In a recent interview for LinkedIn, Priyanka Chopra was asked how she feels about the pay disparity that happens in Bollywood between male and female actors. To this, Priyanka Chopra had a very interesting answer that makes a lot of sense:
“I don’t think pay disparity is a film industry thing and definitely not an ‘Indian’ film industry thing. It is a global thing. And not just movies, the pay disparity that happens between men and women is massive, even in businesses, even in hospitals. Somehow, professional men are given not just remuneration, a compensation for the professional services they provide, much more than women are, for some reason. As a woman, I don’t understand it, but that’s the world we live in.
And I don’t know when it will happen, but it will be great to see people get not just jobs, but opportunities and remunerations for ‘merit’. Not for their gender, not for where they come from, not what they look like, but for the fact that you can do your job and you can do it well.
So yes, the pay disparity is massive, but yes, I would like to make a point. I don’t want to take away from the male actors who actually do get audience in. When you have an Aamir or Salman on the poster, their movies make 300 crores. But when you have any of the female leads…we have just about made 100 crores last year with ‘Tanu weds Manu’. I think 'Mary Kom' reached up to 80 crores.
The day, business wise, the day female led films make that kind of money, they command that kind of money, w will get paid that much. But for that to happen, the audience needs to change their mindset. They need to say ‘We want to watch a movie because it has a great story, or it has a great cast’ and not just because it has a guy in it.
It is a vicious circle. Yes, we provide the same amount of effort that a guy provides in a movie. But we get paid less because when our solo films come out, we are not able to command as much.”