Hollywood, a sexism factory
Is the Hollywood film industry really a dream factory?
For those of us abroad, Hollywood often looks like a magical place full of beautiful people with fairy tale lives. To introduce, Hollywood is a neighborhood in Los Angeles, California, where the United States film industry is located. It all started in 1908 when Thomas Edison formed the Motion Picture Patents Company in New Jersey, through which the majority of film cameras patents possessed and, through these patents, strictly controlled who could make movies. Unfortunately these strict restrictions repressed innovation and paralyzed the film industry. Because of this, independent filmmakers fled to Hollywood. Hollywood was baptized as "Dream Factory" and cinema, was directed by both men and women. Unfortunately, the presence of women began to decrease in the mid -1920s when the era of silent cinema lost success.
In general, the industry considered that sound films were more like a business, of which women were prohibited. The men won more and more power in the film industry and, in doing so, created a new rash hierarchy in the industry: most important works were seen as ‘male’ works. However, this unfortunate reality hides the fact that women were really present and were crucial for the film industry in their early days. Today the Hollywood filmmakers and actresses have approached gender parity, but even in the world of independent cinema, equality is not sure. As for the role of women in Hollywood production and in reference to gender equity within it, I can affirm that Hollywood is a large macho industry.
As the first argument I can see that, although it has progressed slightly, women have been marginalized for a long time in the film industry, especially behind the scene. Indeed, the number of women who make films in Hollywood and actresses that appear in these is still very small. In fact, male protagonists predominate and this is precisely because most film filmmakers are men. For example, researcher Martha M. Lauzen, executive director of the Center for the study of women on television and cinema, discovered that, in 2019, female characters constituted 37% of the protagonists and 34% of all the characters who speak in the 100 highest grossing movies. While, from all directors, photography directors, screenwriters, producers, and editors working, women represented only 20%. This study also found that the directors tend to make more films about women than male directors, but need funds or work to tell those stories.
On the other hand, it has been discovered that women within the Hollywood industry receive less salary than men in a similar workplace, which means that women are rewarded less than men due to no attributable judgment other thanthe gender. Currently, a group of economists has pointed out the width of the wage gap and this evidence that Hollywood masculine stars earn 1.1 million dollars more per film than their female co -star with the same experience. This also applies to women who work behind cameras, as directors and producers. This argument is checked with the research made by Sofía Izquierdo Sánchez, from the Huddersfield University, along with John S. Heywood and María Navarro Paniagua, where they studied the salaries of 246 men and women who acted in 1.343 films between 1980 and 2015. "The gap has been quite persistent,” said Izquierdo Sánchez. “It is almost the same in 2015 as in 1980. It does not show signs of improvement ".
conclusion
Evidence is clear to us: discrimination plays an important role in Hollywood. The Mrs. Goodman, director of the LGBT project, gender and reproductive justice of the American Union of Civil Liberties of Southern California, said: ‘There is a culture in Hollywood that laws against discrimination do not apply’, but ‘Hollywood is not an areaFree of laws’ (Buckley, 2015).
From this essay I did a brief analysis of gender inequality in the United States film industry, since the sound cinema began until today, covering not only salary inequality, but also the barriers to advance and representationof women in leadership. While women have increasingly overcome these barriers over the years, the relationship between what these and men in the Hollywood industry is still quite unequal, this is largely because women do not even have the opportunityof occupying professional positions in which they can receive good pay for their work. While today’s women do not have the opportunities to write, direct, produce and act their own work, which originally had in the time of silent cinema, nothing will change.
Finally, I want to call the reader to reflect on the subject and the following question was raised: Is women sometimes choose smaller budget films because they do not believe they would hire them in the big productions or because they press them to believe that they cannotbe successful in this field and push them in that particular direction?
Bibliography
- LEFT SANCHEZ, S., & Navarro Paniagua, M. (2017). Hollywood’s Wage Structure and Discrimination (005). Recovered from https: // www.Lancaster.AC.UK/MEDIA/LANCASTER-UNIVERSITY/CONTENT-ASSETS/DOCUMENTS/LUMS/ECONOMICS/WORKING-PAPERS/LANCASTERWP2017_005.PDF
- IT’s A Man’s (Celluloid) World: Dr. Martha m. Lauzen New 2019 report releases. (2020, January 13). Recovered from https: // www.NYWIFT.Org/ITS-A-Mans-Celluloid-World-Dr-Martha-M-Lauzen-Releases-New-2019-Report/
- Doward, j. (2019, September 16). Hollywood’s Gender Pay Gap Revelated: Male Stars Earn $ 1m More Per Film Than Women. Recovered from https: // www.The Guardian.com/World/2019/SEP/15/Hollywoods-Gender-Pay-Gap-Revealed-Male-Stars-Aarn-1M-More-Per-Film-Than-Women
- Buckley, c. (2015, May 19). A.C.L.OR., Citing Bias Against Women, Wants Inquiry Into Hollywood’s Hiring Practices. Recovered from https: // www.nytimes.com/2015/05/13/MOVIES/ACLU-CITING-BIAS-AGAINST-WOMEN-WANTS-INQUIRY-PLAY-HOLLYWOODS-HIRING-Practices.HTML
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