Cannes’ high-heels policy falls flat,
Emily Blunt goes on offensive against heels after festival accused of turning away women wearing flats on the red carpet at premiere
CANNES, FRANCE— Denis Villeneuve’s drug-war thriller Sicario premiered to acclaim Tuesday but also strolled into a brewing controversy over women’s footwear at the Cannes Film Festival.
The Canadian director’s Palme d’Or contender stars Emily Blunt as an FBI agent, surrounded by alpha males, who has to fight workplace sexism as well as crime. And while Sicario was premiering to media at an early morning screening inside the Palais des Festivals, it appeared another form of sexism was raging outside regarding female access to the red-carpeted steps into the building.
A report in the British trade daily Screen International quoted an unnamed festival official as insisting that women treading the red carpet must wear high heels instead of flats or face being denied access to the building.
This heavy-handed definition of the Cannes dress code — which requires formal attire for both women and men at evening premieres in the Palais — apparently arose following an incident Sunday night, when “a handful of women in their 50s” were turned away from a screening of Todd Haynes’ hot-ticket drama Carol for wearing flats instead of high heels, according to Screen. Some of the women had medical conditions that prevented them from wearing heels, the paper said, adding that even rhinestone flats weren’t deemed classy enough for the Palais carpet.
Festival chief Thierry Frémaux quickly moved to scotch the report. He tweeted, without elaboration, that “the rumour that the Festival requires high heels for women on the steps is unfounded.”
But his denial came after a good deal of discussion about women’s fashion rights, which also came up in the news conference for Sicario, where actress Blunt was again surrounded by men, including director Villeneuve and her co-stars Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro.
“No!” she said, when a journalist asked her if it’s OK to tell women how to dress in 2015.
“Everyone should wear flats, to be honest. We shouldn’t wear high heels, anyway. That’s just my point of view. I just prefer to wear Converse sneakers. That’s very disappointing (the red-carpet flap).”
But Blunt did say she’ll be wearing heels when she walks up the carpet for Sicario’s official world premiere, although they won’t be very high ones. The dress she’ll be wearing doesn’t suit high heels, she said.
The controversy is out of step with a festival that has taken pains this year to improve female participation, with a woman director opening the fest for the first time since 1987 and films with strong female leads, including Sicario and Carol, a lesbian romance starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara.
Blunt revealed that even though her character in Sicario was origi- nally written as female, pressure was put on Villeneuve, which he resisted, to switch the character’s gender and to cast a bankable male actor instead of her.
Villeneuve confirmed that “people were afraid of (the movie), in part because the lead was a female character,” but he held firm.
And as a further gesture of solidarity with Blunt and other women, he promised to do something that would really get the paparazzi snapping when Sicario had its official world premiere at the Palais later in the day. “I must say that Benicio, Josh and I will walk the stairs in high heels tonight!”
Brolin smiled and flashed a peace sign after Villeneuve said this. Good thing for all of them that absolutely no one in the room took the director’s joke seriously. @peterhowellfilm