Over 500 male TV writers sign letters in support of stronger abortion policies from studios
Ryan Murphy, Donald Glover, and Jordan Peele are among the signatures included in a letter to Hollywood executives.
Aux News Abortion
Last week, a group of more than 400 female-identifying TV creators, writers, and showrunners signed a letter demanding Hollywood studio executives craft clear safety policies in their companies for pregnant workers in anti-abortion states. Now, in a new letter obtained by Variety, 594 male TV creators and showrunners have shown their support for the abortion safety policies via signatures sent to the same companies.
Among the list of signatures are well-known creators and writers like Aaron Sorkin (Being The Ricardos), Donald Glover (Atlanta), Greg Daniels (The Office), Jordan Peele (Nope), Rian Johnson (Knives Out), Ramy Youssef (Ramy), Taika Waititi (What We Do In The Shadows), the Duffer Bros (Stranger Things), and Ryan Murphy (American Horror Story). As reported by Variety, this new form of signatures was sent as a reply-all to the original letter, being forwarded to Warner Bros. Discovery, Netflix, Disney, Apple, NBC Universal, Paramount, Lionsgate, Amazon, and AMC.
In their letter, the text included just a few lines of text stating: “We, the undersigned, stand in solidarity with our female, trans & non-binary showrunner colleagues in demanding a coordinated and timely response from our employers regarding the imminent workplace-safety crisis created by the overturning of Roe v. Wade.”
Below that, the letter added, “Abortion access doesn’t only affect people who can become pregnant. It affects us all.”
Arriving in wake of the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court on June 24, the first letter included signatures from creators, showrunners and writers like Issa Rae (Insecure), Ava DuVernay (Queen Sugar), Mindy Kaling (The Sex Lives Of College Girls), Bisha K. Ali (Ms. Marvel), Elizabeth Meriwether (New Girl), Rachel Bloom (Crazy Ex-Girlfriend), Chelsea Handler (Chelsea Lately), Shonda Rhimes (Grey’s Anatomy), and Lena Waithe (The Chi).
A deadline of 11:59 on August 10 has been given by signatories for companies to respond, requiring an “immediate response” due to productions being “currently in progress in states where abortion is illegal or pending criminalization.” The full letter is available to read on Variety.
24 Comments
Haven’t you TV creators and showrunners heard that “gal” in Texas saying (without pushback) that many pregnant 10-year-olds do “phenomenal” and are not “inherently catastrophic”?
Hollywood, get the fuck out of Georgia and Louisiana now.
That would probably hurt the working-class people who work on film and television sets (and, in all likelihood, are fairly liberal) more than the hypothetical old rich white conservative you’re picturing.The Black Panther director seemed to think so, at least:https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/black-panther-ii-wont-move-production-from-georgia-over-voting-law-4166833/
Guess what? Working class people who work in film and television have been hurt for decades by Hollywood outsourcing to Vancouver, then Louisiana and now Georgia. The people who live in Los Angeles. Which is supposedly an industry town. And those people lived and moved there specifically to work in the business. Who were often second and third generation craftspeople. What about their lives, that have been upended or destroyed by runaway production?I care much less about folks in GA who have been doing it for ten years or less. Sorry, but that Black Panther guy’s excuse is bullshit. Wherever you shoot, someone somewhere will not get that job.
Their lives haven’t been upended or destroyed. People work in Hollywood who live in Los Angeles are doing fine.
Wow, this is stunningly ignorant. You honestly don’t think the lives of production crew have been severely, majorly impacted by runaway production??
How stupidly naive can you be???
Foreign runaway productions have impacted them. Domestic ones have not. No need for insults.
Why would this be true?
Because he’s a complete idiot.
Again, so insanely dumb there are no words. How is that remotely possible in your universe? The stupidity is simply staggering. So you’re telling me if a job moved from Los Angeles to Vancouver, it’s gone. But if the job moved from Los Angeles to Georgia, it isn’t? I mean, a three-year-old could grasp this concept. BTW, I’m insulting you not because you’re dumb (which you are), but rather because you’re attitude is extraordinarily callous towards thousands of actual people whose lives have been negatively impacted by DOMESTIC runaway production.
I hope you learn to disagree with people in a classy capacity. Los Angeles workers have survived and will continue to survive. Stop being a jabroni.
Yeah, there’s a bit of a difference between asking people to work temporarily in a state that limits voting (which they wouldn’t do in that state anyway) and in a state that will prosecute them for getting an abortion and, if they can, will prevent them from going to another state for it.Not the same situation at all.
Not my point. I’m not even sure how that was your takeaway.
You’re not sure why, when you made an a argument and backed it up with a historical anecdote (with link), I pointed out that the anecdote and this situation are very different?
In both cases, there’s a call to take business away from the economies of those states as punishment for something, in all likelihood, most of those states’ citizens who work in the arts oppose vehemently. So I think it’s worthwhile to ask whom the removal of productions from those states would really be affecting. That’s what the director of Black Panther did with the voting law in Georgia, and I’m glad. If there are things that productions can do to maintain or facilitate abortion access to employees, then great. I’m just saying that there are other stakeholders here.
I think your point, while valid, is a nonstarter in a scenario in which female cast/crew on a production in, say, Georgia, who became pregnant were prevented from getting an abortion or traveling across state lines to do so. In that case, studios and productions would have an overwhelming ethical and pragmatic responsibility to not expose women to that, and concerns about taking jobs from working class Georgians and giving them to working class crew in other states would be way less important.
And Florida and Texas.FUCK DeSANTIS!
FUCK GREG ABBOTT!
AND FUCK THOSE TRUMP NAZI IDIOTS IN GEORGIA AND LOUISIANA WHOSE NAMES I WON’T BOTHER TO LEARN BECAUSE THEY’RE BENEATH MY NOTICE!
meaningless…
men agree: we want to bust inside, no condom
A deadline of 11:59 on August 10 has been given by signatories for companies to respond
Or else what? Seriously. I’m glad they are doing this, but not if it’s an empty gesture. The Variety article notes: The letter stopped short of saying what will happen if these companies don’t comply with the demands. Should we expect boycotts? Another writers strike? Or nothing? As usual. Since I often find Hollywood to be spineless and all talk, I really want to know the level of their conviction here.
They’ll do exactly nothing. They like to write letters and talk. While their “opposition” is head down pulling the country in the Dark Ages with actions.Cheers
I sure hope that the economic consequences of these despicable abortion bans are every bit as severe as they seem they might be.