It’s truly annoying that Hollywood pushes for equality amongst minorities and women in their movies but they don’t hold those same standards in every single facet of the industry. They preach but don’t practice it.
Minorities and females have been marginalized since film was invented and Hollywood was created.
And now the most family friendly movie studio in Hollywood, The Walt Disney Company, was just served a class action lawsuit for this sexist reason.
The Walt Disney Company is one of the most iconic brands in the entire world.
Brothers Walt and Roy O. Disney as originally founded what was originally called Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio in 1923, but it was rebranded as The Walt Disney Company just a few short years later.
The rest is history. Disney is responsible for some of the most popular movies and characters in animation history like Mickey Mouse. They also produced “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,” “Cinderella,” “Dumbo,” “Pinocchio” and “Bambi.”
After the success of those movies, Disney could do whatever they wanted so they conceived Disneyland in 1955 and then Disney World in 1966. You’d have to be one of the most clueless people in the world to be unaware of these parks because calling them world famous is understating it.
All of this means that The Walt Disney Co. employees a massive amount of people. Disney World in Orlando Florida employs 62,000 people by itself.
But are they equally fair to their male and female employees?
Nope.
A San Francisco-based firm Andrus Anderson LLP filed a class action lawsuit seeking to represent all of California’s Walt Disney Studios since 2015 – the movie studio exclusively in Burbank, California – for having a discriminatory effect on women.
The filed suit reads, “Like other companies that operate without transparency, consistency, and accountability, Disney’s leadership tends to value male workers more than female workers. Taken together, Disney’s compensation policies, procedures and practices are not valid, job-related, or justified by business necessity.”
Variety reports, “The suit represents two named plaintiffs, LaRonda Rasmussen and Karen Moore. According to the complaint, Rasmussen has worked as a financial analyst for Disney for the last 11 years. In 2017, Rasmussen raised the issue of her pay with human resources. At the time, she was making a base salary of $109,958 a year.
She discovered that the six men who had the same title as she did all made more than she did, with disparities ranging from $16,000 to $40,000 per year. In November 2018, she was given a $25,000 raise, but the suit alleges that she still makes significantly less than her average male counterpart. Around the same time, two other female employees were also given sizable raises, which the suit suggests is indicative of a dawning awareness of a systemic issue.”
The law firm’s method is actually quite sound and clever. Andrus Anderson LLP is only representing two clients but the reason why this story became so public is specifically for other Disney Studios employees who were victimized to reach out to them for representation.
A statement from a Disney spokesperson said they would “defend it vigorously” and it was “without merit.”
“Frozen,” “Moana,” “Mulan” and “Brave” are all pro-feminism.
Hollywood just doesn’t learn.
