Actresses who have won their right to equal pay
Women seeking a career in the film industry it is not easy: men are still much more likely to occupy the director's chair, and their achievements are encouraged more readily (this is clearly seen in the list of the best films of the Guild of Directors of the USA). Actresses are faced with the absurd need to look forever young - about how few interesting roles the “dream factory” can offer to women over forty, Meryl Streep, Susan Sarandon and other stars who haven't needed to prove their professional suitability for a long time have said.
However, the problems are not limited to double standards in relation to appearance: after the famous draining of the correspondence of Sony Pictures employees, the whole world has learned that actresses in Hollywood are often paid several times less than their male counterparts. Many actresses did not put up with the situation and succeeded - although it’s still far from being equal, thanks to their speeches about the problem of unequal pay in the film industry are now spoken not less often than about other types of discrimination, and since January this year California has a new law equal pay. We remembered the heroines of the film industry, who were not afraid to declare injustice.
Natalie Portman
Just yesterday, on January 11, an actress interviewed Marie Claire in the UK, in which she admitted that she was paid three times less for 2011's More than Sex romk than her partner in the film Ashton Kutcher, justifying it with a higher actor rating. compared to Portman. "I was not angry as much as I should have," said the actress. "We are paid a lot, so it's a sin to complain, but the difference in numbers becomes crazy." According to the actress, if in other areas women get 20% less than men, then in cinema the difference reaches 80%.
Jennifer Lawrence
Jennifer Lawrence became one of the actresses who learned about the huge difference between her fees and the salary of male colleagues from the drain of the Sony Pictures correspondence. Lawrence discovered that behind the American Hustle romcom, she herself and Amy Adams received significantly less than Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper and Jeremy Renner. In the essay for the Lenny Letter mailing, the actress analyzed the situation and honestly told about her feelings: in particular, Lawrence noted that many women are afraid to bargain and ask for big fees, because they don’t want to seem "spoiled" or "difficult" to work. “I’m tired of looking for a“ nice ”way to express my opinion and still try to be liked by others. To hell! I don’t think I’ve ever worked for a man who took the time to figure out what angle he should give his opinion to be heard, "- said the actress. Judging by the fact that in 2016 Lawrence was for the second time recognized as the highest paid actress in Hollywood, she has since learned to insist on fair pay.
Patricia Arquette
In 2015, the star of the film “Boyhood” took a bold step, devoting its speech at Oscar to the inconvenient topic of gender inequality: “I appeal to every woman who has given birth to a child, to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation: we fought for the equal rights of others. Now it is our time to achieve equal pay for all and equal rights for women. " Although, according to Arquette, after the speech, she began to offer fewer roles, the actress managed to attract the attention of the general public to the scandal around Sony Pictires and the problem of unequal pay in general. Arquette's speech was supported by Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lopez and Charlize Theron, now the actress is not only acting in films, but also oversees the organization for women screenwriters, and also participates in the discussion of government measures to regulate the labor market.
Charlize Theron
Preparing for the shooting of the sequel "Snow White and the Hunter", Charlize Theron learned that the producers offered a much larger fee to her partner in the picture, Chris Hemsworth. The actress was not afraid to appear "spoiled" and forced the studio to change the terms of its contract, eventually getting more than $ 10 million for the shooting. In his interviews and at the film awards ceremony, Theron repeatedly spoke about the strength of women and exposed the double standards of Hollywood. "We live in a society where there is a stereotype that women fade over the years, and men, like good wine, only get better. For a long time, women accepted this axiom and lived with it. We waited for society to change its views but now they are able to change them themselves, "said the actress in an interview with the British GQ. It's hard not to agree with her.
Robin Wright
In May 2016, Robin Wright, who played Claire Underwood in the Cards House series, told her what efforts she had to make to equalize her salary with the fees of show partner Kevin Spacey. According to the original contract, Wright received 80,000 dollars less for filming each episode than her colleague, but after the success of the first season, the actress decided to convince the producers that she deserved more. The woman turned to the studio management, armed with statistics on the popularity of the characters of the series, and threatened that she would make a scandal to the public if the studio did not satisfy her requirements. Fortunately for the studio, this was not done - the producers increased the fee for the actress. Probably even Claire Underwood would not have been able to get out of this situation more successfully.
Emmy Rossum
Emmy Rossam, the star of the "Shameless" series, managed not only to equalize her fees with William H. Macy's earnings, but also to get more - so the actress decided to restore justice, because in the first seasons she received much less of a show partner. In December 2016, it became known that Rossum had reached an agreement with the producers and would take part in the filming of the eighth season of Shameless - the series would hardly have continued to exist without the main character Fiona Gallager. A source of Variety confirmed that the producers "clearly recognized the importance of the actress for the series," raising her fee.