Inequality in Hollywood

Inequality in Hollywood recently emerged as an issue that covers various forms of discrimination and social inequality in the industry such as gender inequality, racial inequality, and age inequality.

Gender inequality

The Hollywood actress Geena Davis in a speech at the Millennium Development Goals Countdown event in the Ford Foundation Building in New York, addressing gender roles and issues in film (24 September 2013)

Gender inequality is an issue that has been discussed in Hollywood and in the media over a long period of time. Such problems can be seen in the wage gap between actors and actresses. A survey conducted by The New York Film Academy in 2014 found that the top ten male actors collectively made $419 million compared to the top ten actresses who made roughly $226 million collectively.^[1] A Forbes article in August 2017 listed the 30 highest-paid actors and actresses of that year. The highest-paid actor, Mark Wahlberg, made $68 million. The first woman to appear on the list is Emma Stone, who ranked at the 15th highest paid with $26 million. These facts show the highest-paid actor earned more than 2.5 times than the highest-paid actress. The fourth highest-paid actress, Melissa McCarthy, earned $18 million, which ties with the 21st highest-paid actor, Chris Evans.^[2].

A study from the International Federation of Actors (FIA) found that the number of women who have an income under £6,000 is 14 percent more than men, and the number of women who have an income of £20,000 or higher is 13 percent less than men.^[3] Data from The Writers Guild of America, West a union for film and television writers in Hollywood, was analyzed by Denise D. Bielby in “Sociologie du Travail.” She states that “from 1999 through 2005, the gender gap in earnings increased… with women’s earnings declining by 6 percent (from $53,200 to $50,000) and men’s growing by 16 percent (from $77,500 to $90,000).”^[4]

In some instances, male co-stars have offered to give up part of their salaries in order to ensure equal pay. During an interview, Susan Sarandon said that Paul Newman offered to give her part of his salary after learning that the actress was being paid less than he was. ^[5] In 2018, Benedict Cumberbatch declared that he would not take on a role if his female co-star was not being paid the same rate.^[6]

The Sony Pictures hack in 2014 revealed that Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams were paid less than their male co-stars for the movie American Hustle. Each actor in the film received a certain number of points that represented how much they earned from the movie. An email from a Columbia Pictures executive stated that “The current talent deals are: O'Russell: 9 percent; Cooper: 9 percent; Bale: 9 percent; Renner: 9 percent; Lawrence: 7 percent; Adams: 7 percent.”^[7] Regardless of the fact that the two women were nominated for more Academy Awards than all the men put together, Lawrence was originally presented with five “points” while the leading actress, Adams was presented with seven. The hack also brought forth data which showed that “Of 6,000 employees, 17 of those employees were raking in $1 million or more, but only one of those $1 million-plus employees is a woman.”^[8]

Opportunities within the film industry may be biased towards gender. Another study from FIA focusing on the opportunity of employment shows that 22 percent more men than women feel that they work regularly and have a large choice of employment opportunities.

A New York Film Academy research study found that films with a female director exhibited a 10.6 percent increase in female characters on screen and an 8.7 percent increase when a female screenwriter was part of the project.^[9] The same study found that "Visual effects, usually the largest department for big feature films, had an average of only 17.5 percent of women (employees), while music had just 16 percent, and camera and electrical were, on average, 95 percent male".^[10] Few film directors are women. Among the top 250 grossing films in 2016, only 7 percent of directors were female.^[11]

Inequality in the film industry is also evident in the types of characters women portray. Whilst men can be seen playing characters within a number of different genres, women are typically under-represented in genres such as action and sci-fi, being more commonly represented in the romance genre.^[12] The New York Film Academy 2014 poll cited above also assessed gender differences in revealing clothing on screen. The poll found that while only 30.8 percent of speaking characters are women, 28.8 percent of those women wore sexually revealing clothes compared to 7 percent of male speaking characters.^[9]

The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media is an organization that lobbies the industry to expand the roles of women in film.^[13]

A 2018 study from IndieWire found that Michelle William’s performance of “All The Money In the World” made $80 a day in per diem for the film’s reshoots, while co-star Mark Wahlberg got $1.5 million from Sony. Women in the industry — who are significantly represented in studio executive and producer ranks — were intensely aware that most of the women on that stage had been vastly underpaid. The men were the ones making real money, which in the entertainment business equals power and respect. The fact that this many women were aware of their lack of payment for their work speaks volumes as to how influential this problem could be in the future due to the influence and power women have had in society.

Racial inequality

The presence of racial inequality in Hollywood has also been debated. The Georgetown Law Journal of Modern Critical Race Perspectives published an article stating that “typically, breakdowns reserve leading roles for white actors, leaving only a small number of remaining roles for non-white actors.”^[14] A 2006 study by UCLA Chicano Studies stated that "from June 1st to August 31st of that year...only 0.5 percent to 8.1 percent of roles were available for actors of color, compared to 69 percent of roles “reserved” for white actors. Moreover, only 8.5 percent of roles did not designate race or ethnicity, pitting white actors against actors of color".^[14] Furthermore, “Just over a quarter (25.9 percent) of the 3,932 speaking characters evaluated were from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups; [74.1 percent were White]”^[15] A wage gap also exists between white actors and actors of color, seen recently in the potential reboot of "Hawaii Five-O" where actors Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park quit because their contracts offered 10 percent to 15 percent less pay than those of their white co-stars.^[16]

Non-white directors are also underrepresented within the industry. It is said that in 2008, only 5 percent of top-grossing films had a black director.^[12] This under-representation can also be seen in films which have been critically acclaimed, for example, the only non-white directed film to win an Academy award was Steve McQueen for 12 Years A Slave, winning best picture.^[12] There is also a disparity in the budgets and box office grosses between films with white and non-white directors, with white director’s budgets being higher on average.^[12]

The Evolve Entertainment Fund^[17] was created January 2018 to provide a resource for people from under-served communities the opportunity to find work in the entertainment industry.

A recent 2018 study from IndieWire found that for actors of color, pay issues have an even steeper climb. At a time when Hollywood’s bottom line is increasingly dominated by international box office, they face the myth that racially diverse films “don’t travel.”

According to the Writers Guild of America’s 2016 Hollywood Writer’s Report, race is a bigger factor in pay disparity than gender, putting minority women-even at the top levels- at the greatest disadvantage. The report also states that white men earned a median of $133,500 in 2014, whereas women collectively made a median of $118,293 and non-white writers even less: $100,649. Although the Guild declined to provide specific data for women of color, Asian writers collectively earned a median of $115,817; black writers $99,440 and Latino writers $84,200. The median earnings for Native American writers was $152,500, but there were only five employed Native scribes in 2014.

Age inequality

Ageism also exists throughout Hollywood and affects more women than men.^[18] This problem is not new; young women have been cast with significantly older men for years. For example, “in the 1942 classic Casablanca, Ingrid Bergman, 27, played opposite Humphrey Bogart, 16 years older than her.” ^[19]

The FIA finds that 63.8 percent of women in the performance industry and 51.2 percent of men have a career that lasts between 11 and 15 years. This difference of 12.6 percent depicts the number of women who have ended their careers earlier than their male counterparts.

A study in the Journal of Management Inquiry found a correlation between age, gender, and pay. The data show that “Average earnings per film of female movie stars increase until the age of 34, but decrease rapidly after that. For male movie stars, average earnings per film are highest when they are 51 years of age.”^[20] These studies show a clear bias against older actresses while the salaries of men remain fairly consistent even in their old age.

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