About Gender Issues in Acting Careers

By some estimates, women buy half of all movie tickets.

To fans, topflight female actresses like Demi Moore, Meryl Streep and Signourney Weaver represent Hollywood at its best--yet a different reality persists behind the red carpet glitter and glitz. Actresses are often paid less than men for similar roles, and often struggle to break out of typecasting. Nor do their male counterparts wriggle off the hook so easily, especially when called upon to play homosexual and transgendered characters.

Effects

Critics complain that female leads are scarce.

Although they have been an accepted part of the Hollywood landscape since the 1940s, actresses still earn significantly less, even when they score a big box-office hit. A July 2009 Forbes magazine article showed Angelina Jolie and Jennifer Aniston as the highest-paid actresses, at $27 million and $25 million, respectively. However, these totals lagged behind veterans like Harrison Ford, who earned about $65 million, the magazine reported. The top 10 male actors also earned $393 million vs. $183 million for their female counterparts.

Features

Idealized female images dominated promotional copy during the 1950s.

Critics argue that Hollywood attitudes have changed since little the paternalistic 1950s, when female characters largely existed as male counterparts' helpless companions. Two-thirds of situation comedy stars are men, a situation often blamed on advertisers' courting of 18- to 34-year-old men--generally, the most desirable advertising demographic, according to the Media Awareness Network. A further complication is that TV shows with female leads fare less well in syndication, forcing creators to stock them the same types of actresses that men might watch, the network advises.

Significance

Drag parts remain largely off-limits to male actors.

Compared with their female counterparts, male actors face different pressures. As Broderick Crawford or John Goodman prove, actors need not be thin or conventionally good-looking to succeed. However, having men play homosexual, transgendered or transsexual characters remains a taboo in Hollywood, which ironically assigns them to actresses like Nicole Kidman. In November 2008, she was cast as the first man to undergo sex-change surgery in "The Danish Girl"-- a decision that seemingly confirmed the reluctance of major studios to pursue different strategies.

Considerations

Casting a veteran like Kidman as a trranssexual represented Hollywood's continuing reluctance to deal with gender issues. As David Frank observed in his blog, ropeofsilicon.com, when actors cross-dress in movies like "To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything," "the character is your stereotypical movie drag queen, flamboyant, yet harmless, and somehow imbued with miraculous super-powers to transform the lives of the average, non-fabulous citizens," he wrote. In Frank's eyes, this "safety first" mentality makes it difficult for people to see themselves reflected honestly onscreen.

Consequences

Finding appealing roles becomes harder as actresses age, or go longer between the back-to-back hits needed to sustain their drawing power. As Forbes noted, even an Oscar-nominated performance will not ensure a great payday. Kate Winslet took home a Best Actress award in 2009, yet Forbes ranked her a mere15th with $2 million in total earnings. Although well below the numbers of Aniston or Jolie, Winslet continued to earn a comfortable income from acting in commercials, the magazine noted.

Potential

Getting a fair hearing on the gender issues affecting actors and actresses remains elusive, especially since studio heads use the same economic logic to justify their international marketing approach, the Media Awareness Network's website asserted. With international profits accounting for 60 percent of film industry grosses, critics see a higher number of overly sexualized and violent films, which translate more readily across cultures. As long as international profits remain so omnipresent, observers believe that studios will keep pumping out the same old stereotypes.

References

• Hollywood's Top-Earning Actresses
• Hollywood's Ball-less Decision: Kidman as a Transsexual Male
• The Economics Of Gender Stereotyping

Resources

• Fat Actors Versus Skinny Actresses
• Hollywood Vs. Women
• West Virginia Woman Battles Hollywood-Generated Gender Issues