The gender pay gap in Hollywood
Mark Wahlberg was paid $1.5 million for ten days of reshoots to finish the film All the Money In The World. Michelle Williams, who has top billing in the film, was paid $1,000 for the same ten days of reshoots. That ignited a firestorm on social media. Mr. Wahlberg wound up donating the entire $1.5 million to the Times Up movement, in the name of Ms Williams. The agency that represents both of them, William Morris Endeavor (WME) donated $500,000 to the same fund.
Much of the criticism is aimed directly at the agency for allowing the pay disparity to have been created. For those living in an entertainment industry news vacuum, the reshoots were required in order for Christopher Plummer to replace Kevin Spacey in the role of J. Paul Getty. Mr. Spacey was erased from the film after being accused of sexual assault on young men.
The film's director, Ridley Scott, said that he and Ms Williams had done the reshoots for free and that was widely reported at the time. USA Today is credited for breaking the story of the pay disparity on January 9, 2018 but the Washington Post had run a story on the pay gap between the two in November of last year. That story got no traction at all.
The issues are nowhere near as simple as a great big disparity between a man and a woman who happen to both be actors. One of the issues is that while they are both represented by WME, they have different individuals as their primary representation, according to multiple sources. That factoid is left out of almost every single news item reporting on the pay disparity.
Then there is the issue that Mr. Wahlberg is a much more "bankable" name on a movie marquee. While Ms Williams is a multiple Oscar nominee, and a tremendously talented actress, her ability to fill seats in an auditorium is nowhere near that of Mr. Wahlberg.
Which leads us into another factoid that is being ignored almost entirely in this discussion. Mr. Wahlberg, who Forbes Magazine named the highest paid actor of the year last August (claiming he earned $68 million in "pre-tax and pre-fee earnings), took an 80% reduction in his usual movie salary to do this film. Deadline reports that his name was critical to the film's ability to land most of the foreign sales.
There is a long history of disparity about pay, billing and even dialogue in Hollywood. In producing the 1974 film The Towering Inferno, Paul Newman and Steve McQueen had to be given equal pay, equal billing and an equal number of lines of dialogue. When it was discovered that Newman had 12 more lines of dialogue than McQueen did, reshoots were necessary. William Holden had also demanded top billing in that film. He was the only Oscar winner (at the time) among the three men, but his "stardom" had been surpassed by the other two.
Jennifer Lawrence's essay on the gender pay gap, written two years ago, is relevant. It is wrong for a woman to be paid less for the same work than a man. But I stand by my comments written in response to that essay that the fact that a man and a woman (or another man for that matter) may have the same number of lines in a film, or the same number of minutes on screen; automatically means they are doing the same "work."
"Movies are investments. Acting is a job but it isn't like any other job in that the box office receipts of the film are indeed a function of who the actor/actress is and their ability to bring people into the auditoriums where the film is being shown. Performers are paid not just for their ability to perform, but their ability to generate revenues. If a producer believes that one name on the marquee is more valuable than another, why wouldn't they pay that performer a higher salary to be able to put that name up there."
Is the William Morris Endeavor agency to blame for the disparity? Are they failing in a duty to fairly and equitably represent all of their clients equally? It is an interesting question. If each has their own individual agent within the agency, do those agents have a fiduciary duty to work together to ensure equity? I wouldn't have thought so. Then came this statement from the agency itself:
“The current conversation is a reminder that those of us in a position of influence have a responsibility to challenge inequities, including the gender wage gap."
Much of the criticism is aimed directly at the agency for allowing the pay disparity to have been created. For those living in an entertainment industry news vacuum, the reshoots were required in order for Christopher Plummer to replace Kevin Spacey in the role of J. Paul Getty. Mr. Spacey was erased from the film after being accused of sexual assault on young men.
The film's director, Ridley Scott, said that he and Ms Williams had done the reshoots for free and that was widely reported at the time. USA Today is credited for breaking the story of the pay disparity on January 9, 2018 but the Washington Post had run a story on the pay gap between the two in November of last year. That story got no traction at all.
The issues are nowhere near as simple as a great big disparity between a man and a woman who happen to both be actors. One of the issues is that while they are both represented by WME, they have different individuals as their primary representation, according to multiple sources. That factoid is left out of almost every single news item reporting on the pay disparity.
Then there is the issue that Mr. Wahlberg is a much more "bankable" name on a movie marquee. While Ms Williams is a multiple Oscar nominee, and a tremendously talented actress, her ability to fill seats in an auditorium is nowhere near that of Mr. Wahlberg.
Which leads us into another factoid that is being ignored almost entirely in this discussion. Mr. Wahlberg, who Forbes Magazine named the highest paid actor of the year last August (claiming he earned $68 million in "pre-tax and pre-fee earnings), took an 80% reduction in his usual movie salary to do this film. Deadline reports that his name was critical to the film's ability to land most of the foreign sales.
There is a long history of disparity about pay, billing and even dialogue in Hollywood. In producing the 1974 film The Towering Inferno, Paul Newman and Steve McQueen had to be given equal pay, equal billing and an equal number of lines of dialogue. When it was discovered that Newman had 12 more lines of dialogue than McQueen did, reshoots were necessary. William Holden had also demanded top billing in that film. He was the only Oscar winner (at the time) among the three men, but his "stardom" had been surpassed by the other two.
Jennifer Lawrence's essay on the gender pay gap, written two years ago, is relevant. It is wrong for a woman to be paid less for the same work than a man. But I stand by my comments written in response to that essay that the fact that a man and a woman (or another man for that matter) may have the same number of lines in a film, or the same number of minutes on screen; automatically means they are doing the same "work."
"Movies are investments. Acting is a job but it isn't like any other job in that the box office receipts of the film are indeed a function of who the actor/actress is and their ability to bring people into the auditoriums where the film is being shown. Performers are paid not just for their ability to perform, but their ability to generate revenues. If a producer believes that one name on the marquee is more valuable than another, why wouldn't they pay that performer a higher salary to be able to put that name up there."
Is the William Morris Endeavor agency to blame for the disparity? Are they failing in a duty to fairly and equitably represent all of their clients equally? It is an interesting question. If each has their own individual agent within the agency, do those agents have a fiduciary duty to work together to ensure equity? I wouldn't have thought so. Then came this statement from the agency itself:
“The current conversation is a reminder that those of us in a position of influence have a responsibility to challenge inequities, including the gender wage gap."
I think they just assigned that duty to themselves based on that statement.
posted by me at 7:27 AM
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