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Pajiba 10 For Your Consideration: Cate Blanchett

By Kristy Puchko | Pajiba 10 | July 2, 2018 |

By Kristy Puchko | Pajiba 10 | July 2, 2018 |


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All hail, Cate Blanchett, an acclaimed artist who exudes grace, intelligence, and sex with every breath and every enviable pantsuit. She’s long been a fave of ours. Yet somehow, she has never once made it into our prestigious Pajiba 10! But this year, the Academy Award-winning actress, celebrated around the globe for her talent, beauty, and activism, may have her Pajiba 10 moment. Because this was the year Cate Blanchett became the patron saint of turning straight girls bicurious.

Queer girls have been on the Blanchett beat for a bit, reveling in her glamorous girl-on-girl romance Carol, which made us swoon and dream of pillow talk that includes the hauntingly hot phrase “flung out of space.”

But Blanchett took her seduction game to the next level with her last two films. Last fall Thor: Ragnarok gave us Blanchett as a full-fledged MCU baddie, who busted hammers and the patriarchy while rocking a dominatrix vibe and fuck-me horns that made our pulses race and lions quiver.

And here’s a little tidbit from the Thor: Raganrok set visit that I couldn’t fit into any of my Nerdist coverage. It was the end of a long, hot day on the Australian set. Blanchett warmly greeted us, a gaggle of giddy reporters, as she sat down to join us at a picnic table. Before she’d arrived, I’d strategically arranged myself so I’d be right across from her, sure to get a question. When my moment came, she was marvelous. I asked her how Hela, the first female MCU villain, would be different from Thor’s most beloved antagonist, Loki. A smirking smile played across her lips as she looked me dead in the eye and said, “I have a vagina.”

It was one of the greatest, most surreal moments of my career: Cate Blanchett looking me in the eye, saying, “I have a vagina.” It was crude and funny, even funnier because she is two-time Academy Award-winner and vision of poise and loveliness Cate Blanchett. She went on to give me an answer I could actually use. But for a brief moment, she gave me a peek at the wild humor that lies behind those mischievous eyes and elegant persona.

Blanchett brought that winking playfulness to Ocean’s 8, a female-fronted heist flick that was so rich in its queer-baiting that a straight female friend of mine texted me after asking if her thirst during it meant she was gay now. I told her yes. Welcome to the club, my sister in bisexuality!

The lust for Blanchett cannot be denied. As Lou, she gave us a dizzying array of femme menswear along with a sparking joie de vivre. By the time she revealed her flashy finale look of green-sequined tuxedo, we were putty in her graceful hands, dreaming of jumping on the back of her motorcycle and riding off to new, thrilling adventures, flung out of space! We haven’t crushed this hard on a wise-cracking, likely queer character since Kate McKinnon’s gun-licking spin in Ghostbusters.

And we can’t forget Cannes. At the illustrious international film festival, this world-renowned actress was the jury president, joined by a fleet of fierce and talented female artists, including Ava DuVernay, Khadja Nin, Léa Seydoux, and Kristen Stewart, who got caught gazing upon the wonder of Blanchett. The internet was soon to swoon, because the look Stewart gave Blanchett seems to speak to that kind of crush where you are so in awe of someone you can’t tell if you want to be them or bed them.

Kristen Stewart is all of us.

As you consider your ballot, remember Blanchett, who is glamorous and cheeky, funny and ferocious, but always, always crush-worthy.