From Marilyn Monroe to Meryl Streep, Hollywood has long idolized iconic actresses. The industry ladles out awards and promotional adoration, but when it comes to their paychecks, Hollywood seems to love women a little bit—and in some cases a lot—less. Not only are women grossly underrepresented in film, television and comedy, they are also often underpaid compared to their male counterparts.
The gender pay gap, which is present across all industries and pay scales in the U.S., is finally receiving more media attention in Hollywood as stars including Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep and Viola Davis have spoken out on the disparity. Here is what you need to know about the less-than entertaining ways that the entertainment business compensates its female stars.
On The Big Screen
The world’s highest-paid actress, Lawrence, made $52 million in the 12 months to June 2015—an impressive number until it is compared to the $80 million banked by Robert Downey Jr., the world’s top-paid actor.
Lawrence may have proven herself as a box office and critical success with The Hunger Games and films like Silver Linings Playbook, but Wikileaks revealed that the actress and her American Hustle co-star Amy Adams received a 7% cut of that film's profits, 2 percentage points less than the film’s male leads, Bradley Cooper, Christian Bale and Jeremy Renner. While Lawrence may have had a smaller role than her male counterparts, back-end compensation is typically awarded based on star power and gravitas, which Lawrence possesses on par with Bale and Renner.
Lawrence addressed the pay gap in October in an essay in Lenny, Lena Dunham and Girls producer Jenni Konner’s newsletter. “When the Sony hack happened and I found out how much less I was being paid than the lucky people with dicks, I didn’t get mad at Sony,” she wrote. “I got mad at myself…I failed as a negotiator because I gave up early.”
Scarlett Johansson, who earned $35.5 million last year, was the only film actress to join Lawrence on the 2015 edition of the Celebrity 100, Forbes’ list of top-paid celebrities. Johansson was, in fact, the beneficiary of a rare fair deal in Hollywood: Playing Black Widow, she earned the same amount as Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth for Avengers: Age of Ultron.
More frequent are anecdotes of discrimination like those recently related by Selma Hayek, Gwyneth Paltrow and even Streep.
Diane Keaton did not receive back-end pay for her star role in Something’s Gotta Give, while Jack Nicholson did. Even after three Oscar wins, Streep says she gets paid less than her male co-stars. Paltrow stated the wage gap between her and Iron Man co-star Downey “feels shitty.” Amanda Seyfried recalled that she has, at times, only earned a 10th of what male actors have while working on the same film.
All of these women have echoed the sentiment of Patricia Arquette, who brought the issue to the world’s attention at last year’s Oscars when she said in her acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actress, “It’s our time to have wage equality for once and for all.”
But it is not only the number on the paycheck that is the problem: Women are also greatly underrepresented on the big screen, leading to fewer opportunities to make money, an issue that Reese Witherspoon brought up at the American Cinematheque Awards in October: “Women make up 50% of the population, and we should be playing 50% of the roles on the screen.”
That is a dream that is far from a reality. According to a report by the Annenberg School at USC’s Media, Diversity & Social Change Initiative released in August, only 28.1% of characters in 2014’s top 100 films were female and of that percent, only 21 had a female lead or co-lead.
Behind The Camera
The misrepresentation is even worse behind the camera: Of the same films, women made up only 1.9% of directors, 11.2% of writers and 18.9% of producers. This only aggravates the problem. The report found that in productions where women held key positions off-screen—as directors, writers and producers—the films featured women more often, and in less sexualized roles.
Gender equality in the workplace isn't just good for women—it's great for business too.
Many argue that this stems from the antiquated and false notion that films starring women don’t sell. Disney has been particularly proactive in making more female-centered films, including the animated hits Frozen and Inside Out and the live-action Malificent, Tomorrowland and aforementioned Avengers, as well as the upcoming Cinderella starring Cate Blanchett and Beauty and the Beast starring Emma Watson.
“Audiences have proven that there’s an appetite and a market for dynamic female leads and female-driven stories, and as an industry, we have a responsibility to create those roles for women and compensate them accordingly,” Alan Horn, the chairman of Walt Disney Studios, told Variety.
On The Small Screen
In television, the pay gap is less severe, as casts can negotiate so that all leads get paid the same amount. This explains why Sofia Vergara and Kaley Cuco-Sweeting, who both made $28.5 million in the year to June, had comparable earnings to their male co-stars.
Still, the underrepresentation persists and explains the disparity in pay between TV actors and actresses: To make this year’s list of top-paid TV actors, it took at least $9.5 million, but the cut-off for TV actresses was $5 million. According to the Annenberg School study, women are underrepresented among cable comedy and drama leads, as well as reality leads across the board.
Even after receiving two Emmy Awards, Kathy Griffin still had to ask NBC executives to be paid a salary equivalent to those of her male counterparts when she was starring on the Bravo series My Life on the D-List. She recently told Variety that it isn’t getting better.
Deeper Disparities For Women Of Color
The earnings disparity is even worse for women of color. While, on average, women in this country make an average of 78% of their male counterparts, African American and Native American women make 64 cents and 59 cents, respectively, for every dollar made by white men, and Hispanic women earn just 56 cents to a white man’s dollar.
And this imbalance also stands in the representation of people of color in film. According to the Annenberg study, 4.9% of speaking or named characters in the 100 top-grossing films of 2014 were Hispanic or Latino—a tremendous underrepresentation considering the same people comprise 17% of the population. For blacks and Asians, the number was slightly higher at 12.5% and 5.3%, respectively. In fact, only 17 of the same 100 films starred an actor of an underrepresented ethnic group.
How to Get Away with Murder actress Viola Davis articulated the difficulties facing women of color in her recent Emmy award acceptance speech: “The only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity,” she said. “You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there.”
When it comes to pay disparity, music may be the area of the entertainment industry in which women are best compensated for their work. Katy Perry was the top-paid musician last year, earning $135 million to beat out Garth Brooks, the highest paid male solo musician, who made $90 million.
But, still, there is an expectation that women do not discuss earnings and success. Perry told Forbes that she believes women fear being considered hubristic. “I’m not here to brag,” said Perry on being Forbes’ coverstar. “I’m here to inspire other females.”
Of course, this is a concern that touches the entire country, not just Hollywood. And while in Hollywood the issue affects those fortunate enough to be making six, seven or eight figure salaries, in the rest of the country, it affects women struggling to support themselves and their families.
Still, with powerful visibility and an ability to spark public debate, Hollywood has an opportunity to set an example for every industry. Actresses, writers and directors must continue to discuss the wage gap—and opportunity gap—they face. Only then might studios move beyond unequal pay for equal work.
Also on Forbes
