The Daily Telegraph

Trigger warnings show breakdown in trust between artist and audience, says Blanchett

- By Albert Tait

‘It may offend you. It may challenge you. You may laugh, you don’t know. But you will surrender to it’

TRIGGER warnings imply that there is a “lack of mutual respect” between the artists and their audience, Cate Blanchett has suggested.

The Australian actress, 54, said that “tough conversati­ons” are needed in the industry and that audiences should be challenged, or even offended, by what they see.

Her comments come while there continues to be an ongoing debate over the warnings, which alert audiences to potentiall­y upsetting content before the beginning of a play, television show or film.

Fellow actor Ralph Fiennes called for trigger warnings for theatre audiences to be scrapped last month, saying people should be “shocked and disturbed” by what they see.

In an interview with The Sunday Times, Blanchett said: “Culturally we are terrified of tough conversati­ons. Boss to employee. Employee to boss. Friend to friend. But we need them. “We talk about radical candour, but when there’s a trigger warning in front of something you are implying that there is a lack of mutual respect or that the subject hasn’t been properly interrogat­ed.”

Blanchett has won two Oscars for her work in Elizabeth (1998) and The Aviator (2004) and appeared in the one-woman play Big and Small at the Barbican Centre in 2012.

She said: “One of my favourite feelings is when you go into the Barbican Theatre and those little doors shut.

“You are in there with a bunch of strangers in the dark, collective­ly committed to watch what you are dealt with, to then discuss robustly. It may offend you. It may challenge you. You may laugh uproarious­ly. You just don’t know, but you are going to surrender to what is coming.”

Blanchett, who has lived in East Sussex for the past decade, made her comments as she stars in a film called The New Boy, playing a nun in 1940s Australia. Last year, she was nominated for an Oscar for her performanc­e in Tár in which she played a sexually predatory classical conductor.

The film was accused of misogyny but was defended by Blanchett, who said it was intended to “elicit a lot of very strong responses for people”.

Last month, Fiennes told BBC One’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: “I think we didn’t use to have trigger warnings. I mean, they are very disturbing scenes in Macbeth, terrible murders and things.

“But I think the impact of theatre should be that you’re shocked and you should be disturbed. I don’t think you should be prepared for these things and when I was young, [we] never had trigger warnings for shows.”

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