As long as Hollywood’s method of determining pay is based on a quote system which is tied to putative experience....
Two weeks after The Hollywood Reporter revealed that Crazy Rich Asians’ Adele Lim had left the franchise amid a sizable pay disparity with her co-screenwriter, scribes are taking to social media to reveal their own experiences with the pay gap.
Deirdre Mangan was the first to use the hashtag #NotWorthLess to share her story. “Much respect to Adele Lim for walking away from CRA. That’s a heartbreaking decision to make,” she wrote Tuesday afternoon. “The rampant pay inequality in the entertainment industry is archaic. Writers who are not able-bodied white men are #NotWorthLess.”
Mangan wrote that for two series at two different studios for which she was hired as co-producer (she did not name them but she most recently served as co-producer on both Universal TV’s Midnight, Texas and ABC Studios’ The Crossing), she was told both times that “budget limitations” precluded the studios from paying her more. She later found that a male colleague at the same level on a show with a similar budget at the same studio earned $1,500 more than her per episode. She asked him how he managed to negotiate successfully and he replied, “Must’ve been my agent. He doesn’t really talk to me; I just get emails from his assistant.”
Veteran writer Terri Kopp, who created BET’s In Contempt and currently serves as co-EP on Showtime’s The Chi, reported that the first time she ran a show she discovered that she was making less than her male co-EP.
“The #NotWorthLess tweets are disappointing and not at all surprising,” wrote veteran comedy writer Travon Free, whose credits include The Daily Show, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee and Black Monday, “especially seeing how on a show I worked on I know of white male writers with years less experience getting bumped up to my pay level in half the time while I got no raise the same year.”
The discrepancy is often a result of unconscious bias, explained Adam Ruins Everything writer Andra Whipple, who described the process of explaining to a former boss why, when she was a production assistant, it was inappropriate to pay her $50 less per week than her male counterparts. “My boss was baffled when I brought it up. He insisted the discrepancy was because we were different types of PA, and that’s normal to pay us differently,” she wrote. “I had already done my research and this is not true.”
As long as Hollywood’s method of determining pay is based on a quote system which is tied to putative experience, women and people of color are at a disadvantage, especially since many are given fewer opportunities than their white male counterparts. “I was not to return for the second season on a show that had a critically acclaimed first season. And none of the other women on staff were asked back either,” wrote Hala filmmaker Minhal Baig, adding, “Who did get asked back? The male office PA and a male EP with no previous writing experience.”
Family Guy executive producer Patrick Meighan wrote that there are ways that more privileged writers can help close the gap. “If you’re a dude on staff and a female co-worker (at same level) has a contract up for renewal on the same schedule as you, team up and refuse to sign until you’re both paid the same,” he tweeted. “A colleague and I did this a few years ago and we made Fox blink. Men: step up!”
On the other hand, Nathan Scoggins chimed in with his own testimony of being offered only $500 for his and his writing partner’s first studio writing gig, in which they cracked the story on a project that needed a complete page-one rewrite. They were told to accept the money because it was “a great opportunity,” but their agent demanded and got more. “Fight for more, P/WOC,” Scoggins advised women and people of color.
– Courtesy: Hollywood Reporter
