So we already know that Canadian journalists will have to pay 125 euros a minute for Brad Pitt’s very own words so why is a Nicole Kidman interview being ‘offered’ at close to half price?

It’s awful to talk about people as products with a price tag, but that’s how low we’ve got with this piece of news, so I have decided to go deeper and make an opinionated analysis.

For starters, we have to look at the value of Brad Pitt’s name as a whole in context to Nicole Kidman in terms of global search volume for the sake of reader volume interest. Just before I put these numbers below, Alliance Films were charging Canadian journalists access to top stars for print magazines for varying prices. But where did they get their valuation criteria from? Moving on. The stats:

Global search volume for Brad Pitt: 1 million per month

Global search volume for Nicole Kidman: 368,000 per month

(Stats provided by Google Keyword tool as of today)

So we can clearly see a stark difference in traffic ratio for these two stars putting Brad Pitt far in the lead with nearly 3x the ‘internet value’.

For a Brad Pitt interview in an online magazine you could argue that you are going to get more traffic but we’re not talking about the web for these particular interviews. After all, it’s print magazines/newspapers that will be supposedly publishing these interviews that are being sold.

Now comes the tricky question: Is Nicole Kidman being undervalued because she is a woman? I hate to bring this up, but we’ve seen some pretty poor female representation at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, with 0 female directors in the selection. Are female actors being undervalued too and put to one side? Adding to this argument, Kristen Stewart, star of the Twilight movies was also being ‘offered’ at less than half of Brad Pitt’s asking price. However, if we go back to the global search volume argument you will see who's more valuable:

Global search volume for Brad Pitt: 1 million per month

Global search volume for Kristen Stewart: 1.5 million per month

I would also like to point out the fact that Kristen Stewart was one of Hollywood’s top earners last year, outpacing Brad Pitt (who's nowhere to be seen in the top 40), and is one of the biggest names in the industry right now. Again, I think I have to raise the dark sexism argument because it makes no sense to me why Pitt should be worth more. I just feel it's ethically wrong to put a price tag on people working at the top of the industry when there are clear differences in their appeal for a broad range of reasons, not just purely based on reader interest.