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'You'll never work in this town again'
Mila Kunis recounts, in a striking Medium post, the threats she received against her career when she refused to pose semi-naked for a magazine cover. She said that the producer who voiced the threat was putting words to the anxiety that she, and many female actors feel when they are asked to do something on set that they are uncomfortable with.
"I was livid, I felt objectified, and for the first time in my career I said "no." And guess what? The world didn't end. The film made a lot of money and I did work in this town again, and again, and again."
The Black Swan star said in the powerful piece, that many women in the film industry are conditioned to acquiesce to all of the demands put upon them for fear of damaging their livelihood. She also goes on to criticise the gender pay gap in Hollywood which has her male peers earning greater sums of money for similar roles.
"[T]he pay gap is but one clear quantification of the acute undervaluing of the contributions of women in the workplace."
Another prominent actor, Jennifer Lawrence, has also in the past criticised the film industry's institutionalised sexism, the unfair pay gap, and the strict standards of appearance women in the industry are held to.
Kunis has taken a proactive step against the discrimination in Hollywood, and started her own production company that works to a much more woman-friendly mandate.
To the pushy producers who pressured her in her early career she has this to say:
"I will work in this town again, but I will not work with you.”
