Wanna Earn Big In Hollywood? Be White, Male, & Straight Apparently

Let's address the elephant in the room when I think we all know there's a serious diversity problem in Hollywood. Whilst the movie biz likes to make us think we're moving forward by trying to advocate for feminism, LGBTQ rights and ethnic minorities, there's no doubt there's a smoke screen.
This smoke screen gets lifted once things like the recent Forbes Highest Earning Actors/Actresses lists get revealed.

The first problem is the one everyone knows about. Woman are earning less than men in media. Hollywood is no stranger to the gender pay gap and whilst Jennifer Lawrence does earn more than almost the entire actor list, her $52 Million pales in comparison to $80 Million Robert Downey Jnr earns. That for me is the least of our problems to be honest.

Whilst people are complaining $32 million pay gap between JLaw and RDJ, I find the argument pretty boring in comparison to questioning the ethnic and sexual diversity of the people on the list.
Another elephant in the room for this list: all the actresses in list are white with the exception of one, Fan Bing Bing (number 4 on the list after JLaw, Scarlet and Melissa McCarthy). It's a stark contrast to the actor list, which include five men of colour, three of which are India's highest earners.

And that's not even touching on the complete lack of queer representation on the list. Out of the actress' list there are two women on the bisexual spectrum (Angelina Jolie and Kristen Stewart - though you'd never be able to tell they were with the way the media treats them).

In my heart l feel like the lack of diversity should be surprising statistic in 2015 when you consider the rise in fame and popularity for actresses such as Kerry Washington, Mindy Kaling, Laverne Cox, Zoe Saldana, Gina Rodriguez, or Lupita N'yong'o (who may end up creeping up this list after the Star Wars film hits). In reality? I'm not so shocked. We may feel that we celebrate a diverse set of women in the media but we still have a long way to go to have this translate into financial reward. If J Law can earn it big against the likes of Jackie Chan and Vin Disel, I don't see why other women can too.

If you're interested in hearing more stats Flavorwire pulled together a pretty decent report on it here.

I've also, already written up some thoughts on the representation of East Asian women in the film and television on the blog too!