Emma Stone accepts the award for best actress in a leading role for “La La Land” at the Oscars on Sunday, Feb. 26, 2017, at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)
Hollywood is happy to push the feminist narrative on screen, but they certainly don’t practice what they preach in the boardroom or on bank statements.
Battle of the Sexes, starring Emma Stone, is scheduled to release this September. It tells the story of tennis icon Billie Jean King’s battle for equality and inclusion in athletics.
Some background: Bobby Riggs, a retired male player was confident that he could “beat any woman” who challenged him in a tennis match. Long story short — and perhaps a movie spoiler — King won in three sets. The match became a major moment for second-wave feminism. Stone plays Billie Jean King.
While making rounds in the press circuit, Stone revealed that she often makes less than men, and that she only reached equal pay through the sacrifice of her male co-stars.
“In my career so far, I’ve needed my male co-stars to take a pay cut so that I may have parity with them. And that’s something they do for me because they feel it’s what’s right and fair. That’s something that’s also not discussed necessarily – that our getting equal pay is going to require people to selflessly say: ‘That’s what’s fair.’ If my male co-star, who has a higher quote than me but believes we are equal, takes a pay cut so that I can match him, that changes my quote in the future and changes my life,” Stone told Out Magazine.
People have reacted many different ways to Stone’s revelation on the pay gap in Hollywood. Some applaud her for speaking out. Others wish that their male co-workers were privileged enough to take a pay cut without being severely impacted. But perhaps the glossed over takeaway is that liberal, feminist Hollywood doesn’t practice what they preach.
Sure, the Hollywood elite want you to vote for the first female president, vote based on “women’s issues,” listen to their endless speeches at awards shows, praise women for growing out their armpit hair, and march in the street — but the big wigs cutting checks won’t even pay women equally.
