During the Cannes Film Festival, Salma Hayek joined a growing list of female stars who are now taking a stand against sexism as she slammed Hollywood for being "ignorant" to the many talents of women and not giving women, both behind and in front of the camera what they truly deserved.
"For a long time they thought the only thing we were interested in seeing were romantic comedies," said Hayek, who appears in the Cannes drama "Tale of Tales."
"They don't see us as a powerful economic force, which is an incredible ignorance," she added.
Hayek said that she has lost out on jobs because A-list actors have approval over her casting, but the same cannot be said for top Hollywood actresses, who have no say at all with regards to their co-stars, according to Variety.
She even said that studio executives have amnesia when it comes to female-driven hits. "They don't know what we want to see," Hayek said. "When women don't direct and women don't write and tell our own stories, we stopped going to the movies and started watching them on television."
Movies directed by women such as The Hunger Games, Frozen, and The Fault in Our Stars have actually received worldwide acclaim, but the number of top-grossing films directed by women is shockingly low compared to those directed by men. Last year, women directed only 17 out of the 250 top-grossing films.
Hayek is also bummed by the fact that A-list leading ladies do not get paid as much as their male counterparts. "The only kind of movie where women make more than men is the porno industry," Hayek lamented. "It's simple ignorance."
Other stars who echoed her sentiments include Irrational Man's Parker Posey, who said that female roles in the past were actually much better compared to now. She said that she loved watching Turner Classic Movies from the 40s because the female characters were so witty and three-dimensional.
"It's so rare that I see that in movies now," Posey said. "We're in very masculine times. We're at war. The culture is eating nature, it's overpowering storytelling."
Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, who stars in the movie "Jazbaa" also agreed with the two actresses, saying that it's so sad that women starring in movies is still considered a niche product nowadays.
"It's pretty much the same everywhere across the globe," Bachchan said. "We keep coming back to reiterating preconceived ideas."