Cate Blanchett has won my heart many times over the years, in films such as “TÁR,” “The Aviator,” “Blue Jasmine,” and “I’m Not There.” However, it’s her work in Todd Haynes’ masterful “Carol” that keeps coming back to me.
In “Carol,” Blanchett plays a repressed woman who falls hard for aspiring photographer Therese (Rooney Mara). Their guest meeting at a 1950s Manhattan department store still haunts to this day. The two women develop a bond that results in a heart-wrenching road trip with complicated consequences.
Now Blanchett might potentially win her third Oscar for “TÁR” and she’s been campaigning hard these last few months for that to happen. In an upcoming Vanity Fair piece, Blanchett gets candid about the identity politics rumagging through the industry today:
“I don’t think about my gender or my sexuality […] For me in school, it was David Bowie, it was Annie Lennox. There’s always been that sort of gender fluidity.”
Though the two-time Oscar winner goes on to admit that she doesn’t really get today’s “obsession with labels,” but she does seriously consider them. “I have to really listen very hard when people have an issue with it,” she said, referring to her portrayals of lesbian women in Carol and Tár.
“I just don’t understand the language they’re speaking, and I need to understand it because you can’t dismiss the obsession with those labels — behind the obsession is something really important.”
“If [Carol] was made now, me not being gay — would I be given public permission to play that role? I don’t know the answer to that.”
Blanchett goes on to defend Scarlett Johannson and the “Ghost in the Shell” controversy she faced after being cast in a role that was originally meant for an Asian actress.
I'm pretty sure the majority of the Academy agrees with her, they just can’t afford to say it. The whole notion that cancel culture is bad and doesn’t allow artists to play any role they want is a sentiment echoed by many in Hollywood, they just can’t utter it for fear of retribution. Props to Blanchett for having the courage to do so.