Cate Blanchett tiptoes around queerbaiting discourse
Talking TÁR, Cate Blanchett is befuddled by the "obsession" with labeling sexuality that permeates film discourse
Aux News Cate Blanchett
Queerbaiting is a term meant to be applied to fictional characters whose relationships are written as homoerotic without ever crossing the line to actually, actively gay (see: Dean and Castiel on Supernatural). However, the word is now being flung as an accusation towards real-life people who might appropriate the aesthetics of gay culture without labeling themselves as such (see: Harry Styles, Billie Eilish). Then there are actors who frequently play gay characters, like Cate Blanchett, who exist in an interesting gray area of discourse.
“I have to really listen very hard when people have an issue with it,” Blanchett admits to Vanity Fair about this particular subject. “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. But personally I’ve never had it.”
In fact, “I don’t think about my gender or my sexuality,” she claims. “For me in school, it was David Bowie, it was Annie Lennox. There’s always been that sort of gender fluidity.”
In context, Blanchett seems to be saying she didn’t consider any negative optics that might surround TÁR’s toxic protagonist also being a lesbian in a male-dominated profession. Instead, she (reasonably) approached the character as a character that exists in a fictional, albeit familiar, world—“a fantasy,” as she herself describes Lydia Tàr to Vanity Fair.
She’s nonetheless aware of the queerbaiting discourse, and certainly wary of being the subject of discourse herself. “If you and I were having a conversation [25 years ago], it would be in your publication and that was it,” Blanchett says. “Now, somehow it’s like these opinions get published, and Scarlett Johansson doesn’t play a role that maybe she was the only person who could play it.” She then adds, “I don’t want to offend anybody. I don’t want to speak for anybody else.”
Discourse can be a killer, but it seems that the question of straight actors playing queer characters might have more to do with the historic lack of opportunity afforded to openly queer actors than actual offensiveness of straight actors playing queer. Still, it’s a question worthy of interrogation. “If [Carol] was made now, me not being gay—would I be given public permission to play that role?” Blanchett wonders. Asked if she thinks she should be, the Oscar winner replies honestly and with the ambiguity that the question perhaps deserves: “I don’t know the answer to that.”
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She almost avoided the clickbait AV Club headline. But not quite. Better luck next time, masterful actress.
Clickbait finds a way.
“Sorry I’m hot to all types of people”
The mother of all humble-brags, huh?
This headline was confusing to me because I’ve always seen queerbaiting defined as hinting at a character’s or characters’ queerness but never confirming it. There ought to be another word for a straight actor playing an explicitly queer character. Queerface might work if it didn’t sound so much like a 1980s junior high school insult.
Up until a couple of years ago, it was just called “acting.” What people forget is that cis straight actors playing characters outside their own identities opened doors for everyone. Society changes in a series of small steps, and one of those steps is seeing people on the screen who help you see the people around you better, and see yourself too. It mattered a lot less that Tom Hanks wasn’t gay when Philadelphia made a lot of Midwestern homophobes a little more tolerant. Laura Dern wasn’t gay, but when she kissed Ellen, it opened up an entire world.
Yeah, that’s how I’ve always interpreted queerbaiting.
Yeah this is a really weird use of the term.
It’ s still confusing to me, because as a 72-year-old gay man, “gaybaiting” or “queerbaiting” means taunting someone — usually male — that they’re gay, for any or no reason at all, to get a rise out of them so you can beat them up. At some point very recently, it evidently came to mean a celebrity hinting that they might not be exclusively heterosexual in order to tease their fans, especially the queer ones, so as to gain the fan identification with them without alienating the homophobes by saying it out loud. That’s annoying, but it’s nothing new – queer celebs have done it for decades. See, for instance, Lily Tomlin’s routine about playing heterosexuals on her “Modern Scream” album. I suppose the main change is that in those days, queer fans loved it because they thought they were in on a big secret, and excused it because they knew their stars couldn’t say it out loud without destroying their careers. Now we expect them to say it out loud. I don’t, particularly, but I do expect them not to play that game.
“Asked if she thinks she should be, the Oscar winner replies honestly and with the ambiguity that the question perhaps deserves: “I don’t know the answer to that.””
Saying “I don’t know” is not ambiguous, it means she doesn’t know.
I just saw Top Gun Maverick and I was thinking to myself how offensive it was. Couldn’t they have got someone who identifies as a fighter pilot to play the Tom Cruise role? I mean I know there’s a dearth of opportunities in Hollywood for experienced military pilots.In all seriousness, obviously the issue is that there simply aren’t enough gay actors of a Cate Blanchett level around. Maybe a Jodie Foster, but would she even have wanted the role or been right for the part? Who knows? Clearly, providing more opportunities at the lower levels and making it more open and welcoming to LGBTQ people would help.
Or she could just come out and say “I’m bi,” which seems very popular these days and requires seemingly no follow up questions. Is the obsession with providing a socially acceptable label really progress here? One would think having “straight” (however that gets defined) actors play gay characters is at least an improvement over not having any gay characters at all. If they do a good job of course, which is why having someone of Blanchett’s credentials seems vital.
Actually, I think Tom Cruise does identify as a fighter pilot. He’s got so much juice in Hollyweird, nobody wants to speak up and disabuse him.
I always assumed Tom Cruise identified as “that feeling a jet engine gets as it cuts through the sky at Mach 5.”
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Tom Cruise has clocked more hours clinging to the side of a plane with his bare hands than anyone on the internet can attest to. Who are we to decide whether Tom Cruise can call himself a pilot?
I think that’s up to his cult…I mean church.
And he is more successful at landing than the other famous pilot/actor Harrison Ford!
Not only does he identify as one, but he’s jet-rated and regularly flies an L-39 jet trainer, along with his actual P-51 Mustang fighter plane that he owns.I’m not sure how this affect this portion of the discussion thread, but there you go.
“Fighter” pilot, cool. Nobody’s shooting at him in his baby trainer or his expensive antique.
Hah nice burn, but referring to the larger discussion, at least Cruise has some piloting experience that brings him closer to what he’s portraying on screen that his co-stars don’t, so in the context of cis people portraying queer ones rather than queer or queer-adjacent actors, he’s perhaps not the best snarky example.(We’ll absolutely not touch the whole premise of Cruise’s theoretical Scientology-masked queer-adjacency, though.)
I’ve had an hour in a Cessna.
Or she could just come out and say “I’m bi,” which seems very popular these days and requires seemingly no follow up questions.Not even necessary to do that much; all you have to do is claim that you’re “queer” as a catch-all, which… who knows what it even means?
I’m about as cis, hetero, whatever, as any person I’ve known, and yet I’ve read over descriptions of the various non-binary identities to the point where I’ve found a few that I could genuinely lay claim to — they’re almost just personality descriptions at some point, and it seems to me as though there’s a queerness right for just about everyone. It’s just about the political calculation/cost of publicly embracing that identity.
If you’re queer, you know, it’s something a lot more deeply felt than just a label. I knew I was queer since I was little, and so do most queer people.
If you’re queer, you know, it’s something a lot more deeply felt than just a label. I knew I was queer since I was little, and so do most queer people.You’re describing your own experience. Don’t assume that your experience is universally true for others.
Don’t try and reduce it as something that should be dismissed as a “who knows what that even means” when it means so much to some of us.
I’m not dismissing anything. I’m saying that if I told you “I’m queer,” what more would you know about me, or my life, than you did before? What would you know I meant by it, when there are so many things that fall under that term?I’m glad it means a lot to you. That doesn’t mean that everyone else has to have the same experience that you do, or attach the same meaning you do to the term.And when you say something like, “If you’re queer, you know, it’s something a lot more deeply felt than just a label,” again, you’re talking about yourself. Don’t be dismissive about other peoples’ experiences because you don’t think they measure up to your own standards.
This some silly shaming going on. Use it how you want, that’s fine, but it’s not Queer folks fault that we have language that intentionally doesn’t capture the Queer experience. I would say right now, people still differentiate in the community between queer and gay/lesbian, with the former a lot more inclusive of gender non-conforming folks.
You’re dismissing the other person here, but they’ve already answered you on that point very well. I’d mainly add that it is a mistake to invest too much in a term or label.
In which the cis straight man feels entirely comfortable lecturing gay people about how they should feel
The word “most” basically kills the assertion that the writer assumed universality. It’s still a generalization, but your critique of that generalization doesn’t make much sense.
Cis just refers to genitals. Hetero just refers to sexual orientation.
Queer, well, it is simple and it is complicated.
At it’s core, at least for me; queer refers to otherness. That otherness that you notice or feel in yourself versus versus society’s standards for who you should be or who you aren’t. That otherness perhaps other people made you feel different for whatever reason. But ultimately, being queer is decided by you. If you’ve ever felt odd or displaced in some way even in a place where everything should be okay. In any event; it does not matter, if someone does not think your queerness is valid, it’s what you think and feel that matters. I think the thing many people do despise are the posers who are calling themselves queer out of self-aggrandizement and self- promotion; not out of earnestness of self-reflection.
In the alphabet soup, every letter is queer. But the Q is there for everyone. It’s not necessarily about gender or sex.For me, it’s been “easy”. I was called gay, faggot or queer before I knew what those terms meant when I was in grade school. So, I grew up feeling odd and not knowing quite why. When I did have the start of some understanding I could not deal with it and went into the closet for 35 years.
I mean I identify as bisexual, but I don’t identify as queer, because for me that’s a slur. I’m aware it has been pretty thoroughly reclaimed by the community, but I still hear it in the vicious tones it was used as an insult/slur in my high school days.
Agreed on all counts, and I really want to thank you for taking the time to share. It’s greatly appreciated.
With respect to my own experience, I’ve always felt “other,” too, and I was called plenty of names along the way. At the time, the only real “queerness” I was aware of was homosexuality. When I reached the age where I could really interrogate myself about that — and I did — it came back to me that I was straight as an arrow. So that’s where that journey ended for me, at least for a very long time.I didn’t have the conceptual framework, or the language, at the time to consider whether anything else was possible to describe me or my experience.
“Cis just refers to genitals.” No it doesn’t. It refers to subjectivity. I’m cisgender, but another person with the same genitals can be transgender. As this whole thread shows, there’s a lot of confusion and disagreement about the meaning of the terms.
“At it’s [sic] core, at least for me; queer refers to otherness.” That’s you. It’s not true for others. Though I’ll answer to “queer” myself, I have a lot of reservations about a term that has no real meaning, and it bothers me that so many people are so insistent that their personal definition must apply to everyone else.
It reminds me of “God.” People mean wildly different things by it, and I’ve seen people who I know have inconsistent definitions chattering away happily with each other, unaware that they mean something different – until they realize it, and then fall out in disappointment and fury.
I appreciate the post and the depth you put into it. But it does kind of reinforce Buko’s point about how ‘queer’ is kind of a nebulous catch-all without any real definition. L, G, B and T are all straightforward concepts that can be summed up in a sentence or two. Even more recent additions to the rainbow alphabet like Intersex and Asexual are fairly easy to make a layperson understand. But if queer is just a feeling then it’s something that literally anyone can claim to be without any sort of conditions or requirement.
I remember there was some sportswriter who got some notoriety not too long ago when he claimed to be queer, while also exclusively attracted to women.
some sportswriter who got some notoriety not too long agoClearly, since anyone knows who he is.
…and yet I’ve read over descriptions of the various non-binary identities to the point where I’ve found a few that I could genuinely lay claim to — they’re almost just personality descriptions at some point,…This is a big problem I have with the “non-binary” or “gender non-conforming” type labels some people use. Nobody really gives a shit that you’re a woman who doesn’t like to wear women’s clothes or do “girly” things. That’s literally just part of your personality. The idea that we create labels for these things as an identity and it needs to be “respected” by society is just bullshit.
I’m definitely interested in the opinion of someone who puts quotes around the idea of respect.Although you use them on like half the words in that post so… I dunno, maybe it’s a tic.
This boomer joke is always hilarious and don’t listen to everyone telling you that it’s fucking stupid and hackneyed and comes from a place of hate.
don’t listen to everyone telling you that it’s fucking stupid and hackneyed and comes from a place of hate.For whatever reason this thread appears to be filled with boring bubbling trash NOT telling him he’s boring bubbling trash.
I think there’s some merit to the argument. And that the audience sometimes only accepting straight people playing queer is a bigger problem in itself. When I look at the Queer episode of the Last of Us, Nick Offerman is straight and Bartlett is Queer. I think Bartlett informed why it felt so inherently queer and guided Offerman to build a beautiful performance. So definitely nuance to it all, and I think Blanchett is obviously dodging labels around gender herself, so there’s obviously her own sense of queerdom, or at least a respect for queerdom there (which is a lot more than who you are attracted to).I just wish we were allowed to have queer people be queer in leading roles.
“Allowed” ?
Agreed. Further, representation is just as much about employment opportunities as audience appeal.
I was offended because it sucked out loud and was thinly veiled American exceptionalist propaganda.
To your point, I’m not sure Blanchett was the right person for this role. She’s a terrific actor, but like Meryl Streep, she has ceased to be able to disappear into roles. She simply is Cate Blanchett, doing her brand of acting which is very mannered and precise, but all the same kind of airless. Tar is supposed to be this person who has invented herself to a large degree, and presents different facets of herself to different people, and for that I think perhaps having an unknown would’ve been a better route. Of course, I’m sure this film probably wouldn’t have gotten financed without Blanchett’s involvement, which is a pity.
Why would an article about queerbaiting immediately send your mind to Tom Cruise in Top Gun?
Two words: volleyball.
Did you seriously do the one joke and think that’s clever?
In related news, I stepped over some dogshit earlier, rather than walking directly into it. So I can definitely understand Cate Blanchett’s impulse here!
people who complain about queerbaiting are the most insufferable people
*sing*
“Tiptoe…through the discourse…!”
We just got Tim Turned!
Man, now I really want to hear Tiny sing “Never Gonna Give You Up”
i think…it might go…a little something…like this (takes out tiny ukelele)
(all ukuleles are tiny!)
Well, he’s a little bit dead right now …
He’s not mostly dead, is he?
“Queerbaiting” AKA “I’ve decided you’re gay based solely on how you act and nothing else.”
No, you don’t understand. If you watch the 6 frames at time stamp 34:57 you can see these two character share a look. That OBVIOUSLY means the writers are signaling that these two characters are secretly sleeping together.
I got a Community notice for this?
Thank you kind Sir, somehow I was the one of the only people on the planet who hadn’t heard that Sara Bareilles song until I watched the Community clip in your comment -and had to scroll through a hundred comments to find out what the song used is, now I’ve had it on repeat ever since …… watched the official music video a dozen times on youtube, plus all the Sara Bareilles live performances of the song (including the duet with Elton John where he gushes about how beautiful the song is) plus all the cover versions in all the reality TV music competitions.Two long running shows I thought I would love but couldn’t get past the pilots – Community and Parks and Rec. Perhaps I should simply skip the first seasons of both and start from Season 2 … and only return to the first season when I’m invested …
[eyebrow-raised] buh.?[/eyebrow-raised]
If “how you act” includes choosing sex partners, that’s perfectly sensible.
it doesnt
There is never an implication that either Dean or Castiel have ever been romantically or sexually involved with other men anywhere in Supernatural.
Supernatural: Here are a couple of brothers. They kill monsters and do brother things.Supernatural fandom, for some godforsaken reason: AND THEY ARE PASSIONATELY IN LOVE.
She’s not even really an elf
Talk about cultural appropriation!
Princess of the Noldor my ass!
ok, but that costs extra…
I’d give her the ring regardless
If you liked it then you should have put the fate of Middle Earth on it
Three IUD’s for elven princesses…
She’s not even Bob Dylan!
I WILL NOT TRUCK THIS DYLANBAITING.
There must be some kinda way outta here…!…
As an Aussie, I only recognise one heir to the Dylan crown:
Are you sure. I feel like if Cate Blanchette sidled up to me and whispered in my ear that she was secretly and elf, I would totally believe her.
Master thespian!
It’s ok. When you’ve been alive for thousands of years, you learn to let these things slide.
Sure are a lot of straight people in this post who have opinions on how gay people should feel
Cate did not take the bait.
I don’t think you can have this kind of discussing without acknowledging that an actor’s ability to embody the role isn’t the only factor when it comes to casting. An actors marketability and cultural cache is also a huge factor. Yes, there are definitely queer actors that can play these roles just as well as the straight actors who are often cast instead, but they aren’t actors that will sell tickets or get the viewership.
I don’t think you can have this kind of
discussing without acknowledging that an actor’s ability to embody the
role isn’t the only factor when it comes to casting.
I feel like so many people ignore the physicality of acting and the way that the actor’s appearance can affect the audience’s reaction. Cate Blanchett has this beauty that is both ethereal and severe, and that’s not something anyone off the street can bring with them. Actors are not interchangeable.
I mean, in this particular case, Tilda Swinton probably could have done this role, but could you imagine like… Mary Steenburgen? I love her, but it’s hard to picture her as this character.
It would be just fantastic if this argument wasn’t made over and over every time this subject came up as though none of us had heard it or considered it.WE ALL UNDERSTAND FILM FINANCING
Straight actor plays a gay character and the world catches fire. But six different people play Dylan and hardly anyone blinks.
“Discourse” is not democracy. No one has to obey the outcome of an argument that took place on Tumblr eight years ago.
There are two realities in play here, and it all depends on your priorities.
It obviously is good to have greater representation in movies, and the reality is when you don’t hire (in this case) gay actors then gay actors don’t get paid, and that’s before we even get into any discussions about authenticity.
The reality is also there are so many different reasons an artist is chosen to collaborate on a project – especially a work of fiction. This case isn’t a documentary, the studio wants to make money, the director Todd Field “desperately” wanted to work with Cate Blanchett and wrote the movie basically for her, etc.
The fight for representation is important, but can and should be viewed on a case-by-case basis, and dare I say this case isn’t that fight. My reasoning is that Tàr’s focus isn’t about being gay. It’s a part of the character, but not the main story of the movie. I know and understand people will disagree with that reasoning, but you have to draw a line somewhere and that’s where I currently do in this case. I am of course willing and entitled to change my mind if presented with new information.
Taylor Swift often writes songs with characters with names that could go be male or female, then writes about what clearly could stand-in for queer longing, then waits a little and is like “they’re straight”…that’s queerbaiting. Harry Styles plays to homoeroticism, but he is not actually interested in it, he is only doing it to get looks and likes and to enhance his career. That is queerbaiting. Trying to get gays to watch your show by pretending two characters might be gay when you don’t have the balls to make them gay is queerbaiting (apparently Supernatural, but lots of other shows too) but having the whole show be about two men being in love with each other (and made by a gay creator) is not (Hannibal). It’s exploitation.Playing a gay character in a movie when you are not gay is not queerbaiting, it is a completely different dialogue that is about representation. I am not a militant, so I think it’s fine until you get into the thing where it seems like you are saying somebody other than a specific minority can play a minority better than they can (like that nobody seems to cast jews as jews anymore) or only casting a non-minority they are comfortable with (Darren Criss as everyone’s favorite non-gay gay man) or casting people who make you more comfortable because they don’t actually share the history that you are pretending to call to account (tangentially Samuel L. Jackson’s complaint that Hollywood keeps casting brits as american black historical figures), or take a role that could have potentially created an actor big enough to have bankrolled the movie thereby perpetuating the problem (ScarJo)Tar was written for a man and Blanchett stepped into the role, clearly taking it from a man and not a woman or a gay woman…I’m not sure how much more egalitarian a situation could be than them not rewriting all of the love interests/etc. to be men, or having to change it so that the character is a model minority and doesn’t act in any negative manner, which would make the entire movie not exist. So is it that non-gays can only play good gays and we have to ask people if they are gay before they play anybody bad? Well, I am not a militant either way…if you’re going to have just a sneering preening gay villain like in Spartacus, Lawrence of Arabia, and lots of other movies then…well, don’t, but if you did then probably! But it’s sort of a good thing that gay characters are being written as, well, human. In any case, casting Tar as a propaganda movie about “those predatory gays” is…well…dumb. Because a reasonable person wouldn’t see the film that way. People should just criticize its weak third act and stick to that.
Tar was written for a man and Blanchett stepped into the role, clearly taking it from a man and not a woman or a gay woman…I’m not sure how much more egalitarian a situation could be than them not rewriting all of the love interests/etc. to be men,My understanding was that Field wrote the film specifically for Cate Blanchett.
Cate Blanchett told Variety interview that when Todd Field “started thinking about” Tár it was going to about a man, probably by default as principal conductors at the highest echelons are mostly male. But Field has stated that he wrote the script for Blanchett and if he would not have made the film without her. I think fairly early in the process, maybe before even starting to write, he decided it would be more interesting to make the character female, and by the time he finished the first draft he had his mind set on Blanchett.
Interesting, thanks for that! I had seen the quote about “would not have made the film without her” but I didn’t know that the character had once been conceived as male.I think it’s interesting that people have been reading some message of “power is inherently corruptive and affects women equally” into the film; I didn’t get that at all. To me, it’s about a person who is artistically talented and personally corrupt, and the person happens to be a woman. In the real world, there have been many famous male conductors who have been abusive (Levine) and many who haven’t (MTT).
ah, if that’s the case then I retract that part (I believe another commenter addressed it above, that the character may have started out male because of the ahemsexist world of conducting), but I didn’t really need to get into the representation part anyway given this article was supposed to be about queerbaiting. Fwiw I think representationally as to casting (keeping whether the part is a model minority separate) it would be more of a problem today to have Blanchett play in “Carol” where there was a major queer part that a queer actress could have played than to have a wholly new character written only for her that happens to be gay, because she isn’t taking anyone’s place. I suppose that depends on the beholder’s idea of whether that is similar to writing a Jewish woman, or a black woman, only for Cate Blanchett. “Cate Blanchett in A Very Kwanzical Chanukah”Funny, I remember when it used to be actually risky and bold for an actor to play gay. Mariel Hemingway in “Personal Best,” Russell Crowe doing “The Sum of Us” right after “Romper Stomper” etc.
Taylor Swift writes songs?
Harry Styles plays to homoeroticism, but he is not actually interested in it, he is only doing it to get looks and likes and to enhance his career. That is queerbaiting.
Do you know that this is true? Or do you assume that this is true because Harry Styles has dated famous women that you can name? To be clear: I’m not arguing that you’re wrong; I’m asking if you know that this is true. I don’t go out of my way to seek out Harry Styles interviews (and I like his solo material, so I’m also not inclined to dismiss him as an artist), so if he’s expressed specific interests – or, to further your assertion, specific motivations for his fashion choices – that’s news to me.
I’ll add that gay representation (should only gay actors play gay characters) has a lot to do with the industry. There’s a pattern of straight actors playing suffering/dying queer characters for awards, while actual gay actors get frozen out of career opportunities/sponsorships/etc. and the default POV in movies is still heteronormative
totally, and let’s not forget Jared Leto as a trans-character…however, again, at the time he did that and it was not so long ago, it was considered brave by the normies (don’t get me wrong, that movie like that dumb Alan Turing movie, totally screwed the main character’s sexuality to appeal to middle america)…and it’s undeniable that even if it was exactly that trope, Tom Hanks in Philadelphia was a big deal for normie empathy towards AIDS patients…we tend to forget how unevolved we were just a few years ago and we are still pretty unevolved
Taylor Swift often writes songs with characters with names that could go be male or female, then writes about what clearly could stand-in for queer longing, then waits a little and is like “they’re straight”…that’s queerbaiting.This is projection and a tragically online take.
I’d be interested to hear if there’s a single, solitary queer woman on Earth who objects to watching Cate Blanchett play a lesbian on film.
Jesus christ how can someone even watch a movie these days.
Queerbaiting is a term meant to be applied to fictional
characters whose relationships are written as homoerotic without ever
crossing the line to actually, actively gay (see: Dean and Castiel on Supernatural).
Two things:1. No. It’s a term that in its current form means teasing a gay relationship or character with the hope of luring in LGBT+ audiences. In its previous form, it meant pretending to be queer to lure a gay person outside so you and your friends could beat them to death. This is why many older members of the community hate hearing Kids These Days complain about ships calling them something that got their own friends injured or killed.
2. Castiel admitted he was in love with Dean, which made the relationship canon. One-sided in English dubs, but canon.
Gotta chuckle a bit at the headline that she ‘tiptoes’ around the issue. As if she wouldn’t. As if anyone here wouldn’t if they were in her shoes. As if there is some benefit to her in not ‘tiptoeing’ around it, and thus opening herself up to waves of ill-tempered shrieking from overly-online assholes whichever way she landed on it.
Geez, that really blew up in their faces. Guess they should’ve just cast a man in the role as it was written for, would’ve avoided all this. Or was it worth it? Will it look better or worse in ten years? Twenty?
““This script was written for one artist, Cate Blanchett,” Field said in a director’s statement. “Had she said no, the film would have never seen the light of day.”https://thefilmstage.com/cate-blanchett-is-a-musical-force-in-the-new-trailer-for-todd-fields-tar/
“and Scarlett Johansson doesn’t play a role that maybe she was the only person who could play it.”Narrator voice: She wasn’t
If she’s talking about ScarJo doing that trans man from Pittsburgh story, fucking NO. Everything around that project sounded wrongheaded.
Okay so trans men who are actors can ONLY play the role of trans men right? They can’t play any other type of role they are just reduced to that?Following this logic, gay actors should only play gay roles.
Dean and Castiel were never gay, that was just the fandom wishing they were gay. Hell Castiel isn’t even a person, angels have no gender. It’s not a man attracted to a man.
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Did they ask any actual lesbians about this? Oh? The VF article actually acknowledges that there is a sizable Blanchett fandom among lesbians? What? It’s almost like a good half of queerbaiting discourse is in bad faith and/or stupid? Who would have thought!
I am confused, and I always entertain the possibility that I am dead wrong. However, the point of acting is that you are going to play a character that is not you, that might be very different than you. Gay actors have been playing straight characters for centuries and straight actors can play gay characters as well. This is primarily because t is acting. You do not have to share any characteristics of the character to lay the character. It’s not necessary if you are a good enough actor. This is especially true in this movie where the sexuality of the character is irrelevant. In fact, what is now called queerbaiting is actually treating a queer character as a real human being as just a person like anyone else, an equal, a character that is not defined by being queer but by being human. I admit that I could be wrong but this seems so counter to the idea of equality that it is a little difficult to believe that it is real.