Jennifer Lawrence, like many women in the public eye, has ridden the wave of being both adored and despised by the public, being praised for her self-deprecating sense of humour and then ripped apart for the very same thing when people decide that it is once again too much for a woman to have a personality.
However, she has persevered throughout the continuous waves of bullshit, with a staggering body of work that perfectly demonstrated her talents from day dot, winning an Academy Award at the age of 22 after her performance in Silver Linings Playbook.
Since then, the actor has starred in challenging projects like Mother!, The Hunger Games series, Causeway and the upcoming Lynne Ramsay film Die, My Love. However, while she is one of the world’s most popular actors, Lawrence has still struggled to be taken seriously and paid what she is worth, with a huge pay disparity on one of her most successful projects.
Anyone who stars in a franchise is typically met with widespread recognition and a fat cheque, with actors from the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings series discussing the high level of financial compensation and residual payments for their participation in such a successful fandom. However, while Lawrence has generally been one of the highest-paid actors in Hollywood, her work on the X-Men franchise rattled her after discovering that her male co-stars were paid significantly more than she and Amy Adams.
Lawrence plays Mystique in the X-Men franchise, a story about a group of mutants with special powers who are tasked with ending a colossal global threat. Starring Michael Fassbender, James McAvoy, Kevi Bacon and Lawrence, the film became an important work within her filmography, as well as teaching her an important lesson about advocating for yourself and using her voice in the industry.
Sony, the studio behind the series, was hacked in 2017, and multiple documents were released showing that the company was paying Lawrence’s male co-stars much more than she was. This wasn’t the first time that the gender pay gap in Hollywood was exposed, with other women and people of colour in the industry also experiencing similar struggles in being treated equally to their peers who held more power.
When discussing her thoughts on this, Lawrence said, “I didn’t get mad at Sony. I got mad at myself. I failed as a negotiator because I gave up early. I didn’t want to keep fighting over millions of dollars that, frankly, due to two franchises, I don’t need. At the time, that seemed like a fine idea, until I saw the payroll on the Internet and realized every man I was working with definitely didn’t worry about being ‘difficult’ or ‘spoiled. F—that. I don’t think I’ve ever worked for a man in charge who spent time contemplating what angle he should use to have his voice heard. It’s just heard.”
It is outrageous that this is still a regular occurrence in the industry, and far too many people in Hollywood don’t seem as outraged by this as they should. The film industry is a disgusting boys’ club, and while some people are working hard to make it better, too many are still cruising by on the knowledge that because it doesn’t affect them, they don’t need to do anything and aren’t part of the problem.
