Well, it was a nice five days, wasn’t it? A real nice 120 hours. A glorious almost-week of thinking Cate Blanchett had enjoyed many dips in the lady pond, many trips around the sapphic sun, many evenings at Jodie Foster’s clambake. It was just Thursday when Variety published a profile of Blanchett that included this exchange:
When asked if this is her first turn as a lesbian, Blanchett curls her lips into a smile. “On film — or in real life?” she asks coyly. Pressed for details about whether she’s had past relationships with women, she responds: “Yes. Many times,” but doesn’t elaborate. Like Carol, who never “comes out” as a lesbian, Blanchett doesn’t necessarily rely on labels for sexual orientation.
We delighted in the glory of that revelation, like everyone else with a beating heart. (I mean, even the New York Times was excited.) And now we must all rip our clothes and wail because it turns out Variety misquoted Blanchett, and she hasn’t gone spelunking in Janey Cave, after all. While promoting her upcoming lesbian-themed film, Carol, at a Cannes press conference, Blanchett told reporters:
“From memory, the conversation ran: ‘Have you had relationships with women?’ And I said: ‘Yes, many times. Do you mean have I had sexual relationships with women? Then the answer is no.’ But that obviously didn’t make it.”
Fine, Cate Blanchett. FINE. You didn’t spend your nights in the late ’90s sitting on a roof with Gillian Anderson getting high and talking about UFOs and the ephemeral nature of life and our tiny place in this enormous universe. You didn’t hold her hand at the MoMA and brush her hair out of her face when she started to cry after you and found yourselves face-to-canvas with Monet’s wall-sized Water Lilies. You weren’t kicked out of Notre-Dame de Paris one Sunday morning after getting accidentally drunk together at brunch and deciding to attend mass on a whim. You don’t need the scissoring t-shirt I bought to mail to you because NONE OF THAT HAPPENED.
No, really, none of that happened. It’s been a really overactive five days in my imagination.
At Cannes, Blanchett also said:
But in 2015, the point should be: who cares? Call me old fashioned but I thought one’s job as an actor was not to present one’s boring, small, microscopic universe but to make a psychological connection to another character’s experiences. My own life is of no interest to anyone else. Or maybe it is. But I certainly have no interest in putting my own thoughts and opinions out there.
The Variety reporter is sticking by his story. He tweeted this morning to say the quote was contextually accurate.
When I asked Cate Blanchett if she'd had lesbian relationships in real life, she said: "Many times." She was accurately quoted. #Cannes2015
— Ramin Setoodeh (@RaminSetoodeh) May 17, 2015
Whatever, though, buddy. I won’t allow you to hurt me with your interpretation of the truth, ever again! You’ve pulled this crap before!
Sigh.
Goodbye, sweet dreams of Lúthien and Galadriel locked in a sweaty tangle in Rivendell. (LOL, JK. I’m still going to dream that.) (And read the fan fiction.) But for now, let us mourn our loss together: the whisper of a promise of a world we never knew.
