As you may know from our Make Them Pay campaign with Mother in the November 2013 issue, championing equal pay for men and women is very important to us. So when we heard that Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams were paid less for their roles in American Hustle… Well, angry doesn’t cover it.
Email correspondence leaked by the hacking of Sony servers revealed that, while Bradley Cooper and Christian Bale each earned 9% of the movie’s back-end compensation (a percentage of the box office takings as part of their salary), Jennifer Lawrence and Amy Adams received just 7% each. And Lawrence’s share was originally just 5%.
With the worldwide gross box office takings for American Hustle at almost $250m (nearly £160m), 2% is a lot for the women of the film to have missed out on. Especially when Adams and Lawrence both won Golden Globe awards for their performances, and the latter also won a Bafta for hers.
So while we may have thought that this year’s Forbes Under 30 Rich List (featuring 50% women) was progress, we’re actually still fighting for equality. Which is why we made a video to challenge peoples’ perceptions of feminism – with the aim to get more people talking about and getting involved with the issue. Join the debate on Twitter #ELLEFeminism, and read more about our campaign.
