A Night Unremembered
13 years ago
Wednesday, February 25, 2015
Whiny Woman
(I want you to know that is what Faye said I should use for a title)
The other night, at the Oscars, Patricia Arquette caused a stir by calling for parity in pay between men and women. An admirable plea, you might say, but one suspects that's because she apparently wasn't paid very much for the movie "Boyhood."
I like her acting but, according to her own words, she did the movie for personal reasons: "Patricia Arquette revealed that 'Boyhood' was more of a passion project than a lucrative gig."
In other words, she played in the movie out of a personal desire to be a part of it. She also claimed she "paid more money to my babysitter and my dog walker than I made on 'Boyhood'"
I suspect that's an exaggeration but I don't know for sure.
I may not be qualified to comment on pay disparity because the important places I've worked had no disparity. The Navy paid you according to rank/rate and AT&T paid the same as others (male or female) in the same job. I was a communications technician ("comm-tech" for short) and we were all paid the same. Now, management may have had a disparity but I cannot say because I was not management. I refused to become management precisely because my pay would have been in the hands (or at the whim) of my superior.
When I was 9 or 10, I thought I had a good idea how a fair and equitable economic system might look. My proposal was that everyone be paid exactly the same hourly rate regardless of what they did. Yeah, I was that naive. Later, when I learned about socialism and communism, I realized why that wouldn't work. I suspect, however, that Ms Arquette is still at that stage... or she is just disgruntled that she isn't sharing in the unexpected success of the film.
She even said, "we didn’t even know if people would even accept this movie."
So, she participated in it because she thought it was an important project, took low pay because of that, and now complains about the choice she made.
And people wonder why I think Hollywood people are idiots.
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4 comments:
You can take a job because you need the money but still resent not getting the same pay as the other guy is getting for more pay.
She isn't going to sit at home and not work because she is paid less. She will speak up about it on a good forum, as in the Awards shows, where there are plenty of other women in that business who don't get paid the same either.
I see no problem with what she said at all.. you think she should not have taken the role and gotten no pay ?
1. She (Arquette) got paid and that pay was what she agreed to when asked to act in the movie.
2. She won an academy award for playing the part (something she will use to increase her value to Hollywood).
3. No one knows how much she was paid or how much she pays her babysitter or her dogwalker (do you hire a dogwalker???).
4. She is a whiny actor who played a part in a film and was surprised by its financial success and wants more money because of it.
5. At the risk of losing you as a reader, I stand 100% behind my words.
I admit when we lived in the City and had a big dog, we hired a kid in our building to walk her sometimes.
That is pennies though ... when we are talking about people who get over a million dollars per film.. plus perks.
Honey, you didn't call me whiney so you won't lose me ... yet :)
I am a female ... I think girls should get the same money as boys when they do the same jobs.
I also wanted to tell you I am sorry you don't have much of a backyard lol ... I have an acre of a back yard, and beyond that are corn fields and forests. You might not be in the right location for a good backyard ..
As I said, Notes, where I worked, people were paid equally, according to the job. We can talk about opportunities available by gender but that was before I was hired.
I have no backyard because the builder stupidly laid the slab (foundation) ten feet too far back on the site. Previously, I lived on 1-1/4 acres. I like the smaller property better but I am annoyed that my backyard is so small.
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