Oscar-winning actor Cate Blanchett has said the #MeToo movement “got killed very quickly” in Hollywood, as she reflected on gender inequality in the film industry during an appearance at the Cannes Film Festival.
Speaking during a public conversation at Cannes on Sunday, Blanchett questioned why the momentum behind the movement appeared to fade despite widespread support from women sharing their experiences.
“It got killed very quickly, which I think is interesting,” Blanchett said.
“There are a lot of people with platforms who are able to speak up with relative safety and say this has happened to me. And the so-called average woman on the street, person on the street, is saying me too. Why does that get shut down?”
Blanchett, who has long spoken publicly about gender equality in cinema, also highlighted the continued imbalance between men and women working on film productions.
“I’m still on film sets and I do the headcount every day. There’s 10 women and there’s 75 men every morning,” she said.
The actor added that working environments dominated by one gender could affect both atmosphere and creativity.
“I love men, but what happens is the jokes become the same,” Blanchett said. “You just have to brace yourself slightly, and I’m used to that, but it just gets boring for everybody when you walk into a homogeneous workplace. I think it has an effect on the work.”
Back in 2018, while serving as president of the Cannes jury, Blanchett joined 81 women on the red carpet in a protest highlighting gender disparity in the festival’s history. The number represented the total female directors selected for Cannes competition line-ups, compared with 1,866 male directors over the same period.
That same year, Cannes faced criticism after only three films directed by women were included in the festival’s 21-film official competition selection. Blanchett had responded at the time by saying change would not happen “overnight”.
Actor Julianne Moore also addressed gender representation at Cannes over the weekend during a Kering Women in Motion discussion. Moore said she believes conditions on film sets have improved compared with a decade ago.
Recalling an experience from around 2016, she said she remembered working on a set where only she and a female assistant camera crew member were women.
“It’s when Hillary Clinton lost the election, and we were both devastated,” Moore said. “And I said, ‘Look around the room. We’re the only ones here.’”
Moore added that female representation among film crews has become more visible in recent years, describing it as uncommon earlier in her career.
During Sunday’s discussion, Blanchett also revealed she is set to appear in Brady Corbet’s next feature film. The project, described as an “X-rated” film set in the 1970s, will also star Selena Gomez and Michael Fassbender.
