On Sunday, one of the most popular science fiction shows of all time, “The X-Files,” returned to television for a special six-episode series.
The real X-Files, however, are ones viewers don’t see on their screens.
They are the mysteries of why female actors are paid less than their male counterparts.
Gillian Anderson was originally offered just half of what her co-star David Duchovny was paid to return to the series, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Anderson’s case is one of many stories about women earning less money than their male co-stars in the same films and TV shows.
The problem of unequal pay between male and female performers is an epidemic in the entertainment business.
And when it happens, it says women are worth less than men.
The Forbes magazine list of highest-paid actors and actresses reveals an oddity. To be on the list of highest-paid actors, an actor must make at least $9.5 million. An actress must make at least $4.5 million to be on the list.
What’s a few million dollars, some would say, if you get to appear in front of millions of people on TV every week?
It’s the value of what women can do that’s at stake.
This is especially perplexing in the case of “The X-Files.” When both Anderson and Duchovny originally starred in the series, they shared equal amounts of screen-time. They shared virtually every episode.
Despite both performers putting in the same amount of work in the same show, they earned unequal amounts of pay when the show premiered. Only when Anderson heavily lobbied the network three years later were they given equal pay, according to a recent interview with the Daily Beast.
It’s frustrating to see the wage gap Anderson closed in the ‘90s is the same one that she still had to struggle with in the 2010s.
One of our first steps to solving this problem is to increase representation of women in many levels of entertainment.
Representation in media matters, and in TV, women do not get much of a share of it. According to Forbes magazine, women are still underrepresented for the lead characters of several genres.
This lack of female representation is bad for creators of content on TV.
More representation of women can create more leverage, in turn, for women to compete for better salaries with their male counterparts.
And in cases like “The X-Files,” in which both the male and female leads share the screen equally yet receive unequal pay, TV executives better be careful unless they want an investigation from FBI Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully.
