SAG maintains such a high initiation fee to avoid people with that "Oh, I get a line in a movie I'll become a SAG member" mentality from joining union.

That "Get a movie line, get enrolled in SAG" line is just such a Hollywood cliche. My friend wrote a movie and it got picked up by a studio; he told me for a week after it was announced in the trades he'd have random people ask him about it and the possibility of getting a line in it as if it was some first step to automatic Hollywood success. He had no less than ten different people mention that and the possibility of becoming a SAG member once you read some magical line in a script kept coming up. Its some wacky notion maintained by people on the periphery of the business who don't know what the fuck they're doing or know the costs involved with union initiation.


Hey, more power to her if she joins and is able to make a career out of it outside of porn, but $2500 is a lot to come up with (and whats the daily TV/movie rate anyway? $300-$500?) working random jobs.

You don't have to deal with any of that bullshit in porn, you might not have insurance at the end of the day, but at least you can work with no strings-attached and not be subjected to union regulations and strike threats.