Earlier this week, a viral story that claimed that “Wonder Woman” star Gal Gadot was paid 46 times less than her similarly untried “Batman v. Superman” co-star Henry Cavill for his first outing as Superman in “Man of Steel” turned out to be embarrassingly false. But this debunking of one pay gap between an actor and actress of equal fame doesn’t erase the fact that the wage gap does exist, even in Hollywood.
The Elle article that spread the viral fact claimed that Gadot was paid $300,000 for each of her appearances as Wonder Woman in Warner Bros.’ DC Comics films, including “Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice” and her solo outing in “Wonder Woman,” compared to Cavill’s $14 million earnings. But Vanity Fair quickly discredited that story, reporting that even if Cavill earned $14 million, it wasn’t for one film, and could well be his total pay for all his films.
“If you do an apples to apples comparison, she was paid at least as much as he was,” an industry source told Vanity Fair.
But while the story turned out to be a dud, it does open up a valuable discussion about the wage gap in Hollywood, an issue that actresses are calling more attention to lately.
The current outcry over the Hollywood pay gap can be traced back to the 2014 Sony hack, in which email correspondence between Sony executives unearthed the fact that the female stars of David O. Russell’s award-winning film “American Hustle” were paid far less than their male stars. The cast boasted the likes of Jennifer Lawrence, Amy Adams, Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper and Jeremy Renner. The news was met with such outrage because Lawrence is one of the biggest stars, but was still getting paid less than second-billed stars like Renner. The inequity was so clear that Lawrence herself ended up penning an op-ed describing her ordeals negotiating deals that she was “over trying to find the ‘adorable’ way to state my opinion and still be likable.”
The pay gap issue came to a head in 2015 when “Boyhood” actress Patricia Arquette used her Oscars acceptance speech to champion equal pay. “To every woman who gave birth, to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation, we have fought for everybody else’s equal rights,” she said. “It is our time to have wage equality once and for all, and equal rights for women in the United States of America!”
Since then, actresses have become more vocal about calling for equal pay, using their fame to exact change on the international stage — presumably in the hopes that it will trickle down to the rest of the country’s much lower-paid career women. Everyone from Jessica Chastain, who recently chided films shown at the Cannes Film Festival for their poor portrayal of female characters; to Natalie Portman, who revealed that she’d been paid one-third of what her less acclaimed co-star Ashton Kutcher made for 2011’s “No Strings Attached,” have spoken on the issue.
However, it seems that change is slow.
Forbes’ 2016 list of the world’s highest-paid actors and actresses revealed that the 10 highest paid women “collectively earned less than half than their male counterparts,” according to the Washington Post. The highest paid actress, Lawrence again, earned $46 million in 2016, while the highest paid actor, Dwayne Johnson, earned $64.5 million in the same year. The 2016 gap was merely a repeat from Forbes’ list the year before, which saw Lawrence earning $52 million compared to that year’s highest paid actor, Robert Downey Jr., at $80 million.
To be fair, Lawrence’s earnings may have been slimmer because her 2015 films only included “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2” and “Joy,” while Johnson appeared in “Furious 7” and “San Andreas,” and received upfront fees for his 2016 films “Central Intelligence,” “Fast 8” and “Baywatch.” The gap between Lawrence and Downey Jr. the year before makes less sense, however, as Downey Jr. had only appeared in smaller films like “Chef” and “The Judge,” while Lawrence’s films included “X-Men: Days of Future Past,” “Serena” and “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1.” Even with upfront fees from “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” Downey Jr.’s paycheck shouldn’t have amounted to Lawrence’s two blockbusters.
The reason for the wage gap between men and women is a source of contention. Is it because women choose different jobs? Because the types of careers women pursue tend to not offer the type of figures that men’s careers do? It appears that even in Hollywood that is an issue, with the best-paid actresses profiting from fewer movies than the actors. But on the elevated reality of the Hollywood stage, it becomes easier to discern these gaps — even if we’re arguing over millions instead of cents.
Superhero movies may surprisingly be the first tipping point for women in Hollywood. With the success that both Gadot and director Patty Jenkins enjoyed with “Wonder Woman”‘s box office record-breaking haul, it would be no surprise for them to use the public spotlight and negotiate for raises as high as Robert Downey Jr.’s $50 million paycheck for “The Avengers.”
