With the news of the Oscar Nominations nigh on breaking the internet yesterday (congrats to the Brits taking the thing by storm!), it came with some deeply interesting stats about how the awards season benefits film companies, film makers and actors alike. Even the PR people get a bonus.
But the most pertinent point of all is is the massive cavernous gap between the gains for winning in the Best Actor category, who get (on average) a $3.9m salary increase, while taking home the Best Actress you'll stand to improve your earnings by just $500k. And while we fully realise that $500k is still a lot of money, it's just 1/8 of the change that men get. It is officially $3.4m better to be a man in Hollywood.
This is yet another example of the reason why we need to Mind The Pay Gap and keep on pushing our MPs to vote positively when the Equal Pay bill gets its second read on on 27 February. And now they're armed with this information, hopefully Hollywood actresses will feel empowered, like Charlize Theron was this week, to push back on their employers to sort this sorry mess out.
A little thing we might want to bear in mind with regards to this is that Oscar voters are 94% white, 77% male and have a median age of 62. So it's hardly equal representation. Might need to get that one evened out too...
Award Winner, Money Spinner (or some other stats you might not realise about how the gongs add up)...