, which drained a lot of people’s savings,” observes Keith McNutt, executive director at the Entertainment Community Fund, which has distributed $3 million to more than 1,500 workers as of Aug. 1. “So, you have the financial burden on people who’ve already been depleted.” As a result, his organization — whose donors include Seth McFarlane, Steven Spielberg, and Greg Berlanti — has seen an unprecedented wave of immediate requests for basic living expenses, including groceries. “Before this started, we would do about 50 grants out of the L.A. office a week. Now we’re getting 50 applications a day.”
On July 28, below-the-line unions IATSE and the Teamsters Local 399 held a drive-through food drive for industry members affected by the strikes at IATSE’s West Coast headquarters in Burbank. It drew about a thousand vehicles throughout the day.
According to the relief nonprofit Labor Community Services, which helped to organize the event and is planning another in August, the organization distributed 1,740 food boxes, feeding an estimated 8,700 people, that day.
In California, striking workers are ineligible to receive unemployment assistance, while nationally, they cannot receive SNAP food benefits unless they qualified pre-strike — something Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania is aiming to change with a new bill, introduced July 27. One place that striking actors in particular can turn to for help during the work stoppage is the SAG-AFTRA Foundation, which offers emergency financial assistance and other resources, including grocery store gift cards, to union members. SAG-AFTRA made a seven-figure donation to the Foundation early in its strike to assist these efforts. (The WGA West does provide its own members with emergency financial loans from its strike fund and Good and Welfare fund.)
Cyd Wilson, its executive director, has seen an explosion in demand for the organization’s help. “People are making these decisions: Should pay my rent, or should I put food on the table? Should I put food on the table, or should I pay my utilities?” she explains. “There’s a great deal of suffering that’s happening.” By Wilson’s estimate, the foundation is now handling 40 times its typical number of applications per week, and it has already distributed as much in grants since the beginning of the WGA’s strike three months ago as it typically would in the span of a given year.
Meanwhile, Groceries for Writers, a direct aid project administered by Humanitas, a non-profit focused on film and television writers, has distributed more than 1,100 gift cards to WGA members since the onset of its work stoppage in early May. Humanitas executive director Michelle Franke says that “many of these writers have left notes indicating they’re in very urgent financial situations. Writers describe struggling with student debt, falling into eligibility gaps with CalFresh and EDD [state unemployment assistance], eviction notices, writing teams splitting low pay, having only just moved to Los Angeles and not having a large local support network as a consequence, dwindling savings.”
Groceries for Writers is hardly alone in addressing the growing need. In July, L.A.’s World Harvest Food Bank founder and CEO Glen Curado estimated to The Hollywood Reporter that his organization, which is offering free food to striking writers and actors, was serving an average of 150-200 members of this group per day. That effort was inspired by The Price Is Right host Drew Carey’s gesture of paying for all striking writers dining at Bob’s Big Boy in Burbank and L.A.’s Swingers Diner for the duration of the work stoppage.
THR asked both the AMPTP and the talent unions whether they bear any responsibility for the worsening situation. In a statement, a spokesperson for the AMPTP said: “Like those negotiating on behalf of the guilds, representatives from the AMPTP and its member companies came to the table in good faith, wanting to reach an agreement that would keep the industry working and prevent the hardships caused by labor strikes.” SAG-AFTRA didn’t respond to a request for comment, while a WGA spokesperson said in a statement: “The public knows that working people are putting everything on the line in order to negotiate a fair deal with the studios who have caused this strike and the resultant suffering by refusing to address the reasonable proposals that writers brought to the table over 90 days ago.” Neither the AMPTP itself nor any of its major studio and streamer members responded when THR asked if the companies or their philanthropic arms had made any contributions specifically to address the industry’s food insecurity crisis since May.
Support staffers — early-career workers who fill roles such as assistants and coordinators and tend to be low-paid — are especially at risk at this time. “So much of the compensation that they receive is, no one’s going to say it, but it’s implied to be food-based,” notes Liz Hsiao Lan Alper, the co-founder of advocacy group Pay Up Hollywood and a WGA West board member. Alper says that support staffers are often paid the “bare minimum” but access complimentary food through writers’ rooms, craft services on sets or in agency kitchens and conference rooms. And so, when the strikes occurred, the need was “overwhelming,” she explains: “It’s invisible compensation that just went away when the work stoppages happened.”
For that reason, on June 7 Pay Up Hollywood relaunched its COVID-19-era Hollywood Support Staff Relief Fund. So far, the fund has distributed around $45,000 in one-time financial need grants up to $1,000 apiece, according to organizer and support staffer Alex Rubin, who says she’s encouraged support staffers to obtain free food distributed on picket lines. “I think that there is a little bit of embarrassment and insecurity about not being able to feed yourself,” she says. “It is the reason why we give our grants as just like, ‘Here’s a one-time grant. You don’t have to tell us how you want to use this.’”
Helping people in entertainment with food during work stoppages is a “tangible message,” says James Costello, a Teamsters Local 399 driver and an IATSE Local 44 prop master, who was volunteering at IATSE’s July 28 food drive. A second-generation Teamster, Costello still remembers a union strike in the 1980s that prompted his parents to warn their children that their Christmas holiday would be affected that year, and the Teamsters emergency relief that arrived in the fall, offering groceries and a Christmas tree.
As the strikes drag on and both the WGA and SAG-AFTRA have yet to formally reprise negotiations with the AMPTP (although the Writers Guild is set to have a preliminary meeting with the studios’ organization on Aug. 4), the non-profits on the front lines of the industry’s food-insecurity crisis are girding themselves for a long period of need. SAG-AFTRA Foundation’s Wilson says it’s pursuing a “very aggressive fundraising strategy” to meet the demand. (Already, it’s netted over $15 million in emergency assistance from stars like George Clooney, Nicole Kidman, Matt Damon and Dwayne Johnson, who are donating $1 million or more apiece.)
The Entertainment Community Fund’s McNutt notes that pocketbook pain will outlast the current conflict. “Just because the strike ends, it doesn’t mean the need will end. Everyone doesn’t go back to work the next week. We’re going to be looking at this [elevated] level of need for months afterward.”
Give to the Entertainment Community Fund
Give to Humanitas' Groceries for Writers
Give to the Green Envelope Grocery Aid mutual aid fund
I don't know who needs to hear this, but as a creator -
I am fine with "the audience" -
downloading my fics
printing my fics
copy/pasting or screenshotting my fics
sharing your saved copy of my fics with anyone else who might want them in the unlikely but never impossible case that my fics are no longer available on ao3
making a book of my fic(s) and running your fingers across the pages while lovingly whispering my precioussss
doing these things with anything I create for fandom, such as meta, headcanons, au nonsense like 'texts from the brodinsons,' etc
I am not fine with "the audience"
doing any of the above with the purpose/intent of plagiarizing my work or passing it off as their own in any capacity
feeding my work into ai for any reason whatsoever
Save the fandom things. Preserve the fandom things. Respect the fandom things.
Enjoy the fandom things.
Since it's watermelon season!
My grandfather used to grow watermelons, among other things, and he told me about most of this, especially the orange spot. Those are the absolute best!
hold up im reading more about the lionfish thing and this one island in Honduras has had such a huge problem with lionfish that the measures they have taken include
• getting special exemption from the Honduran government to allow divers access to harpoons and spears which are otherwise illegal in fishing
• public campaign to teach people how to prepare and eat lionfish (apparently they are very tasty once the poisonous spines are removed) (but watch out)
• holding lionfish combination hunting competition and cookout (reportedly they killed and cooked 1,700 in a day) (someone killed 60 of them with a rubber band spear gun???)
• most recently and apparently out of desperation, the divers in charge of culling the lionfish in the Roatan Marine Park just started. feeding the lionfish they killed to sharks. bc what else are you gonna do with it
• the sharks don’t seem to notice or be affected by the poison and begin hanging out with the divers
• the sharks then were seen hunting and killing the lionfish on their own
like this is nuts to me sorry. the sharks just had to be shown “hey this is food, did you know?? you can eat these!! here try one!!” we are possibly altering an entire foodchain bc we like feeding the big ocean wolves
2 genres of fanfiction:
1) put that guy into situations
2) take that guy OUT of situations for the love of GOD let them REST
Crowley writing a report for Hell after the Job job: “Introduced an Angel to the Pleasures of Flesh.”
How Hell Interprets this: Crowley seduced an Angel into lust.
What Crowley Means: He sat there and watched in awe as Aziraphale devoured half an ox.
hey jsyk while hellofresh is dummy expensive and i wouldn’t recommend it if you already know how to cook (if you’re a beginner like i was when i had it for 3 months, then it’s worth it), you should know that ALL OF THEIR RECIPES are free on their website and they all fuck hard
i will say that all the cooking instructions for veggies are pretty much the same (season with salt + pepper and roast on the top oven rack at 425F), but if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
that being said, it also introduced me to methods i wasn’t at all expecting. i would have never thought to use cream cheese in my meat sauce, and now all my friends are constantly asking me to make my special rigatoni.
happy cheffin! :)
He's been in love for somewhere between 82-13 billion years.
GOOD OMENS S02 + TUMBLR REACTIONS
He and I go back a long time. (crowley's version || insp.)
He’s just an angel I know. (aziraphale's version || insp.)
Dark One: Lanfear you need to wake up
Lanfear: …..
Dark One: Lews Therin has been reborn
Lanfear:
Moiraine Girlie, I don't think that poem meant you had to wait until Rand was inside of her
The TowerPuff Girls vs The Ta’verenTuff Boys
The thing about Wheel of Time is everyone in it is in an epic fantasy except the Forsaken, who are all in a workplace sitcom where everyone hates each other.
" 'Oh you're majoring in metaphysical research!' They said. 'Why are you taking so many acting undergrad classes?' They said. 'When will you ever use this in your career?' They said. Well jokes on them."
- Lanfear as she was getting ready to play the part of 'girlfriend who is scared at first and then is overcome by desire loyalty and love for her boyfriend who can channel', probably.
WoT Meta: The Difference Between Trauma and Adversity
I think one thing that both Jordan and Sanderson don't get enough credit for, Jordan especially, is how viscerally they depict trauma.
There's a trend, especially in fantasy fiction, of trauma being portrayed as a strengthening experience: something that makes the characters that are traumatized inherently stronger or more worthy people, or else reveals some innate inner strength that allows them to power through the experience. It stems from a conflating of trauma with adversity, depicting them as the same thing. A character's abuse, mistreatment, violation, even rape, are all treated as just another obstacle to overcome to prove the hero's worthiness, or else confer worthiness by virtue of their survival. It's a writing convention that has been around forever, but the extreme popularity of Game of Thrones has caused it's use to skyrocket.
Both Jordan and Sanderson defy this line of thinking however, by demonstrating the difference between trauma and adversity, in ways both subtle and overt.
Both Rand and Egwene go through very traumatic experiences at different points: Rand the Box, and Egwene her enslavement by the Seanchan. These experiences don't make either character inherently better or more worthy. They don't even make them stronger. Rather they create problems for both that last more or less the rest of the series.
Rand suffers from extreme claustrophobia, causing him to panic when he feels physically confined (Far Madding, the Seafolk Cabin, even his own rooms when wounded to a limited extent), and he also develops an extreme aversion to ever placing himself in the power of others, in particular women who can channel, causing to frequently go to extreme, often violent lengths to avoid being vulnerable to women who can channel, even ones he in theory is supposed to trust or love. This I think, one of the reasons he stays away so much from Elayne and Avihenda until near the end of the series, but doesn't try nearly as hard to avoid Min, who can't channel.
Egwene meanwhile develops a tendency to lash out wildly when presented with the possibility of being imprisoned again, reacting to mild threats with irrational terror and anger, from the way she attacks the White Cloaks in TGH, to the way she fights back tooth and nail against the Black Ajah to the point where they beat her senseless. Her hatred of the Seanchan is another symptom, even when irrational or dangerous to her cause.
What interesting is that, Rand believes, or tries to convince himself, that his trauma is just adversity to be overcome, that it's a 'forging' experience, that he went through in order to make him strong enough to do his duty as the Dragon. He echoes many sentiments from Lan and the Borderlanders in this fashion, like any victim of abuse, trying to find rhyme and reason for why he was hurt, and in so doing preventing himself from healing or confronting his pain. This leaves him vulnerable and also stuck in the same cycle of being hurt, lashing out, and convincing himself that the problem was just that he has not yet made himself 'strong' enough that trauma will simply not hurt him any longer. It's no mistake that this vicious cycle culminated in Rand nearly destroying himself, and the world. One of the key parts of Rand's development in the last few books of the series is being able to differentiate between his trauma and adversity, to stop trying to just repress his feelings in an effort to 'power through' and instead accept the pain and suffering he's endured and try and work through it.
Similarly the scars of Egwene's captivity are felt all the way through to the end of the series: even in AMOL it's effects are still showing up, tanking her meeting with Tuon, briefly allowing Messana to take her captive, and causing her to act irrationally in regards to Leliwin. The difference is that Egwene is far better at dealing with with her trauma in part because she experiences true adversity and growth during her time with the Aiel, and learns to tell the difference between the two.
The Wise Ones are harsh with her, but not unfair, they have extremely high expectations but they are not cruel or malicious when she fails to meet those expectations: her punishments are never useless or for their own sake, their is always a lesson or a benefit to them, from having to braid her hair like a child when she is caught acting like a child, to having to run laps in order to both punish her lateness and strength her constitution, to even having to dig holes so that she'll understand the futility of meddling with Sevanna. But most importantly, Egwene from the beginning is made aware that she can, at any time, walk away. That's one of the points of her and Amys's confrontation in TSR: Egwene is with the Wise Ones by choice, and at any time she could leave if she truly wanted too. It is a challenge she must overcome, not something being inflicted on her without her consent. Her meeting of her toh for lying to the Wise One's at the end is the culmination of this arc. At that point she has nothing to gain from the Wise Ones, yet she chooses to be held responsible for her actions anyways, to be accountable and to make right what she had done wrong. That's the difference between the beatings inflicted on her by Renna, and the beating used to help her meet her toh. One she has a chooses as part of accepting responsibility, the other she has forced on her in order to compel her obedience.
This fine distinction is one of the really great thing about WoT, and what to me at least, puts it on a whole other level from Game of Thrones. It shows a better understanding of people and trauma, of what makes people grow and what leaves them scarred, without devolving into cynical 'everything is suffering' nihilism. It neither substitutes trauma for growth, nor presents trauma as a inescapable state in which you will be forever trapped. Instead it presents it as something you can heal from, but only with time, effort, help and being honest about your feelings.
It also dovetails nicely with the ideological conflict at the heart of the series, but more on that in a bit.