Why Gal Gadot's win over Brett Ratner feels good...

On Wednesday (EST), Gal Gadot confirmed the reports that embattled director-producer Brett Ratner will no longer be on the roster of Wonder Woman sequel scheduled to release in November 2019. Ratner has been accused by at least half a dozen women, including actresses Olivia Munn and Ellen Page, of sexual misconduct and sexual harassment.

Gadot started distancing herself from the events involving interactions with Ratner in October. It first started with her backing out from a dinner for the Jewish National Fund honouring Ratner with Tree of Life Award. Later LA Times broke the news of allegations on November 1, adding Ratner to the evergrowing list of disgraced Hollywood celebs including Harvey Weinstein, James Toback, Kevin Spacey, Roy Price, and others. Ratner's lawyer Marty Singer has adamantly denied all the charges.

Ratner's ouster as a producer from Wonder Woman sequel and from Warner Bros lot does not come as a surprise since Netflix and Ridley Scott took more drastic measures with
removing Kevin Spacey from the upcoming season of House of Cards and the movie All the Money in the World, respectively. 

The X-Men: Last Stand director had inked a $450 million financing deal with Warner Bros under his RatPac Entertainment banner in collaboration with Steve Mnuchin's Dune Entertainment. The four-year deal was struck in 2013. It covers 75 titles and is set to expire in March 2018.

Their filmography with Warner Bros includes award-winning movies like Gravity, Interstellar, American Sniper, Mad Max: Fury Road. This year's award hopefuls like Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk, James Franco's The Disaster Artist also have received money from RatPac Entertainment. Coming to DC Extended Universe, Ratner also financed DC tentpoles Man of Steel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, and Gal Gadot's Wonder Woman.

Wonder Woman is the only DC Superhero movie from the Extended Universe that has managed to outshine the Zack Snyder grimness and appeal to the comic book readers, movie buffs and regular Janes from all walks of life. Director Patty Jenkins' treatment of Gadot's Diana Prince boosted Wonder Woman's image as a feminist icon. To back up that claim, in the testosterone filled superhero genre, Wonder Woman had broken the glass ceiling by earning $821.8 million worldwide. 

To be brutally honest, just leave the liberal facade of anything that is artistic is tended with care and respect. At the end of the day, movie making is a business. It involves money and to keep going it needs to lodge profit. Once a producer starts hitting the bull's eye with every release, it gives him/her a wider space on the next step of the success ladder. It also gets more slippery the higher you go. The power games begin in which that power is exerted on those who are just starting out or on the women who the patriarchal society readily slut shames and refuses to trust. It takes a New Yorker report for studios and bigwigs of Hollywood to start addressing the issues that are right under their noses and they conveniently ignored. In the follow-up purge, every major studio in Hollywood wants to steer clear of the controversies and subsequent legal hassles that may come their way.

Money plays a bigger role when it comes to granting power to someone. It is always assumed that the male lead of a movie brings in the moolah even when the female lead had an equal role and has a strong fan following. Are these box office numbers broken down based on who paid to watch the movie? Doubt it. Yet, men are paid more than women, because hey, look patriarchy told them to do so.

Sony hack in 2015 revealed the gender pay gap in Hollywood. Jennifer Lawrence, Patricia Arquette, Jessica Chastain talked about the issues and are still vocal. This year's Forbes list of highest paid actors and actresses reveals that Mark Wahlberg earned upwards of $68 million while Emma Stone earned $26 million. Women are not being paid enough in Hollywood and getting a job in that industry is harder because you might have to watch your director or producer wank in front of you (The least of inconveniences. I don't even want to think about the repetitive rape allegations. Just reading #MeToo accounts makes it harder to breathe triggering the memories of my own experiences).

So why is Gal Gadot's win over Brett Ratner feels good? Gadot played by the rules set by men and outsmarted them. Patty Jenkins and Gadot made a movie that earned critical
acclaim, ruled box office earning more than the deal Warner Bros had made with RatPac Entertainment, saved the studio's ambitious and expensive AF DC Extended Universe. If you read the early reviews of Justice League, 'Wonder Woman is awesome' can be identified as the common theme.

Patty Jenkins became the highest paid female director when she negotiated her contract with the studio to direct the Wonder Woman sequel. By not signing the dotted line, Gadot showed the door to a sexual predator. It's actions like this may lead the wind of change.