I was sitting in my hotel room this afternoon and relaxing post-rehearsal, idly going through my newsfeed on my phone when I came across this headline:

Michelle Williams Was ‘Paralyzed’ After Learning Costar Mark Wahlberg Was Paid More Than Her

Yes, it’s from People magazine, and yes, I read Hollywood gossip because, frankly, I feel like it’s a fascinating insight into an industry that has quite a few parallels to the music industry. You can read the whole article here. In a nutshell, the story is this: Michelle Williams was paid less than $1,000 for reshoots in a movie co-starring Mark Wahlberg, who was paid $1.5 million, even though they have the same agent. And on first glance you might feel sympathetic or infuriated or indignant – how could she be paid so much less for the same work? And why such a disparity given that they share representation? Hollywood really is an old boys club and this inequality is repugnant!

I was initially aghast at this seemingly absurd pay gap. But the devil is in the details, and in this case it is literally so. There’s a simple explanation why Williams was only receiving a $80 per diem for the duration of the reshoot while Wahlberg was paid his $1.5 million, and that’s because Williams’ contract for the original shoot included any necessary reshoots, while Wahlberg’s contract required a separate fee for reshoots.

This happened quite a while back ago, and was of course was met with an uproar (Wahlberg eventually donated his entire reshoot fee to #TimesUp), so I’m curious why it’s made the news again, but it got me thinking. And let me preface this by saying that there are plenty of instances in which an actress was paid much less for an actor of similar billing, and that pay disparity based on gender is very much an issue in the entertainment industry. But to me, the Williams/Wahlberg situation does a disservice to the discussion of disparity because what’s really at issue is reading contracts and personal responsibility.

I have an agent (technically, two), and within the classical music world, he’s a high-powered one in a large international management company. I won’t compare my work (and certainly not my compensation!) to a movie star, but the logistics are essentially the same. Someone wants you to do something, your agent negotiates a contract for you to do that something, you read your contract, and if you agree, you sign the contract (or sign off on it) and go off and do that something.

That reading and agreeing part is crucial. I’ve certainly been presented with contracts with which I wasn’t in complete agreement, and I don’t hesitate to ask for an amendment or change when something strikes me as incorrect or undesirable. I’m clear about what I will or will not do, and I want to make sure that everything is in writing, to prevent any confusion. While I trust my agents and believe they mostly look out for my best interest, I know that in the end it’s also my responsibility to look after myself, to ask for things that I need and to refuse things with which I’m uncomfortable.

To me the Williams/Wahlberg disparity is simply that Williams agreed to a contract that put her at a financial disadvantage if reshoots were necessary. So while I feel bad for her, if you signed a contract, you signed a contract. And it makes me uncomfortable that this is being held up as part of the whole TimesUp movement, because it’s a contract issue, not a gender issue. And in some senses I feel it’s a disservice to the discussion of pay equity when a woman complains about a perceived sleight during her employment when she herself agreed to the conditions of her employment. Any thoughts?