Can We Please Get the Mark Wahlberg Feeding Frenzy Right?

TriStar Productions/Entertainment Pictures via ZUMA

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Chris Barton of the LA Times reports that Mark Wahlberg and his agent will donate $2 million to Time’s Up in an effort to make amends for the huge fee Wahlberg got for reshoots of All the Money in the World:

“All the Money in the World” director Ridley Scott embarked on a whirlwind of hasty reshoots late last year when the news broke that the film’s original star, Kevin Spacey, faced multiple allegations of sexual misconduct….Wahlberg, who played a former CIA agent who helped the Gettys with the case, and [Michelle] Williams, who played Gail Harris, the mother of the kidnapped boy, reconvened for multiple days of reshoots.

Williams was said to have received only a per diem that totaled about $1,000 while Wahlberg and his agent negotiated an additional fee of $1.5 million. The news of the pay discrepancy caught fire on the internet, fanned by a climate of increased awareness of sexual harassment and gender inequality in Hollywood that followed Ronan Farrow’s expose on sexual misconduct by mogul Harvey Weinstein, which ran in the New Yorker in October 2017.

I keep seeing the Wahlberg story reported this way, as if it illustrates the sexist divide in Hollywood. But that’s not how it happened. Apparently everyone involved with the reshoot volunteered to work for a nominal fee except for Wahlberg. But even if Wahlberg knew that everyone else was doing this,¹ he had no special obligation to work for less than his usual fee. At most, it might mean he’s a bit of a jerk, but it has nothing to do with sexism.

I think Wahlberg is well advised to donate his fee to Time’s Up, but the feeding frenzy over this is misplaced. Better feeding frenzies, please.

¹This is unclear. I’ve seen no reporting about whether or not Wahlberg knew he was the only one being paid a normal fee.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate