#ACTRA : Taking Credit For What Others Do Right And Blaming Others For What ACTRA Keeps On Doing Wrong
The CBC National piece above shows a clip from a Hallmark Card commercial that physically disabled actor George Alevizos was featured in.
The narrator says that George Alevezos is working with ACTRA, the Canadian actors union, to get more work for physically disabled actors.
The CBC National piece above shows a clip from a Hallmark Card commercial that physically disabled actor George Alevizos was featured in.
The narrator says that George Alevezos is working with ACTRA, the Canadian actors union, to get more work for physically disabled actors.
Here's the non-union Hallmark Card commercial in its entirety:
ACTRA had absolutely nothing to do with the creation and production of that non-union Hallmark commercial. George Avelizos wasn’t a member of ACTRA at the time it was made.
ACTRA's not working to get work for physically disabled actors in non-union commercials.
ACTRA wouldn't have allowed George Alevizos to be in that non-union commercial if it was being made today. He’s an ACTRA union member now.
The CBC National piece cuts to a quick shot of George Alevizos zipping through the background in a wheelchair in a scene from the American television series "Star Trek: Discovery" that's filmed in Ontario, Canada.
The only reason we know that the performer in the wheelchair in the Star Trek uniform is genuinely disabled is because we had it pointed out to us.
If an unknown able-bodied ACTRA Toronto union member had played the physically disabled character the viewers wouldn't have known the difference.
ACTRA would have provided the able-bodied ACTRA Toronto union member who played the physically disabled "Star Trek:Discovery" character if the production had chosen not to use a performer who was genuinely physically disabled.
ACTRA would have gone along with an able-bodied SAG-AFTRA union member playing the role in the show.
The CBC National piece highlights the progress that's being made in the U.S. in terms of representation.
Those are American success stories not Canadian success stories.
George Alevizos took the ACTRA National President and the ACTRA Toronto President on a tour of a casting audition house that had been made accessible to physically disabled performers.
Hal Myshrall had called attention to casting audition houses that weren't accessible to physically disabled performers 4 years earlier in a Global Television News segment in 2015.
Showing a casting audition house in Toronto that has been made accessible to physically disabled performers doesn't add up to every casting audition house in Toronto being accessible any more than showing the accessible "Star Trek: Discovery" set adds up to every set in Toronto being accessible.
George Alevizos didn't bring up the problem of film and tv production sets not being accessible to disabled people during the CBC National piece.
George Alevizos didn't bring up ACTRA's cruel and exclusionary "attachment to the workplace" rule that effectively punishes physically disabled ACTRA Toronto members for not getting work on sets that aren't accessible.
Being denied the right to vote on an IPA and an NCA on the basis of the work that physically disabled ACTRA Toronto members can’t get on sets that aren’t accessible to them certainly qualifies as punishment.
Hal Myshrall mentioned all of the above in a Human Rights case he lodged against ACTRA in 2019.
George Alevizos doesn’t mention the able-bodied ACTRA Toronto members who would be playing physically disabled character roles on sets that wouldn’t be accessible to a physically disabled ACTRA Toronto member like himself.
What's to prevent a production from going through the motions of holding an audition in a casting audition house that's accessible and hiring an able-bodied ACTRA member to play the role of a disabled character on a set that isn't accessible?
If the production hired an able-bodied ACTRA union member they wouldn’t have to go through the bother of making their sets accessible.
They could claim that they would have made their sets accessible if the best actor had turned out to be someone who was genuinely physically disabled.
They could claim that the ACTRA union member who won the part on the strength of their audition just happened to be able-bodied.
It's not like they're going to be given a lie detector test to determine if they're lying.
The CBC National piece was unrealistically optimistic. It gave the false impression that the plight of the physically disabled ACTRA Toronto union members was finally being taken seriously by ACTRA.
In 2019, ACTRA re-released 'The Audition', a tone-deaf ACTRA video that was made in 2011.
'The Audition' MOCKS the physically disabled actress's dilemma.
The jokes are on her and everybody like her.
All that's missing is a laugh track and a cream pie coming out of nowhere and hitting her square in the face.
Imagine being a physically disabled ACTRA union member who was pointing out real life examples of casting audition houses in Toronto that weren't accessible to physically disabled performers in 2019.
The leaders of ACTRA assure you that they 'feel your pain' and they take your concerns very seriously.
And then they post 'The Audition', proving that they don't have a clue what your pain feels like.
'The Audition' is a testament to just how seriously ACTRA Toronto wasn't taking the concerns of physically disabled ACTRA union members in 2011.
Re-releasing 'The Audition' in 2019 proved just how little things had changed in eight years.
The fact that ‘The Audition’ is still on You Tube today, in 2024, is even more telling. The collective powers-that-be at ACTRA Toronto don’t have sense enough to recognize when they are insulting the physically disabled performers in their union.
It leaves me wondering what George Alevizos's non-union Hallmark commercial would have ended up looking like if ACTRA Toronto had been involved.