By Courtney Enlow | Lists | April 12, 2016 |
By Courtney Enlow | Lists | April 12, 2016 |
In honor of Equal Pay Day, that glorious day when we celebrate how people of all genders, races, sexual orientations all make the same amount of mon—oh, sorry, I’m getting word that this is not the case at all.
More and more often, actresses are speaking out about the wage gap in Hollywood. Here are just a few of their stories.
Gillian Anderson
I’m still so mad about this. Anderson was offered half of what Duchovny was for The X-Files. No, not in 1993. Well, actually, yes, in 1993, but also just last year when they decided to bring the show back. Twice, once long after she’d been established as icon and hero Dana Scully, Anderson was offered HALF of her male co-star’s pay.
Diane Keaton
For the movie Something’s Gotta Give, a movie written and directed by a woman about a woman and arguably for an audience predominantly made up of women, Keaton did not receive a back-end percentage of the film. Jack Nicholson, her co-star, did. So he wrote her a big-ass check from his percentage of the movie. Which is great. But he shouldn’t have had to.
Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams
We all know this one. It’s still not OK. Suck it, Renner.
Amanda Seyfried
Seyfriend told the Sunday Times, “A few years ago, on one of my big-budget films, I found I was being paid 10 percent of what my male co-star was getting, and we were pretty even in status.” We don’t know who that co-star is but our money is on either a very Charming Potato or the Wedding Jumper.
Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda
Ironically, in this case, the issue is that the pay is equal. Fonda and Tomlin are paid the same as Martin Sheen and Sam Waterston, their supporting actors, for Grace and Frankie, a show in which they are the stars and titular characters. Before anyone plays devil’s advocate in the comments and suggests the actresses support this decision as Hollywood veterans helping out a couple young upstarts like Sheen and Waterson, Fonda and Tomlin are not happy about this.
Meryl Streep
If even Meryl Streep can’t get fair pay, I don’t know what hope there is for the rest of us.
And these are just a few of the stories we know, and they’re all well-established, cisgender, white women able to speak up. The stories we’re not hearing are far worse.
Happy Equal Pay Day!