Gender and Bias in Film: Inequality and Its Impact on the Industry
Netflix scored another major success with the 2022 series Wednesday. Behind the hype, though, the film world still wrestles with unequal pay, tired…
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Netflix has landed another hit with Wednesday, its long-in-the-making 2022 series. Beyond the buzz that sent the iconic track "Bloody Mary" climbing the charts once again, the show also propelled Hunter Doohan, who plays Tyler, to sudden fame, his Instagram following surging right along with the series' popularity.
Hunter Doohan grew up in the world of theater, following his own studies in the field of acting. He spent years scraping by, and has said that he had to take on all kinds of work in Los Angeles just to get by while auditioning for roles. His breakout finally came with Truth Be Told, in which he played the young Warren, a part that made him a star overnight and transformed him from an actor chasing one audition after another into a genuinely respected talent in the industry.
Hunter's personal life has been just as bright. He recently married his boyfriend, legally registering their union in his home country, and shared sweet photos that had fans flooding the comments with congratulations and drew warm wishes from colleagues celebrating this new chapter in his life.
It is heartening that people in the media and film industries no longer have to hide their gender identity or sexual orientation for the sake of their careers, as they once did. In the past, whoever you were, you had to keep it to yourself to protect the fan base your work depended on. Now the world has reached a point where everyone can recognize that acting is simply another role to play: you can play a bottom (the receptive partner) on screen while in real life being married to a wife and raising two children.
Even as this wave of diversity has grown across media worldwide, we still cannot deny that gender-based discrimination persists, affecting both LGBTQ+ people and many leading actresses who have spoken out about the discrimination they face because of their gender identity or sexual orientation. Chief among these issues is unfair compensation: female leads are still paid less than their male counterparts, because the media industry, and most of its decision-making power, remains dominated by men.
Thailand faces the same disparity in pay between male and female actors. Setting aside legendary stars such as Aum Patcharapa, who commands a flat fee of 3 million baht per drama, a closer look reveals that male leads are paid nearly double what female leads earn, even though their roles and responsibilities on the job are much the same.
This is not a problem unique to Thailand; it has sparked global shockwaves elsewhere, too. When Sony was hacked, for instance, the leak exposed how much male and female actors were each paid on individual films. The revelation famously prompted Jennifer Lawrence to write an essay for Lenny Letter voicing her frustration with gender bias in Hollywood, especially the fact that she had not been paid on par with her male co-stars on the film in question.
Although the issue is discussed more and more openly by people within the film industry today, unequal pay persists, even when a female lead carries a film every bit as much as her male counterpart. Many major studios are trying to adapt by making their processes more transparent, giving lead actors the right to know their pay and greater room to negotiate, a promising sign for continued reform in the industry.
Beyond unequal pay, the "roles" written into many films keep reinforcing harmful stereotypes: Black characters cast as crude, LGBTQ+ characters reduced to comic relief, women written so as never to outshine men. Worse still is having "no role" at all. While the average number of LGBTQ+ characters has risen year by year, according to reports from leading American media outlets, a troubling trend stands out: since 2018, Hollywood has not released a single film featuring a transgender character.
To the average viewer this might seem unremarkable, since not every film needs an LGBTQ+ or transgender character. But imagine if what went missing were the conventionally straight men and women some in society hold up as the ideal; we would be startled indeed. When people who once had a presence are erased, it is far more noticeable than never having been given space to begin with.
And sometimes a fitting role exists, yet the right actor is not cast for it. Take The Danish Girl, a film whose central plot revolves around a transgender person, which nonetheless chose a male actor for the lead. However much people credit Eddie Redmayne with making the film a resounding success, we cannot deny that even when the role exists, those it portrays are still not allowed to claim it.
Entertainment, Gender, and Bias
The coming year, 2023, will be another pivotal one for a film industry whose reach touches everyone in society weighed down by harmful values or misguided beliefs. Many people assume that including transgender or LGBTQ+ characters is done purely for "marketing," yet media still exerts an indirect influence on society whether you accept it or not. Media space helps society recognize that these individuals exist and helps us understand one another better. This writer hopes that the new year will bring films centered on LGBTQ+ and transgender people, opening up more room for mutual understanding.
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Verified references
Links and relevance to the article’s main topic were reviewed on 13 August 2026. Each source supports only the scope stated in the original document and does not replace personalised medical, legal, or service advice.
- UN Women: Global film industry perpetuates gender discrimination Accessed 13 August 2026
