Clownfish TV: Audio Edition
The Acolyte Paid Women LESS Than Men...
The Force is female... and she’s broke. According to reports, The Acolyte paid women on staff less than men. That’s not a good look for a "female-forward" Star Wars series. Then we talk about Leslye Headland doing damage control for the series. ➡️ Tip Jar and Fan Support: http://ClownfishSupport.com ➡️ Official Merch Store: http://ShopClownfish.com ➡️ Official Website: http://ClownfishTV.com ➡️ Audio Edition: https://open.spotify.com/show/6qJc5C6OkQkaZnGCeuVOD1 Disney’s Star Wars show "The Acolyte" is facing criticism for paying women less than men, low viewership, and controversial changes, leading to negative reviews and doubts about Disney’s decision-making process. 00:00 Disney paid women less than men to work on the show, and controversial changes and statements have caused the show to receive negative reviews. 01:47 Disney Star Wars shows struggling with low viewership and drama focus, Caroline Reed criticizes for paying women 19.4% less than men despite claiming to be progressive. 04:19 The Acolyte pre-production budget is $48.5 million, women were paid 19.4% less on average. 06:18 The Acolyte show is being criticized for low ratings and review bombing, with some reviewers pointing out serious flaws in the show. 07:38 Kathleen Kennedy defends Liz Hedin’s leadership of The Acolyte, but there is inequality in pay for women working on Star Wars shows. 10:43 Disney’s Acolyte series criticized for LGBTQ representation, with actress Amandla Stenberg expressing surprise, while the company pays women less than men. 13:16 The Acolyte show creator addresses controversy over unequal pay for women amidst LGBTQ representation debate. 15:13 The speaker questions Dave Filoni’s hero status in the Star Wars community, criticizes "The Acolyte" show, and doubts Disney’s decision-making process, suggesting potential reconning of Disney Plus shows in the future. About Us: Clownfish TV is an independent, opinionated news and commentary channel that covers Entertainment and Tech from a consumer’s point of view. We talk about Gaming, Comics, Anime, TV, Movies, Animation and more. Hosted by Kneon and Geeky Sparkles. Disclaimer: This series is produced by Clownfish Studios and WebReef Media, and is part of ClownfishTV.com. Opinions expressed by our contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of our guests, affiliates, sponsors, or advertisers. ClownfishTV.com is an unofficial news source and has no connection to any company that we may cover. This channel and website and the content made available through this site are for educational, entertainment and informational purposes only. These so-called “fair uses” are permitted even if the use of the work would otherwise be infringing. #TheAcolyte #StarWars #Disney #News #Commentary #Reaction #Podcast #Comedy #Entertainment #Hollywood #PopCulture #Tech
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And we've got a big dose of acolyte news for you today. We've got several stories, but the lead story is that Disney did not pay women as much as they paid men. Right. The force is female, but not when it comes to the pay checks. All right. So we're going to talk about that that it came out that women were getting paid less to work on this show. We're going to talk about Philone apparently signing off on some of the controversial changes on the show. We're going to talk about Leslie Hedlen trying to walk it back after saying it was the gayest Star Wars ever. She's like, why didn't mean that gay? Yeah, not the capital queue capital, you know, you're just making some about the lesbian space witches. We're going to talk about this thing is coming off the rails. Now that's that's the story. The story isn't the show itself. The show itself is objectively terrible, right? A lot of people object in there. But okay, just saying like there are people that are like, Hey, yeah, don't attack and harass the people working on the show. But the show is awful. It really is off. Don't attack her. I feel who liked the show because you don't want them to harass you. But right, right. But harass us don't like it because they've got good reason. Like nobody likes a show and that actually came up in one of the stories we're going to cover to that, you know, who's the blame for the review bombing and they're like, no, it's the show's terrible. Yes, that's why that's why people are downvoting it. The show isn't. And she brings up the one article we're talking about Caroline Reed. She brings up about the fact that some of the reviews, you know, even from the media, the critics, aren't that glowing, but they're counting it as positive. No, and they're trying to defend the numbers and we will point out again that the numbers are not good for Star Wars. First week, it had the second lowest opening ever and andor had pretty low viewership, too. I guess they're doing the season two. Yeah, they were going to do one. Yeah. But the thing about andor is there was like zero promotion for andor. There really wasn't a whole lot of promotion for andor. And that was the one I was looking forward to. I got to go back and watch it. I watched the first two episodes. I never finished it. I'll have to go watch that. So, I mean, it's pretty sad when what is considered by some people to be the best Disney Star Wars show got buried under a bunch of crap like this, but it's the drama, the drama, the drama. We're going to talk about the drama. Before you get into it any further, please subscribe for more pop culture news, views and rants, guys. Yeah. Woohoo. If you do. And yeah, that that sums up Disney Star Wars nicely. It's all about the drama. It's like people don't even talk about the stories that the characters or that. You know what I'm saying? It's it's all drama. They talk about the drama. So let's let's talk about this is. Yeah, it's come from Forbes is Caroline Reed, who's been very critical at Disney. And she's pointing out that the women are not getting paid as much. Yeah. So apparently, in the UK, where they filmed a lot of this because they get tax breaks, they have to disclose the paid disparagement between men and women if you have more than 250 employees working on a show. So they said April of 2023, they started putting filings out and that was when the production was looking full swing. And they said 30% of the 695 employees were female. So that's not even 50%, 30%. And across the entire workforce, women's hourly pay rate was about 19.4% lower than men's. So so much are making it, you know, equity and equality and the forest is female because when it comes to actually being paid, they're not. Now, that being said, I want to make sure I make they might be specialized jobs that a lot of women just don't want to do or they don't do and they have to hire more men for it. And that's completely valid. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that is valid, but it is a bad look when they made such a big deal, such a big deal about how progressive this show was going to be. And what we'll talk about Leslie Headlin walking it back here in a couple minutes. But that might explain Carrie M Moss not being in it very much because they can't afford to pay. I don't know, maybe. No, she wasn't that she said it like in back and flashbacks flashbacks. Yeah. But she probably was one of the highest paid actors or probably was the highest paid I would think on the show. But again, we're just talking to whole staff. So here's the, here's the budget is on this, which I think is kind of crazy production budget. Yeah. They said the pre production budget of the acolyte cost 48.5 million dollars. That that is, that is twice what Godzilla minus one cost to make. That's the pre production of the pre production. Per episode has been ridiculous too, apparently. What did they spend this money on? I'm trying to figure it out because it doesn't look very expensive at all. I mean, your average Netflix show looks more expensive. Your average Netflix documentary looks more expensive than this show. Doctor who looks more expensive than this show. So where is this money going? They said it was more than was spent on the groundwork for road one, which actually had a lot of expensive shots. They had big space battles. They had the Darth Vader fight. I mean, road one looked like they spent money on it, right? Even pre production costs of the main installments of the Star Wars saga weren't far off from the acolyte. Disney only spent 17% more on pre production of the last Jedi in 2017. And that was a sure fire hit. Wow. Yeah. Thanks to an A-list cast. So where is this money going? And I'm really starting to wonder, like, is there some, is there some laundering going on here? Because this does not, this does not look like a show that costs that much money. It's like, it's like, you know, an independent day, you don't think a toilet seat costs $300,000. Do you hear what he says? Yeah, they said that the average hourly pay rate of women was 94.4% less. Okay. But it was 30.5% lower when that when taking the middle number of hourly pay is ranked from the highest lowest. Okay. So although men outnumber women in the bottom and two middle hour pay bands, 53% of the employees in the highest hourly pay band were also male. So most of the women seem to be in the highest pay band, but they're still outnumbered by men by 3%. But again, it could just be a case of that there are specialized areas that just happen to have more men that are working in that field. You know, so I'm just saying, be fair. But it's a bad look after you made such a huge, ridiculous, you know, the forest is female and all that shit. But you said about the reviews. Okay. The review bombing. She brought that up, too. She said that while it's the most diverse show out there, it's also led to being branded woke and supposedly the driving force behind plummeting ratings on Rotten Tomatoes. And they're bringing that up. But they said, only four of the eight episodes have aired, but she's growing down some more. They said the lowest score has been attributed to unjustified review bombing with the key evidence being the fact the show's Rotten Tomatoes score stands at 85%. However, we printed that, we pointed this out before closely reading the reviews in some of the most prestigious print titles reveals serious structural problems with the show. Most of the pieces aren't even at best, if not simply underwhelming rolling stone. USA said full of logical fallacies, hokey dialogue and nonsensical plots. And it's okay when they say it. Right. Even, yeah, the times of London gave it two out of five stars, right? So, I mean, this is the thing about Rotten Tomatoes, too, is that sometimes these reviews that are very lukewarm, they actually, you know, count them as fresh, but yeah, we've got articles out there like this, you know, who's the blame for the acolyte review bombing? It's the show's quality. A lot of people are coming out and saying the show's not good. There were people that were like, okay, bigots, bigots back off, but they're like, yeah, but you know, the show's not very good. Well, some of the actors are good actors just giving shit to work with. I, you know, I said I watched one episode. I watched episode three. I gave into the dark side. I watched episode three. And I can admit that, you know, the Korean guy, I guess he's from Squid Game, he's actually pretty good. He's the only reason I would have watched it. Yeah, he was good. And even the mother witch, I thought she was okay, too. But everybody else was just kind of there. So it was like, whatever. But yeah, I mean, that's the same is true of like the last Jedi, too. I mean, I can admit that with what he had to work with, Mark Hamill was pretty okay. I just did not like what they did with with Luke Skywalker, right? But in other actors who got crap, it's like, not that there are bad people or bad actors, it's just that they gave they were given to work with was horrible. Right, right. But yeah, so people are are review bombing. I think they're reacting to it. I think this is the only way that the general public knows how to voice their displeasure. I don't think it's a massive organized campaign because a lot of people, honestly, a lot of hardcore fans have checked out. Well, I do think it is at some level coordinated that being said, I think the normies aren't even putting any rotten tomatoes. They aren't checking rotten tomatoes. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, they just don't watch it. I think that the proof is in the in the viewership, not in the rotten tomato scores. Yeah, so what's um, we'll talk about Leslie Hedman, and then we'll talk about Faloney here, but they're talking at the very you go the very bottom here. All right, they said inequality has been a hot topic for Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy, but not this kind of inequality, defending Hedlund's stewardship of the accolade in an interview with the New York Times. She said, I think Leslie has struggled a bit with it. I think a lot of women who step into Star Wars struggle with this a bit more. Yeah, because they usually get fired by Kathleen Kennedy. You know, look at what happened with, uh, was it Patty Jenkins? Didn't she get? Yeah, but I'm thinking like, Deborah Chow wasn't seeming to have a whole lot of trouble. No, she there is Bryce Dallas Howard. No, but they probably don't do what Kathy Kennedy wants, right? Because a fan base being so male dominated, they sometimes get attacked in ways that can be quite personal because it's completely not personal to call every dude who doesn't like it a racist, misogynist, a homophobic, is to phobe, whatever that is completely impersonal when you do that. Oh God, this is great. This is how she wraps it up before bemoaning the lack of women in the Star Wars fan base. Perhaps she should have ensured that the ones who are working behind the scenes on the latest show are getting paid the same as the men until that happens. All they can do is continue to hold out for a new hope. Damn. Yeah. Kathy, take, take your own advice. But yeah, so what's, what's going on with Leslie Hedlen now? She's doing an interview or she didn't interview, uh, where I think it was a Hollywood reporter and she said, yeah, you know, it's, it's, it's a very queer show, but it's not, it's not queer with a capital Q. And I think people misunderstood what I was saying. But before she was like, you know, it's the gayest Star Wars ever said there. It's a gayest diver. And she's like, well, I'm into it. I'm into it. I don't understand how it's not. She's like, you're just making assumptions about the space witches, Leslie's face witches. And I'm like, what assumptions? It's the whole plot revolves around like that. Was it, was it, were they women with women spaceswitches? Yes. Were they lesbian spaceswitches? Yes. How were they misinterpreting? They were together. It was very clear. They were together making babies with the force. That's what they're doing. That was all women. There were no men in the witch coven of force users. I don't, and they're in space. They're lesbians in space and they're witches. I don't know what else you're supposed to call them. You know, they're not set. Apparently what's calling them capital Q, which is capital Q. Yeah, right. So she said, I don't believe I've created queer with a capital Q content. Yeah, I like to make fuck you content with a capital F. She said that the Disney home franchise has been criticized for its quote, unquote, woke storylines, right? The show's LGBTQ representation has proceeded itself, gender, generating an now viral moment where a journalist from the rap told Headland and non binary series star Amanda Steinberg during an interview of the show is arguably the gayest Star Wars by a considerable market because he saw the third episode. The media was given the first four episodes. Right. She said, frankly, I'm into it. That's what she said. Yeah. She's like, accepted it then. And now all those all that I was trying to do, you're misinterpreting it. She wasn't misinterpreting it when the person from the Hollywood reporters said it was she. No. Okay. So I, I have to issue an apology. I misnamed a man. It's not Amanda. It's Amanda. It's Amanda. Yeah. Okay. I was surprised by the question. She said Amanda and I just burst out laughing because that's our knee jerk reaction to being asked that to be honest. But I don't know what the term gay means in that sense. I don't believe I've created queer with the capital Q content that's been the marketing to the power of many totally not capital. They're like moaning and writhing and having orgasms and getting pregnant by the force is weird. I mean, even for Star Wars, it's just weird. It's just weird. But no, here's the thing. This, this is the problem. When you lead with this and you're like, this is the most diverse and inclusive, whatever. Yeah. You're right. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, what you're saying that I'll tell you. Okay. I was just saying as a most diverse inclusive, whatever. Go ahead. Okay. Wait, but then they're talking about this in this, in this article, the narrative in question implied that two powerful witches belonging to an all female society use force magic to generate their female offspring. Wait, but they said the narrative in questions are saying people are mad about the overt LGBTQ propaganda of the space witches. But they said that it was implied. Yes. The narrative question narrative was implied. It was implied that the two witches, but that was all women. And they use magic to get knocked up. It was just implied that they're, they're cute with the capital Q or queer with the capital Q. You know what I mean? Yeah. Hedlund slammed the reading of the episode telling outlet they're in a matriarchal society as a gay woman. I knew it would read that they're sexuality square. They explicitly said it. But there aren't any men. There are no men. Okay. Here's the thing, matriarchal society. Yes. But you would still imply that there'd be dudes. It's like a patriarchal society has women. You know what I'm saying? Well, they have like man spots. You have no men and a bunch of women all together, you know, arriving and everything, but you have channeled to get knocked the fuck up. Then I would imply that they're into women and they're lesbians. And that's what their culture is. And they're only women. That's what it would imply. I'm sorry. The show's not gay. It's just women. I'm into it. It's yes. It's a gay show ever. Yeah. Oh no, that's not what I meant. Okay. No, that is what you meant. Hedlund, you know, you were self-insert. Here's the problem. The problem is that's not the main issue that people are having. The problem is the show is dog shit. And it's not Star Wars. It doesn't feel like Star Wars. It messes with the continuity. And you're not allowed to say it because if you say it, you're a bigot because they got so they want to say it. So they like the shield when it's convenient. So this tells me what's going on is this thing is not performing and she has to go out and do damage control. Why would you do another interview and be like, well, it's gay, but it's I know I said it was super gay, but it's not really that gay. It's like, no, because the numbers aren't good and people are laughing at this thing. It's a laughing stock of Star Wars. And I have a feeling that a lot of these Disney plus shows in the years to come will just be conned out of existence. Well, it was interesting to me that that Filoni, it was like, was all, you know, had to prove it all. Yeah, allegedly. Yeah. So let's let's talk about this because I don't believe that Dave Filoni is quite the hero that people are trying to make him out. Well, they were originally like when it was when it was Favreau and Filoni and Favreau was kind of taking the reins. I think people were like, oh, yes. But now that's funny, but I remember been saying that. And I'm like, but but Filoni was like up Ryan Johnson's ass. I remember he was like, I was on set and Ryan Johnson showed me how to do stuff. And Ryan Johnson is the greatest, bestest ever. Yeah. And I was like, that's concerning. And I don't, I don't really believe. I mean, he has pot, you know, positioned himself as he has positioned himself as George Lucas's padawan. But I don't think George Lucas has ever come out and said explicitly that Dave Filoni was the guy, right? The guy that I'm I'm giving all of my Star Wars experience knowledge passing the baton to I think it's just, he just kind of, you know, made the assumption himself. Plus, he's surviving and Kathleen Kennedy's Star Wars, like Favreau and all of a sudden or whatever, their sideline, because he knows who's asked to kiss and what lines to toe, you know, toe or whatever to get what he wants. Yeah. And that's, that's the problem. So a lot of people are like, well, he's just kind of laying low and Biden's time and like, no, he's not. No, he's not. He's, he's like the creative director. So he would have had to have signed off, signed off on all this. And it does, I mean, regardless of what you think about breaking canon, the whole show is stupid. The whole concept is stupid. The High Republic is stupid. It's dumb. And anybody with half a brain at Disney would have looked at this and like, yeah, audiences aren't going to be into this. Let's, let's take the worst part of the Phantom Menace, the, you know, just kind of milling about talking about politics and the Jedi word and all that crap and make a whole show out of it. But we don't even have Liam Neeson, you know, to, to carry along. We don't even have Yoda. Yeah, it's just like, what the hell? See, I remember guys, this, this totally is not a Sith red, lightsaber, black mask, dark side powers, totally not a Sith guys. So it doesn't, it doesn't break canon at all. No, yeah, I think it's weird. They had that the little girls that played Usha and May, they look different in episode three. And apparently she's supposed to be, they're supposed to be identical twins played by the same woman. Like, I don't get it because they don't look the same when they were kids. Yeah, I thought pictures of the kids and no, I could tell them apart. I could tell the kids apart. I'm like, so wait, I thought that she was like, is she playing the same? She's playing both twins? Like, apparently she is. But good luck with this. I do believe in years to come that Disney will have to reset Star Wars just or, or ignore some of this canon just to clean it up just to make it presentable. And this is definitely one of the first things that I could see them cutting and just be like, yeah, this isn't, this isn't canon anymore guys, because it's, it's done. But none of it is, right? I mean, at the end of the day, only G can and counts, only the stuff that George did counts. And sorry, I do not believe for a minute that Floni is his heir to his empire at all. So we're gonna wrap it up. Yeah, go ahead. Please subscribe for a pop culture news, views and rants. And we'll talk later. Bye. Thanks again for listening. More news and videos are available on our website at www.clownfishtv.com and on our YouTube channel, clownfishtv. You can buy official merchandise clownfish comic books and more at shopclownfish.com. If you like this show, please consider subscribing and leaving us positive review on iTunes and other podcast platforms. If you're looking to help support this show financially, go to clownfishsupport.com. If you'd like to sponsor an episode of this show, send us an email at business@webrief.io. This podcast is a production of clownfish studios LLC and web read media proudly made in Pittsburgh, USA.