FEATURE:
New Take, Clean Slate
IN THIS PHOTO: Taraji P. Henson/PHOTO CREDIT: Adrienne Raquel for ELLE
The Ongoing Issue with Hollywood’s Gender Pay Gap
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RIGHT across society…
PHOTO CREDIT: Ali Pazani/Pexels
there are huge problems regarding pay disparity. It is not only the arts where women are paid less than men. If you think about an industry like film, although big earners like Margot Robbie are helping make headway and inspiring women coming through, she is in a minority. When it comes to the big earners in Hollywood, the vast majority are still men. There is that gulf where women are not valued as much. If they have similar billing and do the same work, they are not getting the same pay as their male counterparts. Actresses have spoken out about this for years now. I shall come to some reports and features from last year and this where Hollywood’s gender pay gap is very much alive. Before that, Taraji P. Henson recently spoke about her negative experiences. How she is putting in a tonne of work but is not getting the same pay as male colleagues. Undervalued by Hollywood. NME reported the news:
“Actress Taraji P. Henson recently got emotional when talking about the pay disparity she has faced during her time in Hollywood.
While speaking on Sirius XM to promote her new film, The Color Purple, Henson was asked by host Gayle King if the rumours of her considering quitting acting were true. Immediately, Henson got teary-eyed and said: “I’m just tired of working so hard, being gracious at what I do and getting paid a fraction of the cost.”
“I’m tired of hearing my sisters say the same thing over and over. You get tired. I hear people go, ‘You work a lot.’ Well, I have to. The math ain’t math-ing. When you start working a lot, you have a team. Big bills come with what we do. We don’t do this alone. It’s a whole team behind us. They have to get paid.”
“When you hear someone go, ‘Such and such made $10million,’ that didn’t make it to their account,” Henson explained. “Off the top, Uncle Sam is getting per cent. Now have $5million. Your team is getting 30 per cent of what you gross, not after what Uncle Sam took. Now do the math. I’m only human.”
She carried on: “Every time I do something and break another glass ceiling, when it’s time to renegotiate I’m at the bottom again like I never did what I just did, and I’m tired. I’m tired. It wears on you. What does that mean? What is that telling me?”
At this point, Taraji P. Henson began sobbing, pointing to her younger co-star Danielle Brooks: “If I can’t fight for them coming up behind me then what the fuck am I doing?”
“Twenty-plus years in the game and I hear the same thing and I see what you do for another production but when it’s time to go to bat for us they don’t have enough money. And I’m just supposed to smile and grin and bear it. Enough is enough! That’s why I have other [brands] because this industry, if you let it, it will steal your soul. I refuse to let that happen.”
This isn’t the first time that Taraji P. Henson has brought up the issue of pay disparity. In 2021, Henson shared that she was “gutted” when she took home just $40,000 for her role in The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button. That was far less than what she had asked for, which she said “at that time of my career, was fair to the ticket sales that I would contribute to this big film”.
In 2019, she revealed to Variety that she had asked for half a million dollars for her role in the film, and that she was only offered $100,000. “I was just asking for half a million – that’s all. That’s it. When I was doing ‘Benjamin Button,’ I wasn’t worth a million yet. My audience was still getting to know me. We thought we were asking for what was fair for me, at the time,” she said to Variety”.
IN THIS PHOTO: Jennifer Lawrence/PHOTO CREDIT: Getty Images
In 2022, one of Hollywood’s finest actors, Jennifer Lawrence, revealed how it doesn’t matter how much she does – she does not get the same pay as the men. It does seem, in the year or so since, things have not really improved. Not long after a strike in Hollywood where actors and writers were fearful of changes in the industry caused by streaming and its effect on residuals, as well as other new technologies like AI and digital recreation, women in Hollywood are still not getting paid what they are owed:
“The Oscar-winning actress slammed Hollywood’s persistent gender pay gap in a new interview with Vogue, telling the magazine that while actors are often “overpaid,” the discrepancy still stings.
“It doesn’t matter how much I do,” she said. “I’m still not going to get paid as much as that guy, because of my vagina?”
Lawrence, 32, earned $5 million less than Leonardo DiCaprio for Netflix’s star-studded dystopian film “Don’t Look Up,” which was released in December 2021, Vanity Fair reported.
“I’m extremely fortunate and happy with my deal,” Lawrence told Vanity Fair shortly before the movie’s release. “But in other situations, what I have seen — and I’m sure other women in the workforce have seen as well — is that it’s extremely uncomfortable to inquire about equal pay. And if you do question something that appears unequal, you’re told it’s not gender disparity, but they can’t tell you what exactly it is.”
On average, women earn about $1.1 million less than their male co-stars, according to 2017 research from three professors: Sofia Izquierdo Sanchez of the University of Huddersfield, Maria Navarro Paniagua of Lancaster University, and John S Heywood of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
For actors over 50, that gap is even wider: Older actresses earned almost $4 million less than male actors. Other studies have noted that women of color are significantly underpaid compared to white women”.
It is clear that something needs to change. There is not a great amount of male allyship that would help affect change quicker. A unity from brothers and sisters in Hollywood would lead to bigger change quicker. Alongside gender pay disparity comes ageism. Something that still impacts women. An industry where women over forty are not seen as vital or essential. Not something that afflicts their male counterparts. This article shows examples of women in Hollywood speaking about their experiences of pay inequality and ageism.
IN THIS PHOTO: Jessica Chastain
For Equal Pay Day 2023 (in November), Stylist looked at the ongoing issue in Hollywood where women are not getting paid what they are owed. It is time for a fresh take and new slate. Where there is commitment to righting this imbalance. You wonder how an industry that relies on its incredible women can justify paying them comparatively small amounts when compared to male actors:
“For Black women, equal pay isn’t expected to be a reality until the year 2119. Pay gaps also exist for Hispanic women, Indigenous women and Asian women.
It’s just not good enough. In recent years, celebrities including Jennifer Lawrence, Michelle Williams and Jessica Chastain have spoken up about how they are tackling the pay gap that exists in their own industry. Hollywood has long exploited its female stars, paying them less than their male counterparts. But these women, and several others like them, are calling Time’s Up on that, and are doing so through speeches at awards shows, in essays, during interviews and on their social media platforms.
These celebrities may be suffering from a pay gap in an industry where they are already earning eyewatering sums of money, and they would be the first to admit that their pay gap is neither the most egregious nor the most pressing in the world. But what each of the women in this story is doing is flagging the existence of the gender wage gape and forcing people to confront the reality of unequal pay.
As Williams put it at the Emmys in 2019: “So the next time a woman – and especially a woman of colour, because she stands to make 52 cents on the dollar compared to her white, male counterpart – tells you what she needs to do in order to do her job, listen to her. Believe her.
“Because one day she might stand in front of you and say thank you for allowing her to succeed because of her workplace environment and not in spite of it.”
IN THIS PHOTO: Sienna Miller
Sienna Miller
The actor told the Guardian that she was forced to turn down a role in a Broadway play because it wasn’t willing to offer her pay parity with her male co-star. Instead, producers of the play wanted to pay her less than half what he would be paid.
“The decision to turn down this particular role was difficult and lonely,” Miller said. “I was forced to choose between making a concession on my self-worth and dignity and a role that I was in love with.”
Jessica Chastain
Oscar-nominated actor Jessica Chastain has been one of the most vocal and outspoken critics of the gender pay gap. In response to Lawrence’s viral essay, Chastain told Variety: “There’s no excuse. There’s no reason why [an actor such as Lawrence] should be doing a film with other actors and get paid less than her male co-stars. It’s completely unfair. It’s not right. It’s been happening for years and years and years. I think it’s brave to talk about it. I think everyone should talk about it.”
She also advocated on behalf of her longtime co-star Octavia Spencer so that she could receive equal pay. “It was the easiest thing to do,” Chastain told Whimn, of helping Spencer. “It was her vulnerability in sharing with me where she was in terms of her salary [that led to that]. For the longest time, women have felt like we have to keep things secret. We’ve been raised to think that it’s not proper to talk about money or salary, and there’s something shameful about that.”
“I think that is absolutely part of the problem. We should feel confident to put ourselves up for promotion, and put ourselves up for a raise, no matter what the industry… I think we have to acknowledge that when we are vulnerable enough to speak to each other whether it’s wage inequality whether it’s abuse that women are suffering in the workplace, we will protect each other and support each other”.
As we bid farewell to this year, we can see that the pay gap around the world is not closing. That is especially true and evident in Hollywood. How can we really justify such a gulf?! If there have been small moves towards equality, it is not happening fast enough. Not enough men in the industry showing support and campaigning for rights for women. Taraji P. Henson’s recent, powerful and very emotional words about the way she is undervalued and disrespected should reignite calls for an industry-wide review and re-evaluate about pay. The fact that so many of this year’s finest moments have been created by women – and yet they are not being paid as much as the men. It is not only actors too. Amazing women behind the camera too. It is shocking that many women might leave the industry or not enter it at all if they don’t feel they will ever be on a level playing field. That is horrible to consider! I know this is not a music feature but, as someone who is keen on film and wants to see equality there, it was important to cover this. Let us hope 2024 is a year for resolutions. Commitment needs to come from Hollywood. We cannot keep hearing from women who are telling about their experiences of being underpaid. The gender pay gap needs to close completely. Recognising and compensation women needs to be a big priority…
FOR next year.