Hollywood Pay Inequality

There are multiple reports that actors Daniel Dae Kim and Grace Park are leaving "Hawaii Five-0" after seven seasons because CBS refused to pay them the same salary as the two Caucasian lead actors on the show.

Mr. Kim did make a statement on Facebook about his departure from the show.

A MESSAGE TO MY FANS ABOUT HAWAII 5-0
Sorry for the delay in hearing from me, but like you I’m sure, my July 4th holiday was busy with friends and family. I’m back now and didn’t want to let any more time go by without reaching out. By now many of you have heard the news, and I’m sad to say it is true. I will not be returning to Hawaii Five-0 when production starts next week. Though I made myself available to come back, CBS and I weren’t able to agree to terms on a new contract, so I made the difficult choice not to continue.
As sad as it feels to say goodbye, what I feel most is gratitude. I am so deeply thankful to our crew, writers and everyone associated with the show – and especially the cast, who have been nothing but supportive through this entire process. They and the crew have been my second family for seven years and I wish them nothing but success for season 8 - and beyond.
I also want to say thank you to Peter Lenkov, Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci and everyone at CBS. I will always be grateful for their faith in me to bring Chin Ho Kelly to life. As an Asian American actor, I know first-hand how difficult it is to find opportunities at all, let alone play a well developed, three dimensional character like Chin Ho. I will miss him sincerely.
What made him even more special is that he was a representative of a place my family and I so dearly love. It has been nothing short of an honor to be able to showcase the beauty and people of Hawaii every week, and I couldn’t be prouder to call these islands home. To my local community, mahalo nui loa.
Finally, I want to thank all of you, the fans. I’ve read your messages and I can’t tell you how much they’ve meant to me. I never, ever forget that YOU are the reason Hawaii Five-0 is the success that it is, and interacting with you online and in person around the world(!) has been one of the greatest joys of this entire experience. I’m so sorry we won’t be continuing this journey together.
I’ll end by saying that though transitions can be difficult, I encourage us all to look beyond the disappointment of this moment to the bigger picture. The path to equality is rarely easy. But I hope you can be excited for the future. I am. 5-0 continues on after one of its strongest seasons. I’ve got new acting projects on the horizon, and as a producer, my company, 3AD, has its first show, THE GOOD DOCTOR, set to air this fall on ABC. I hope you’ll tune in. There’s a lot to look forward to and I’ll be sure to share it with you. In the meantime,
Aloha, thank you and Happy Independence Day!
-DDK

I have a confession to make.  I have not watched a complete episode of the modern version of Hawaii Five-0 since it began in 2010.  I've seen bits and pieces but never a full episode.  Therefore, I do not know enough to know whether or not the roles played by Mr. Kim and Ms Park are "equal" to those of Alex O'Loughlin and Scott Caan.  The show's opening credits seem to bill them as equals, although Mr. Kim and Ms Park are billed 3rd and 4th respectively.  Does that mean anything in terms of pay equality?  Let's look at a few other situations in television.

When the six cast members of Friends got their $1 million per episode salaries all around, they did it by negotiating as a unit.  They had a unique set of circumstances, one being that all were nearing the point of leaving.  And, two of them took cuts to get the salaries of the other four increased.

The five original members of the cast of the Big Bang Theory took cuts in their own pay in order to free up money to give pay raises to Mayim Bialik and Melissa Rauch.  They joined the show in season 3 and make significantly less than the original cast.  One of those five original cast members is Kunal Nayyar and he is of British-Indian ancestry.  Race doesn't seem to be a factor in his pay.  Kaley Cuoco gets the same salary as the men in that group of five, so gender isn't an issue either.

That info is from "reliable sources" within the entertainment industry.  We aren't able to access the actual contract data.  But it appears that Ice-T isn't earning the same per episode salary as Mariska Hargitay is for their work on Law & Order SVU.  I haven't heard him complaining about the pay disparity.

If we're talking about salaries for bank branch managers, or anything else along those lines, it is easy to argue in favor of "equal pay for equal work."  It isn't as easy to quantify the labor of performing artists. 

The ratings for Hawaii Five-0 had been slipping, with Season 5 lower than Season 4 and Season 6 coming in lower than Season 5.  But Season 7 was a large increase over season 6.  Why wouldn't you want to keep a good thing going?

I think that letting Mr. Kim and Ms Park go was a bad decision.  It was a business decision.  Was it based on their race?  I'd like to think not.  But the treatment of persons of color by the entertainment industry has been horrible historically.  While some movement is being made in the right direction, it is a dribble from the faucet of equality and insufficient for anyone to claim "problem solved."

I leave you with a question.  You need to cast an actress as the lead in a big budget movie.  Would you offer Emma Watson, Emma Stone and Emma Roberts the same salary for the role?