Carrie already has blogged on Patricia Arquette’s much-applauded but fact-challenged statement on the wage gap at Sunday night’s Oscar ceremonies (“Oscar Winner Arquette Needs a New Script”).

Mollie Hemingway, who likes the quirky Arquette clan and in particular applauds Patricia Arquette’s for sporting a casual hairdo at Hollywood's fanciest party of the year, also weighs in on the star’s brave wage-gap stance that roused Meryl Streep to get to her feet to give Ms. Arquette a “right on” sign:  

The notion that Meryl Streep and Jennifer Lopez — literally some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in the world — should be cheering on yet another wealthy person about their struggle with low wages is hilarious. And I laughed, as all people with a basic understanding of economics and a healthy regard for celebrity did.

Mollie’s piece put me in mind of a story we did on “Hollywood Courage” in IWF’s old Women’s Quarterly. In the article, Joseph Epstein explained how you can get a standing ovation in Tinsel Town for saying something with which absolutely everybody in the room agrees. That is what Arquette did. That she was factually incorrect and displayed an abysmal ignorance of economic realities? No matter. She was courageous!

In what could almost be a coda to the “Hollywood Courage” article, Mollie writes:

We live in a time when people think they’re courageous for saying things that everyone agrees with. Equal rights for women are far less controversial than kittens these days, so calling for them isn’t really a cause for dramatic hooting and hollering. To be honest, though, I imagine that Streep’s performance there is the same one she gives upon being told what one of her personal chefs concocts for breakfast each morning.

But of course Arquette’s “wage gap” speech slavishly followed White House "war on women" talking points. The 77-cent wage gap has, as Mollie says, ” been debunked so many times that it’s almost silly.” When women’s choices are factored in, the wage gap all but disappears. A Department of Labor report puts the wage gap at 94 cents on the male dollar, but statistics show that in urban areas college-educated women in comparable jobs are out-earning their male counterparts. Never mind, as Mollie says, reporters, who should know better, and Hollywood types ate up Arquette’s performance.

But you know where there really is a wage gap? Hollywood. Mollie explains that, while it is hard to feel bad for women who make astronomical sums, Hollywood is one industry that is "riddled" with sexism and does indeed have a wage gap. Other places where women have experienced a wage gap: the Obama White House, where women staffers are paid 15 percent less than male staffers, and Hillary Clinton’s senatorial office where the wage gap was 72-cents on the male dollar (five cents more than is generally cited by courageous liberals!).

But don’t expect Ms. Arquette to mention these wage gaps.

That would take courage-courage as opposed to Hollywood courage.