“I remember when I was filming The Hunger Games, no producer had ever cast a woman as the lead role in an action movie because they knew it wouldn’t work. Because we were told that male and female audiences could empathize with them. with the male lead, but the male audience cannot empathize with the female lead.”
Jennifer Lawrence’s statement in an interview with Variety on December 7 has two layers of meaning, and the first sentence is a semantic complement to the following sentence. However, most of the public only relied on the first idea to criticize when the star indirectly asserted that she was “the first woman to star in an action movie”.
When dissected, Franklin Leonard – producer and founder of The Black List, a platform for film and television writers – commented that although Lawrence’s assertion was not true, the actress reflected Exactly the bigger issue: Gender stereotypes in Hollywood.
The Oscar-winning star later also explained that her sharing was intended to blow away the old stereotypes, the false rumors that people have heard about women going to film.
For Lawrence, gender stereotypes persist.
“Phụ nữ im lặng và cười trừ ở Hollywood”
This is not the first time Jennifer Lawrence has openly shared her views on inequality, according to the Hollywood Reporter. She is also not a pioneer, but a star who helps the women’s rights movement to be widely amplified.
Remember in 2014, when Sony Pictures was hacked and leaked a series of internal emails from the studio, Lawrence was furious when he learned that he was paid much less than his male co-star.
“I was really shocked, but fortunately I didn’t go crazy there (Sony headquarters). I gave up negotiating because I understood that was pointless. I just held my head high and said no to inequality.” , the star emphasized after learning that she received much less pay than Jeremy Renner, Christian Bale and Bradley Cooper.
Amy Pascal – former President of Sony – sparked a wave of outrage when bluntly stated that “female actors are paid less than male actors because they don’t know what to ask for”. Jessica Chastain felt offended by this statement. But instead of criticizing, the star chose to negotiate directly with the producers who invited her to act. “When participating in the production process, I want to make sure the male actor doesn’t earn 4 times my salary. If that happens, I don’t need this job anymore,” she said firmly.
Salary is also a problem Emma Watson used to be very pressing. The only moment the Harry Potter stars have been waiting for is when women are paid the same as men for the same jobs. But looking at the reality, maybe Watson has to wait until she is 75 years old, even 100 years old.
As for Jessica Alba, in all fields, injustice always favors the weaker sex, but the heaviest is in the operation of the entertainment industry – where male stars are always excessively favored.
Sienna Miller recalls that in one movie, she was paid less than half of the male actor’s salary. Worse still, Amanda Seyfried shocked when she revealed to The Sunday Times that at one point the male star’s salary was 9 times her own, even though they both starred in the same role and were equally popular.
According to Insider’s 2018 statistics, the total income of female actors is about 40% lower than male actors. For example, Scarlett Johansson was the highest-paid actress that year with $40.5 million. And George Clooney topped the list of highest-paid male actors, with $239 million. The difference is about 198.5 million USD.
The 2019 Oscars received a fierce response from the public for excluding female directors in the Best Director category, despite films like Little Women – Greta Gerwig, Portrait of a Lady on Fire – Lulu Wang’s all received many compliments.
Research published in January 2020 by the University of Southern California sheds more light on the reality of discrimination in the film industry. Accordingly, of the total of 1,300 top-grossing films released in the US between 2007 and 2019, only 4.8% of directors were women.
In an interview in March, Cameron Diaz told how the problem of female actresses being treated unfairly and heavily exploited was evident in the 1990s to 2000s. It still exists in the context of today but in quiet forms. than.
Diaz shared that silence and laughter helped her career “peacefully”. At that time, she said actresses could only encourage and comfort each other because they understood that prejudice could not be erased overnight.
But now, women’s views have changed.
The battle to regain the balance of equality
The butterfly effect from the rise of a few typical faces has made Hollywood increasingly volatile, as more and more female actresses speak out to expose the hidden corners of the movie capital.
From #MeToo to Time’s Up, now they stand up for equality in a male-dominated territory. If a woman speaks out, it will be easy to forget, but if many people stand shoulder to shoulder, it is a completely different situation. The year 2017 has seen some changes in the landscape.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Wonder Woman (2017) was the first female superhero film to be made in more than a decade at the time, and was in the top three domestic grossing films of the year. Not to mention, this is also a work with the cooperation of two women to help revive the DCEU superhero universe.
In addition, the two highest-grossing films of 2017 both had female protagonists, namely Star Wars: The Last Jedi ($1.333 billion) and Beauty and the Beast ($1,263 billion).
Women’s voices are no longer completely disregarded as they once were. According to Insider, Robin Wright once threatened the House of Cards producer that if she didn’t pay her salary, the actress would publicize the fact that Kevin Spacey had been favored too much. As a result, the star received a salary of 500,000 USD for each episode. Before that, she only made 420,000 USD/episode.
Emmy Rossum refused to participate in season 8 of the Shameless series until she was raised to the same salary as William H. Macy. Sharing on Insider, the actor born in 1986 said that his male colleague motivated her to speak up for equality. On H. Macy’s side, he said about his co-star: “Yes, she deserves it and more”.
In December 2019, Kristen Stewart was named Actress of the Decade by the Hollywood Critics Association (HCA). HCA considers her impressive acting in such works as Seberg, Personal Shopper, Clouds of Sils Maria, The Runaways, and Charlie’s Angels.
However, many people objected to this title and said that the honor should have belonged to another individual.
The Twilight star hit back at those who criticized her: “Women are forced to work harder to be heard and taken care of. Hollywood is disgustingly sexist. It’s annoying, it’s crazy.”
The story of sexism has always been a hot topic in the art world. There are many reasons for the public to look forward to Hollywood’s changes in the years to come, with many efforts to balance gender equality, respecting feminist voices. However, to properly address this old prejudice is not within days, or months, but a long process.
Source: https://zingnews.vn/
