slate.com: It’s been nearly two weeks since the team behind The Crown admitted that Claire Foy was paid less than co-star Matt Smith for her work on the show. “Going forward,” producer Suzanne Mackie promised at the time, “no one gets paid more than the queen.” But with sexism in the TV and film industries on everybody’s minds, it’s no surprise that a media frenzy erupted over news of a gendered wage gap on one of Netflix’s most popular, female-driven shows, and now, the Golden Globe–winning actress is finally addressing the controversy.
4 comments:
The mere title of this article brings me to rage. I've watched this show since it came out and I can promise you that this is not a love story, its not a story about their marriage, its a show about a woman and her incredibly hefty inheritance. Claire Foy is the lead character and I really don't understand why in any way the man playing her husband would be paid any more than her, if anything she should be the one being paid more since she's the one bringing in all the awards. Issue's like these are not unheard of even after years of battling for some type of semblance of a proper wage situation here in the entertainment industry. The wage gap exists in all fields of work based on title, on screen time, on whatever the producer believes to be the deciding factor in paying a man more than a woman. This moral gray area is ridiculous and needs to make its way out the door, especially in The Crown.
This is a complicated issue that is bad optics for the industry as it tries to grapple with the rampant sexism in Hollywood that was uncovered in the Harvey Weinstein scandal and the #MeToo movement. Despite the apparent bad optics, I do understand why this is the way it is. If Tom Cruise was starring as a Male Supporting Actor to a lesser known female lead, it would not be deemed unreasonable to pay Tom Cruise more than the lesser known female lead, because Cruise’s star power is more likely to attract viewers to the movie. Matt Smith has a cult following in the U.K., because of his time starring as the doctor in Doctor Who. When the Crown premiered he was much more well known than Claire Foy, and as such he negotiated a higher salary, because he had the accompanying star power to negotiate with. That has since changed, and Foy is now a well known actress. In the future, studios should be more transparent about actor pay; however, if Jennifer Lawrence was starring as a supporting actress with a lesser known male actor in the starring role it would be perfectly reasonable for Lawrence to be paid more. The ruling on this should be increased transparency, but stars should be allowed to use their star power to negotiate for higher pay regardless of their gender.
This is absolutely ridiculous. The title character of a show is paid less because she is a woman. Another part of this that upsets me equally is the fact that the one who came forward to attempt to atone for the mistake and promise that “going forward” Claire Foy would be not only paid equally, but more, was a woman. That means that, this entire time, there have been women allowing this inequality to continue. If this was brought to public knowledge or if they had fought more for Foy, then this entire thing could’ve been rectified significantly sooner, if not avoided completely. We have reached a point with not only our social atmosphere, but with the access to mass media, that it is beyond me how a group of producers actually believed that not only this was acceptable, but that it was something they could get away with without a massive uproar. I must commend Foy for taking this with such grace and dignity because, quite honestly, I am enraged on her behalf.
It absolutely blows my mind that the gender pay gap still exists in mainstream television shows and movies today, especially in the case of The Crown. This show is an incredibly popular series with a female lead who undoubtedly has a lot, if not most, of the screen time. Yet despite this, somehow Claire Foy is still paid less than her male counterpart, Matt Smith. I still do not understand what goes through producers and budgeters’ minds when they divide salary in this way. I do understand that the actors are under contract and do not have any choice or effect on whether their co-stars get paid sufficiently, however I still wish the actors of this show spoke out on the unfairness of the situation with a little more conviction. Because they hold power and influence in the entertainment industry, it’s possible that if the cast and crew of The Crown publicly denounced the pay gap then there would be more steps taken to fix this problem.
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