Some of you might remember a couple of years ago when Scarlett Johansson sued Disney because she was making significantly less money for Black Widow than was guaranteed in her contract because so many more people watched it on streaming than in theaters, how there was a massive misinformation campaign from Disney that a ton of people on this website (and Twitter and other social media) bought into: That she was a greedy bitch who didn’t respect people who needed to stay at home during the pandemic (I believe the word “ableist” was thrown around with aplomb) as opposed to someone who just wanted to be paid what she was owed. What was literally in her contract!!! And where everyone who took more than a couple minutes to actually look into and think about the situation could figure out that her issue wasn’t with streaming itself, but with how little streaming was allowed to get away with paying her and other actors. But of course, a lot of people just saw the chance to dunk on a rich woman, and didn’t think about it beyond readying some snarky tags and hit reblog. And in doing so, threw their support behind a much wealthier, greedier studio head who is already using similar language to describe the current strike.
Anyway we’re going to see a lot of that from studios now, especially now that actors have joined with the WGA and it’s easier to sell them as rich and greedy than writers, because of this cultural stereotype we have of all Hollywood actors as celebrities. Don’t fall for it. SAG-AFTRA represents people like Tom Cruise and ScarJo but it also represents the kind of people who played a Borg in two episodes of Star Trek: Voyager in 1997 or who had one line in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel as an enthusiastic audience member. Most actors are not crazy wealthy, and in fact, if you’re a big TV fan (especially older TV and genre TV) that likely includes some actor names that you know, who played supporting roles in your fav shows, or who were even a star in something but haven’t done anything major since. The AFTRA side also represents people like radio broadcasters. But even beside that, all workers deserve to be fairly compensated for the work they do, and the threat of replacing them with AI, or real actors being required to sign contracts to allow their likenesses to be used by AI forever without paying them, is an existential threat to acting as a profession in general. The actors are in the right. The writers are in the right. The studios are in the wrong. The studios have exploited new technology to get away with horrifying labor practices for years and their feet need to be put to the fire. Circulate the articles about how poorly the Orange is the New Black cast was compensated for making one of the defining shows of the early streaming boom, and of the studios saying they want to force writers to starve and lose their homes. Don’t get distracted by propaganda aping progressive-sounding language about “wealthy celebrities.” Focus on the real enemy, the truly greedy fat cats who care more about money than people and art: the studios.
I said this a couple years ago (one year ago?) and most of the comments on tumblr actually did not know this, so to reiterate what you’re up against: a VERY mainstream belief among American Christian fundamentalists is that they are the only ones who experience love. They raise their kids to think that everyone “living in sin” (all other faiths, atheists, and LGBT people) goes through life sad and empty, falsely believing they know what love feels like, and will never know until they’re “saved.” It’s not as simple as them diminishing the humanity of others out of hate, but being deeply brainwashed to believe others are automatically mentally less human.
They are also very good at convincing new converts that they really are experiencing this “real” love for the “first time;” the same way members of all cults can become wholeheartedly convinced that they’re receiving psychic alien messages or communing with spirits. Cult conditioning is simply that powerful.
The flip side of the redefinition of “love” is also that Christians genuinely believe they can “love” someone by calling them to repentance for their sinful lifestyle. They genuinely “love” their gay kids by not supporting their ~homosexual lifestyle~. They genuinely “love” people in foreign countries by continuing to send missionaries to colonize “spread the gospel.” “Loving other people” gets twisted into “doing what you think is best for other people,” regardless of if it’s actually good for that person or if that person wants you to do that.
Happiness get redefined too. As a child I was taught that while “people without the gospel” may claim to be happy, they couldn’t experience true happiness, because “true and lasting happiness” only came from the gospel. Other people could only experience temporary worldly pleasure, like the kind you get from buying something cool or riding a roller coaster (yes that was an actual thing that was said) or “indulging in sin,” but it would ultimately make them unhappy in the long run.
I was told that, since those people had never known the true happiness of the gospel, they mistook worldly pleasures as happiness, but in reality their lives were empty and less meaningful and deep down, they could sense something was “missing.” Also, apostates were all depressed and angry alcoholics who couldn’t be truly happy bc they’d rejected the gospel.
One of the techniques cults and high control groups use is redefining words to make the definitions suit their purposes. Love and happiness are just two words that get redefined this way.
there’s no hate like Christian love, but it also seems like there’s no missery like christian joy
this is what I mean when I say that going to catholic school k-12 destroyed me </3
the last time I wrote fanfiction and published it was years ago but I can see you (tv) (ftv) really has me thinking!!! this is so queer melissa schemmenti coded
