US$29,811,746,430,000 is how much US women collectively miss out on during their careers because of wage inequality.
In its campaign for National Women’s Law Center’s Equal Payback Project, Droga5 already had a secret weapon in its arsenal. Sarah Silverman is superb – smart, witty, engaging – in the new video, Closes the Gap, just as she was in Droga5’s 2008 ad for the Jewish Council for Education & Research.
The average American woman loses US$435,049 during her career due to pay inequality – or as Silverman calls it, the vagina tax. Times that by the 69 million working women in the US and you get US$29,811,746,430,000.
So, Silverman states, her first order of business for National Women’s Law Center, which advocates for equal pay, is to raise US$29,811,746,430,000 to pay women back for the money they will have lost during their working lives.
But then because she realises that goal is unlikely to be met, she outlines her even more drastic plan to get equality for at least one woman.
Silverman has decided to acquire balls (and a penis) by cosmetic surgery – because, “I’m becoming a dude. In the grand scheme of things, it’s way less expensive than the money I’ll lose having a pussy. Plus, I’ll finally be able to pee on walls…or…it will be easier to pee on walls.”
The idea and original script for the video came from the creatives at Droga5. Silverman joined in the development of the script after signing up for the project.
“It’s insane that equal pay is still something we’re fighting for in 2014. More than 50 years have passed since the Equal Pay Act, and the typical woman is still making only 78 cents to a man’s dollar. We want to breathe new life into an old issue still relevant to the modern working women. It’s a wake-up call for us to take charge of our financial fates,” Karen Short, creative director at Droga5 stated.
Casey Rand, Droga5 creative director, added, “Equal pay may not be a sexy issue, but it’s an important one. And it is absurd. Young women need to know what’s at stake. And we knew that to get them to engage, we’d need to play up that absurdity.”
The video points to EqualPaybackProject.com, which will collect donations through the end of the month. It’s powered by Tilt, a crowdfunding platform, and was funded by The Ipsos Girls’ Lounge.
A series of infographics and posters is included in the campaign.
Creative credits:
Agency: Droga5
Creative Chairman: David Droga
Chief creative officer: Ted Royer
Creative directors: Casey Rand & Karen Land Short
Co-writer/comedian: Sarah Silverman
Production Company: JASH
Director: Ruben Fleischer
Editing & post production: Droga5 Studios
Crowdfunding campaign powered by: Tilt
Music: Jingle Punk
