Cate Blanchett criticises ‘public shaming’ in modern society

Cate Blanchett has criticised “public shaming” in modern society and said “we all have dark sides”.

The 55-year-old actress said there was a “distinct lack of shame” in the modern world during a discussion about her new Apple TV+ series Disclaimer at the Venice Film Festival.

The series sees Blanchett’s character, Catherine Ravenscroft, face a public shaming as a novel threatens to unveil her darkest secret, and is based on a novel by Renee Knight.

Speaking at a press conference, Blanchett said: “I always approach every role as a woman, because I am (one). I don’t really think about that.

“I do think (there’s) a distinct lack of shame in society at the moment. I think shame is very different to guilt. Guilt is a very useless emotion, I don’t know what you do with that.

“But shame and regret, and the lessons one can learn from that, I think are very powerful.”

But the actress, who is best known for starring in films such as the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, The Aviator and The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, said there was a lot of “shaming” in society.

“Just look at the way you attempt to parent children. If you publicly shame them, it can lead to rage,” she added.

“Private conversations are often far more powerful than public ones. I’m not saying public ones are not important, but I do think it’s often one-to-one, face-to-face reconciliation type conversations are far more powerful often than public shaming.”

She also said: “We all have dark sides, don’t we? I think there’s a belief system going around that if people don’t tell you everything they have some(thing) sinister side to hide. I think that’s called privacy.

“I think we are very often private people, we think if people aren’t honest they’re doing nefarious things, but I think we all have things big and small that we want to hide from people, but perhaps we’re in the process of dealing with them ourselves. I  do play a woman who has things she has buried, traumatic things.”

During her appearance at the festival, Blanchett was also asked whether her outfit for the series premiere would be as noteworthy as a dress reminiscent of the Palestinian flag that she wore on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival.

She replied: “I’m going naked.”

Blanchett has won two Oscars and four Baftas and has received nominations for Tony and Emmy awards, and has also been a keen environmental and humanitarian activist.