Robin Wright, Claire Underwood and when celebrities speak out about equal pay - Women's Agenda

Robin Wright, Claire Underwood and when celebrities speak out about equal pay

Kevin Spacey is brilliant as Frank Underwood in the political thriller House of Cards. But really, it’s Robin Wright who plays his wife Claire Underwood that really steals the show.

The thing is, both performances absolutely rely on each other. It’s their combined hunger for power that’s really compelling, both characters and the actors who play them are necessary to make this binge-worthy TV. 

That’s why the fact Wright spoke out about equal pay during an interview this week in New York is so powerful.

She told the Rockefeller Foundation event that she threatened to go public unless she was paid equally to her co-star Spacey.

I was looking at the statistics and Claire Underwood’s character was more popular than [Frank’s] for a period of time. So I capitalized on it. I was like, ‘You better pay me or I’m going to go public,'” she said. 

Business Insider reported in 2014 that Spacey was being paid half a million dollars an episode, a good US$80,000 more than Wright

Wright won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a television series in 2014. Her movie credits include Forrest Gump, The Princess Bride, She’s So Lovely, Moneyball, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. She also works as an executive producer on House of Cards, which recently completed its fourth season.

Like other celebrities who’ve spoken out about equal pay before her – particularly Jennifer Lawrence — Wright probably doesn’t have any issues with cashflow. She’s reportedly worth US$65 million. This isn’t a matter of putting food on the table or planning for retirement.

Indeed, some writers have declared that Wright, like Lawrence, shouldn’t be a heroine of the equal pay debate, and perhaps in a world that paid attention to women who are seriously doing it tough, that might be the case. We don’t live in that world. And if the equal pay debate can get some kind of celebrity endorsement, then that has to be a good thing. If Lawrence and Wright can’t champion this cause, who will? Who has the gravitas to make it front page news, to make us consider that even when men and women so publicly work equally, that men still get paid more?

The gender pay gap can often be difficult to explain, some don’t want to actually believe the statistics. There’s always some reason why women earn an average 17.3% less than men (that’s the Australian national pay gap, according to ABS statistics). It must be that she’s working less hours. She’s taken career breaks. She leaves at 3pm every afternoon to pick up the kids from school. She’s not interested in earning the same amount as men, as she values work/life balance more. She chooses to work in lower paid sectors, like childcare. 

Sure, there are a number of contributing factors that lead to the lifetime penalty women pay for being a woman (particularly mothers), but career breaks, maternity leave and part time work can ‘t justify what’s going on. And the fact more women work in caring related fields doesn’t mean their work should be any less valued than more male-dominated areas.

While she’s got the experience to earn the big money, Wright believes that in her case part of the problem stems from the fact she’s somewhat of a “comeback kid” having slowed down on making movies while she was raising her two kids, who’re both now in their twenties. She believes that failing to work “full-time” – meant that she “wasn’t building my salary bracket”. If you fail to build the “notoriety and presence” then you’re not in the game anymore. “You become a B-list actor. You’re not box office material … You don’t hold the value you would have held if you had done four movies a year like Nicole Kidman and Cate Blanchett did during the time I was raising my kids. Now I’m kind of on a comeback at 50 years old.”

Earning less because you took time out to raise kids doesn’t seem fair – nor does earning more simply because you’ve had time to make more movies and make your presence known.

There are so many parallels to modern office life in what Wright says about making movies. The idea particularly that it’s ok to pay a woman less if she’s taken time out to raise children, despite her skill level and talent, is getting very old.

Talent is talent. Fortunately for Wright, it’s easier to spot on a television screen than it is in an office environment, where too many women still have to justify why they shouldn’t fall down salary brackets simply because they’re female.

As Wright said during the interview, the problem with equal pay is pandemic.

Sometimes, as she did, you just have to shame people into giving you what you deserve.

That’ll work for some women, as it did for Wright.

I’d like to say that we’d all get the same result if we did the same thing, but employers can be stubborn and backwards, and not all women are in a position to make ultimatums regarding their worth in an organisation.

Regardless, the more conversations we have about pay the better – especially if they can get to page one of the news.

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