Cate Blanchett tiptoes around queerbaiting discourse

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.”