Hollywood treats actresses like monkeys – Salma Hayek

Salma Hayek laid into Hollywood sexism on Tuesday, saying the system treats actresses like performing monkeys and wants rid of them once they realise they are smart.

The Mexican star of “Frida” and “Desperado” lambasted the “macho” attitudes of Tinseltown, where fewer than seven percent of films are made by women.

“Hollywood is not going to change and give it to women because it is all guys,” she said.

“From the beginning I realised I wasn’t being treated equally as an actress,” she said during a talk at the Cannes film festival.

“It is true that maybe if you are pretty you can get parts easier but it’s really violent to assume if you are pretty you are stupid.

“Hollywood’s particularly macho. If they realise that you are smart, their anger gets multiplied,” Hayek said.

To many movers and shakers young actresses are playthings, she claimed.

“They say ‘Get a monkey’ and then the monkey talks and they say, ‘Oh my God, maybe we are going to make money.’ Then one day they see the monkey doing algebra and they say, ‘Kill the monkey!’

“It’s very violent, this natural force to try to suppress. That is why we have a problem with women behind the camera as directors and producers,” she told one of the “Women in Motion” forums she organises each year at the festival.