“We are talking about one of the highest paid actresses
in the world saying she’s not
getting paid enough”
It’s the lawsuit heard around the entertainment world.
Scarlet Johansson's legal and PR battle with Disney
over her Black Widow earnings is unusually public and hostile
for a relationship between an actor and a studio
who’ve done nine movies together.
“I've had an incredible decade working with my Marvel family.”
The star claims Disney breached her contract
by releasing Black Widow on Disney Plus at the same time
as its theatrical run,
thereby depriving her of (she claims)
up to $50 million in bonuses tied to box office milestones.
Disney’s reply to the suit was personal and kind of vicious.
They wrote,
“The lawsuit is especially sad and distressing
in its callous disregard for the horrific and prolonged
global effects of the Covid-19 pandemic.”
For all of us watching and reading about this at home,
it may feel hard to root for either party in this fight.
Does Scarjo need another $50 million dollars?
Of course not, and Disney’s statement
made sure we all knew she’s already been paid
20 million — but that figure
or her overall wealth aren’t really relevant
if Disney committed to more in the contract.
“What we have here is essentially
a pandemic created labor dispute.”
The corporation’s portrait of her as a “callous” woman
also seems tailored to incite misogyny
as a distraction from the apparent hypocrisy
of suggesting she needn’t get paid during a pandemic
even though their stock price is on a healthy up-and-up.
The emotional intensity surrounding this lawsuit signals
a bigger power struggle that’s gearing up
between stars and studios, as both anxiously eye a future
where blockbusters increasingly live on streaming platforms.
To some, there’s also hypocrisy
on Johansson’s side: framing suing Disney
as a “girl power” move is questionable
given the actor’s history of choices that are tone-deaf,
if not indifferent to the well-being of
other women or minorities.
Johansson has been active in movements like Time’s Up
and criticized some men, but she’s also defended Woody Allen
and said she, “would work with him anytime”
despite the credible allegations that he abused Dylan Farrow.
‘“I love Woody, I believe him,
and I would work with him anytime.’”
She also drew criticism for playing the lead
(originally Japanese) character in 2017’s white-washed
Ghost in the Shell,
and initially accepting a role playing a trans man in 2018’s Rub & Tug.
“She said that any criticism should be directed to
the representatives of Felicity Huffman, Jared Leto,
and Jeffrey Tambor.”
On the other hand, all this is exactly
what Disney wants us to be thinking about.
Framing this as the latest in her series of
unrelatable controversies is part of the company’s
calculated strategy to make her action sound frivolous and greedy.
Meanwhile, in addition to Johansson’s history of cringe-y comments,
her gender undoubtedly shapes the way that Disney feels
they can come after her.
Revealing the $20 million figure to the public was an attempt to —
as her agent, Bryan Lourd, puts it —
“weaponize her success as an artist and businesswoman.”
It is hard to imagine them doing this to a male star,
even though some of them have earned much more
for Marvel movies -
with Robert Downey Jr reportedly earning $75 million
from Avengers Endgame.
“And I,
am...
Iron Man.”
Disney’s language accusing “callous” Scarjo
of not caring about the suffering caused by the pandemic
is emotionally loaded, playing into social assumptions
that it’s unnatural for a woman specifically to be uncaring.
Arguing that Johansson shouldn’t profit during a pandemic is not very compelling
when you look at how Disney’s fortunes rose over 2020 and 2021,
its stock price rising above its pre-pandemic level,
and Disney Plus subscriptions going from 26.5 million subscribers
at the end of March 2020 to 103.6 million subscribers
at the end of April 2021.
Fans have already called out this rhetoric as totally “hypocritical”
from a company that’s still operating its theme parks with few restrictions
in the midst of the ongoing pandemic.
“Taking to social media: ‘I love you Disney
but reopening is a big mistake, hashtag profits before people”’
According to feminist groups Women in Film,
ReFrame and Time’s Up, Disney’s statement,
“attempts to characterize Johansson as insensitive or selfish
for defending her contractual business rights…”
“This gendered character attack has no place in a business dispute
and contributes to an environment in which women and girls
are perceived as less able than men to protect their own interests
without facing ad hominem criticism.”
Johansson tops many publications’ lists of highest-paid actresses
for multiple years, but the key word is “actress”:
In 2019 she still took home over 30 million less than
the highest-paid actor that year, Dwayne Johnson,
and at least two other MCU actors earned more.
Meanwhile, though misogyny is one of their tactics,
Disney’s motives for hitting back at Johansson —
and why this matters so much to them —
are not really about her being a woman,
but more about the emerging struggle over how movie stars fit into
(and earn in) a streaming-centric future.
Johansson’s lawsuit argues that the streaming release
of Black Widow earned value for Disney Plus which isn’t quantified
in the movie’s box office figures.
Quote,
“Why would Disney forgo hundreds of millions of dollars
in box office receipts by releasing the picture in theatres
at a time when it knew the theatrical market was ‘weak,’ ...
Disney saw the opportunity to promote its
flagship subscription service using the picture and Ms. Johansson,
thereby attracting new paying monthly subscribers,
retaining existing ones, and establishing Disney Plus as
a must-have service in an increasingly competitive marketplace.”
But the contracts of today’s movie stars
are built around box office returns.
This is where this lawsuit becomes so important to Disney —
its outcome sets a precedent for how other actors will negotiate
their contractual rights as more and more big releases
are created for streaming platforms.
“This is probably the tip of the iceberg
not just for the Walt Disney company,
but for every single major Hollywood studio.”
It’s rumored that other actors like Emma Stone and Emily Blunt
are considering similar lawsuits for their roles in
Cruella and Jungle Cruise, respectively,
and Blunt and John Krasinski are reported to have sought compensation
from Paramount for shortening the theatrical window for
A Quiet Place 2.
Complicating this picture is that (unlike Warner Brothers
which released its 2021 movies for free with an HBO max subscription,
and had to offer extra payments to some actors as a result)
Disney Plus did charge an on-demand fee for Black Widow —
a fact that entertainment attorney John Sloss told the LA Times
weakens Johansson’s case, since those sales were
likely factored into the formula for her compensation.
As the whole media landscape shifts,
the leverage of the movie star is declining;
franchises and earnings today are driven by intellectual property
more than star power.
This trend can be overstated — after all, every Marvel movie is packed
with stars who come with hefty price tags —
yet, a number of those names were created or launched
into a much higher stratosphere of stardom by MCU movies.
Since her Marvel work is now done, Johansson is in a unique position
to bring this lawsuit,
while Black Widow is also the first Marvel movie to come out
since the pandemic began.
But that brings us to: The problem with Black Widow.
“And she is potentially a very expensive
sexual harassment lawsuit if you keep ogling her like that.”
This whole mess is a strangely fitting end
to the trajectory of Black Widow, a character who was created
and defined by men, and sometimes let down by the MCU.
As the only leading female character in the MCU’s early movies,
she was introduced in Iron Man 2 as a pretty objectified version
of the “sexy spy” archetype.
The actor later reflected,
“the character is so sexualised…”
“Did you model in Tokyo? Because she modelled in Tokyo.”
“[She is] really talked about like she’s a piece of something,
like a possession or a thing [...] like a piece of ass, really.”
“I want one.”
“No.”
The franchise struggled with her character
in notorious missteps like the highly sexualized violence
in the interrogation scene in Avengers,
having her call herself a “Monster”
because she had been sterilized
“You still think you’re the only monster on the team?”
and generally making her feel like an unrealistically sexy
“cool girl” type.
“Look, I really don't want to hurt you.”
“I wouldn't stress about it.”
Oh, and here are just a few of the really sexist questions
Johansson got asked in countless press junkets:
“How come you get like the really interesting
existential question, and I get the like
rabbit food question?”
“What would be the fashion elements
Avengers: Infinity War uses in the movie?”
“The fashion elements?”
“Yes, for the…”
“I got the fashion question?”
“Were you able to wear undergarments?”
“You’re like the fifth person that’s asked me that today.”
“Well, no…” “What is going on?”
Despite some progress in her character’s evolution
over her nine films, Natasha’s story still ultimately ended
with her dying for a male character — and happy to do so
because he had a family while (as we know) she couldn’t have kids.
“Tell my family I love them.”
“You tell them yourself.”
When Black Widow did at last get her standalone movie,
it came with the limitations of being the prequel
for a dead character, making its impact
on the overall MCU feel a little slight.
Interestingly, the Black Widow movie attempts to be a take on
feminist empowerment
“It would have been a missed opportunity
if this film didn't reflect, you know,
what's going on in the zeitgeist, that is female empowerment.”
The Washington Post’s Alyssa Rosenberg writes that
“Black Widow” is about how men molded Natasha and her “sister,”
Yelena Belova
into “avatars of hyperfemininity employed to hypermasculine ends…
a male-defined vision of female superheroism.”
“Why do you always do that thing?”
“Do what?”
“That thing you do when you’re fighting.
This thing that you do when you whip your hair.”
Rosenberg points out that,
“There’s an irony to this franchise raising questions about what it means
for men to dictate what female strength
and empowerment look like... because Black Widow
is the invention of three men.”
and even if the movie’s directed by a woman
(Cate Shortland),
the MCU is headed by Kevin Feige.
She also points out the long history of men
defining female strength on screen, and the fact that even Sheryl Sandberg’s
“Lean In” feminism and Sophia Amoruso’s “Girlboss”
version are still based largely on women partaking in
a male idea of success.
“And if two years ago you didn't take a promotion
and some guy next to you did
you're gonna be bored because you should have
kept your foot on the gas pedal.”
Arguably, this is the problem with Johansson’s own feminism -
it’s a self-interested “Lean in” Girlboss type,
defined by her trying to compete for a spot in
a male-defined world.
Still, we’re all shaped and limited by our experiences
and the environments we came up in,
and Black Widow was that lone female character
carrying the pressure of transitioning the MCU toward
a more “female” future.
“I’m always picking up after you boys.”
But the truth of this story is that it’s actually not about ScarJo.
Disney’s tactics here echo larger trends to make
the human presence and creator’s agency
ever less important to moviemaking.
As Martin Scorsese-inspired debates around
the evils of “content” reveal, when you remove the feeling
that the artist matters to the art, everything risks becoming
one long advertisement for the brand.
“These films now, I think,
are more like theme rides and it's a different experience
for an audience.”