Gabrielle Carteris Is Under Fire For Her Alledged Mishandling Of #Metoo Issues As SAG President

Before we jump in, there’s a couple things I want to get out of the way so you can read this story without having a swarm of questions marks circling your head. First, Beverly Hills 90210’s own Andrea Zuckerman is the president of SAG-AFTRA, and has been since 2016. Maybe you know this, but it’s the kind of fact that goes in one ear and out the other because it’s too weird to dwell on. But now is the time we dwell. Secondly, Gabrielle Cartieris (Andrea’s earth name) is embroiled in a #metoo battle, and Mathhew Modine and Rosanna Arquette are her primary adversaries. What can I say, the 90s are back, baby!

According to Variety, Gabrielle, who is currently campaigning for reelection as SAG president, is under fire for her handling of SAG’s response to the #metoo movement in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal. In response to Gabrielle’s perceived lack of response, Matthew started a campaign called Membership First with the goal of putting her on blast; a move Gabrielle calls “a cynical attempt to grab political power”. Matthew, as it turns out, is also running for president. Shit, I don’t remember things being this dramatic at the offices of the West Beverly Blaze.

Allies of Matthew Modine, who has mounted an active challenge to Carteris, issued a detailed recap of her actions since the Harvey Weinstein scandal broke in October, 2017. Rosanna Arquette, Jessica Barth, Caitlin Dulany, Pamela Guest, Sarah Ann Masse, and Sarah Scott each assailed Carteris in a campaign message released Wednesday by Modine’s Membership First faction.

The Membership First message accused the guild and Carteris, who has been SAG-AFTRA president since 2016, of mishandling the Kip Pardue sexual harassment investigation, deception and spending a million dollars on a harassment initiative rather than working with existing organizations.

Look I know Andrea was the moral center of 90210 and only one on there who seemed like they could keep a pet fish alive, but who is giving her this kind of responsibility? Rosanna offered some specific criticism of Gabrielle stemming from a lunch they had together shortly after she had come forward with accusations against Harvey.

“I told her I wanted to put together a committee to deal with sexual harassment issues so that it might not ever happen again,” she said. “Gabby was kind and very receptive. Or, so I thought. The very women who came forward to painfully revisit their experiences were shut out of these ‘confidential committee’ meetings. Why? Carteris was the one who would sign off on all members on the Task Force. Why wasn’t I included? I was told by one of Ms. Carteris’ supporters on Twitter that I was asked to come onboard — it was a complete and utter lie.”

In addition to the flubbing the Task Force mentioned above and turning it “into her own President’s sub-committee”, Gabrielle is being accused of being too slow to establish guidelines for the use of “intimacy coordinators” on set (I know just the person for this job), and not sufficiently supporting another campaign called Voices in Action, a “matching system” which tracks “multiple criminal investigations, civil investigations, perpetrators losing positions of power and survivors speaking their truth”. Gabrielle says it’s all too convenient that this shit is coming her way just as election ballots have been mailed. I would like to know if these committees are named using a random committee name generator.

#vote damnit! Ballots are in your mailboxes tomorrow (snail-mail) Lets win this in a landslide! #SAGAFTRA #ArtistsUnited #MembershipFirst pic.twitter.com/OSm4umVneP

— Matthew Modine (@MatthewModine) July 31, 2019

Honestly, being president of SAG-AFTRA sounds like a miserable, thankless task to me. But then again, so does being president of anything other than the Hair Club For Men which actually sounds kind of fun. So best of luck to the stars of 90210 and Cutthroat Island on their endeavors. When the haters come for you, remember, you asked for it!

Pic: Wenn.com