Comments on: AWFJ Women On Film - The Week In Women, October 9, 2009 - MaryAnn Johanson

By: AWFJ Women On Film - The Week In Women, October 16, 2009 - MaryAnn Johanson - Alliance of Women Film Journalists -

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 14:01:16 +0000

[...] AWFJ Women On Film - The Week In Women, October 9, 2009 - MaryAnn Johanson [...]

By: N. Miller

N. Miller — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 13:06:16 +0000

You make an excellent point about fact-checking one’s assumptions about audience composition. Where can one go to find reliable statistics on the demographic composition of movie audiences?

By: chuck

chuck — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 07:53:00 +0000

All this talk of woman’s movies, and men’s movies all seem kind of silly. The Harry Potter movie mentioned is a good example, not billed as a man or woman movie, yet appeals more slightly more to women. Cool.

As far a pay goes, it all seems off the scale. $20M, $10M, $5M, you got to be kidding, this is a few weeks or months of work that compensates 50 times what the president makes.

So if a male actor can command $20M and a female “only” $10M, who’s fault is that? The studios?

Let’s face it the studio’s would pay a penguin $20M if they thought it would bring profits. I do think the pay is commensurate with the ability to draw a crowd, and that crowd is made up of both male and females. That crowd, by picking the movies that they do, cause the studios to pay what they will to whom they please, and fair or not that crowd seems to be biased away from chick flicks.

The studios should just try to make good movies that the crowd wants to see. If that movie story is best told with a female lead, then fine, if the story needs a male lead then fine, just let it be a good movie for everyone. And if the $5M isn’t good enough or fair then I’ll put on a dress and lipstick and suffer the indignity of measly $5M for my 3 months of trouble.

By: Jester

Jester — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 20:43:37 +0000

Yep, regarding the first part of the story, the very same writer (female) did the very same piece on male actors back in August:

http://www.forbes.com/2009/08/24/best-actors-for-the-buck-business-entertainment-payback.html

That piece makes virtually all of the same points about the actors that this piece made about the actresses, including the tendency for the “lower-cost” actors not to be carrying the films that they’re in. It then added an even more insulting point about several of the actors being superhero actors where “it doesn’t matter” who’s behind the mask.

A rare miss on your background research there, MAJ. If you’re outraged about the ladies, you should be outraged about the guys too.

By: Tyler

Tyler — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 03:03:46 +0000

I feel like the first part of this column overlooks the fact that the actors being compared might not be so similar. I would call Naomi Watts more of a respected actor than a box-office actor. Obviously, there is gender bias in pay going on here, but it will be lessened if the article compares Watts to someone equivalent in talent/respect. Few actors — any actors — are worthy of the massively overinflated paychecks they get, and I think essentially the same article could be written about men (i.e. instead of Will Ferrell, cast Bill Hader or instead of Tom Cruise, cast Sam Worthington, etc.) without serious change.