When the film Crazy Rich Asians came out in Aug. 2018, audiences and critics alike doted on how successful the film was in telling an entertaining story while raising Asian representation in media. So imagine the irony when Warner Bros. decided to pay co-writer Adele Lim, an Asian female, $110,000 to write on the sequel, while offering white male co-writer Peter Chiarelli over $800,000 to come back on board. The studio’s reasoning behind the huge pay disparity was that Chiarelli had a more extensive writing resume than Lim. However, IMDB.com credits Chiarelli for writing on only three projects, including The Proposal, Now You See Me 2, and Crazy Rich Asians. Meanwhile, Lim is credited for writing on 14 projects, which are mainly TV shows. This looks like another case of institutionalized inequity via racial and gender bias facilitating pay structures.
Since the studio was unwilling to pay Lim her worth, Chiarelli stepped up and offered to split his pay with her. Lim turned the offer down.
“Being evaluated that way can’t help but make you feel that is how they view my contributions,” says Lim. “Pete has been nothing but incredibly gracious, but what I make shouldn’t be dependent on the generosity of the white-guy writer. If I couldn’t get pay equity after Crazy Rich Asians, I can’t imagine what it would be like for anyone else, given that the standard for how much you’re worth is having established quotes from previous movies, which women of color would never have been [hired for]. There’s no realistic way to achieve true equity that way.”
Pay disparity for women of color in comparison to their white counterparts is rampant in Hollywood. Comedian Monique had a similar issue when Netflix lowballed her in 2018. They offered her half a million dollars for a comedy special while paying Amy Schumer $13M for her comedy special, which ended up being very lackluster. It appears that conventional institutions in Hollywood are dismissive of resumes and experience when it comes to women of color. “Our finish line keeps changing,” Monique said. “As a black woman in Hollywood, initially you’re told build up your resume. That’s what will get the money. Then, you build up your resume. Then, they’ll say ‘You know what, we see the resume, but we’ll get them the next time’, and you never meet your next time.”
Maybe it’s the way the message is delivered that closes the ears of so many people, but we can’t deny that the foundation of the message is the same. There is a problem with pay equality when it comes to women and women of color and this problem persists in and outside of Hollywood.
The script for the sequel is still in development with director Jon M. Chu assisting Chiarelli with the writing.
