Robbie Collin: Let's have less talk and more action

Scarlett Johansson was left less-than-impressed by John Travolta's behaviour. Photo / Getty

Opinion

The audience cheered wildly when Patricia Arquette demanded equal pay and rights for women, but the worry, says Robbie Collin, is if the film industry pats itself on the back for applauding this sentiment while doing nothing to change things.

Patricia Arquette's firebrand Oscar acceptance speech was the second most articulate expression of women's ongoing struggle for equal rights at the Academy Awards last night. The most articulate, albeit less prominent, came from Scarlett Johansson a couple of hours earlier on the red carpet, and didn't require a speech, or any words at all.

Johansson was posing for photographers in an emerald gown from Atelier Versace when suddenly, in a tuxedo from goodness only knows where, John Travolta came looming into view. He slunk in close, lips puckered like a horse's bottom, and planted a wet-looking kiss on Johansson's cheek. She didn't react: even when his hand crept around her waist, her gaze remained steady, her own arms by her side. She said nothing, but the look she shot the cameras said everything. On the biggest night of the movie awards season, in Travolta's eyes she was just another trophy.

It's hard to know whether grandstanding on social issues at the Oscars is incredibly brave or incredibly safe. Arquette's speech was a strident endorsement of equal pay and rights for women, and from the reaction at the Kodak Theatre - raucous and widespread whooping, with an air-punch from no less a personage than Meryl Streep - you would think she was preaching to the choir.

"To every woman who gave birth, to every taxpayer and citizen of this nation, we have fought for everybody else's rights, [and] it's our time to have wage equality once and for all and equal rights for women in the United States of America," she said.

But as we learned towards the end of last year, Hollywood is no shining beacon of progressiveness on this front. The hacking of Sony Pictures' servers revealed many examples of actresses earning significantly less than their male co-stars - a disparity that, it seems safe to assume, is not peculiar to one studio. Take American Hustle, for which Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence were contracted to earn seven per cent of the film's back-end profits, while their male co-stars, Christian Bale, Bradley Cooper and Jeremy Renner, each received nine per cent.

The female stars of American Hustle were paid significantly less than their male cohorts.

As anyone who's seen American Hustle will know, Adams and Lawrence are responsible for significantly more than 14 per cent of that film's brilliance. And they were hardly untested talent when the contracts were signed: Adams had four Oscar nominations to her name when she appeared in the film, while Lawrence had one Oscar outright, one nomination, and the lead role in the Hunger Games franchise. Yet they were contracted to earn 28 per cent less than their male co-stars; a disparity that's almost exactly in line with the overall gender pay gap in the US. In the UK, the gap is 20 per cent.

The perceived value of male and female performance is also there in the Oscar nominations. Compare Arquette's own category, Best Supporting Actress, with its male equivalent. One is bursting with bold, innovative, memorable roles, while the other feels meagre, even padded. No prizes for guessing which is which.

There has been no shortage of terrific supporting performances from women this year. From the films bracketed as Oscar-contenders alone, the Academy might have nominated Jessica Chastain as the moll-ish Lady Macbeth figure in A Most Violent Year, Carrie Coon as the sharp, sardonic sister of Ben Affleck's murder suspect in Gone Girl, Tilda Swinton as the randy old duchess in The Grand Budapest Hotel, Kristen Stewart as a struggling young actress in Still Alice, or Katherine Waterston as the elusive femme fatale in Inherent Vice.

But instead, for the most part, the chosen performances were as supportive in tone as they were supporting in stature: set aside Arquette and Emma Stone's excellent work in Birdman, and you're left with Keira Knightley as the good woman massaging Alan Turing's shoulders in The Imitation Game, Laura Dern as the wispy, inspirational mother in Wild and Meryl Streep as Into the Woods' matriarchal witch, who just wants the best for everyone (apart from the prince who fancies her adopted daughter).

Cate Blanchett called for gender equality in Hollywood during last year's Oscar ceremony. Photo / Getty

None of these roles was a stretch for the actresses: it's just the Academy's preference for female characters that cradle weary heads and make cups of tea. Meanwhile, in the men's section, Edward Norton wrestles Michael Keaton in his pants.

My worry is that Arquette's speech will now become part of the regular Oscars spectacle: not because she's tedious or wrong, but that the practice of airing these issues once annually from a podium will make the film industry feel absolved from acting on them.

Think back to Cate Blanchett's acceptance speech from last year's show, where she chastised the film industry for "foolishly clinging to the idea that female films, with women at the centre, are niche experiences. They are not," she said. "The world is round, people." Everyone cheered and felt good, and perhaps that's part of the problem. It's all very well for Hollywood to turn the lights and the cameras on this issue for one night every year. But now let's see some action.