I watched Tár over the holidays, on the recommendation of several friends and the internet. An hour in, the film reminded me of Joker. Cate Blanchett is perfection, but the movie is empty, all style with a misplaced message.
Despite Blanchett’s incredible performance, Tár does little to advance the narrative around abuse of power. Instead, it perpetuates tropes of women being emotionally unsuited for greatness. It also falls back on tired stereotypes of anguished lesbian relationships.
These portrayals have real-world implications; they feed into cultural myths we hold about women in power, and they contribute to an erasure of women’s sexuality, when it doesn’t involve men.
Content warning: Spoilers for Tár and some discussion of sexual abuse
The Trope of Unstable Women in Power
Cate Blanchett does a masterful job of playing Lydia Tár. She is imposing in her hand-tailored suits, yet hopelessly self conscious, clipping out reviews and newspaper articles (despite telling an interviewer “I don’t read reviews.”) Success and status are an obsession, and her ego is easily bruised.
Tár opens with the conductor at the peak of her success. She has an EGOT and is about to complete the Mahler 5th Symphony, one of the first conductors to complete the cycle. But instead of watching Tár’s crowning achievement, we watch her slide into ruin. It took more than two and a half hours for director Todd Field to tell a story that had been told a thousand times before. It’s ridiculous that this narrative is being played out in 2022-23.
There are so many movies that tell the story of a woman fiercely climbing the ranks to greatness, unraveling along the way due to pressure and her own shortcomings. She makes it within reach of the finish line, only to fall apart as she arrives, never quite fulfilling her destiny.
Off the top of my head:
-Black Swan
-Game of Thrones- Danaerys Targaryen and Cersei Lannister- Two in one show!
-Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch from the MCU
-Azula from Avatar the Last Airbender
(Interesting to note that Azula and Cersei are the most overtly power-hungry and were the villains of their series.)
In contrast, men might have stories where they are consumed in the journey to meet their goal, but rarely do they fail. They might lose everything in the process, but they still achieve what they set out to accomplish. It’s a tragedy, not a defeat.
Off the top of my head:
-Whiplash
-The Prestige
-Most Leonardo DiCaprio movies
-Breaking Bad- Walter White
Why do men have stories of being consumed on their quest for glory, while women get the Icarus treatment, a cautionary tale of flying too close to the sun?
This trope of women being unsuited for the pressures of greatness isn’t founded in reality. Women manage to achieve positions of wealth and power under a system that is rigged against them. American women persevere with careers and families despite having one of the worst family-leave structures among wealthy nations.
While women are held back by the cultural belief that they can’t handle pressure, the world abounds with real life examples of powerful men who fall apart due to their own personal flaws.
-Donald Trump was able to become president despite being an admitted sexual predator and failed businessman. It wasn’t until he launched a coup that he actually fell from grace and yet he will still be running in 2024
-Elon Musk enjoyed being a figurehead insulated by a bubble of PR and industry professionals
-Jared Leto still has a career despite abusing coworkers on set
-James Charles used his position as a YouTube influencer to make inappropriate advances on minors. He was still able to walk the red carpet at the Teen Choice awards in 2022
-Dr. Luke despite a documented history of abuse and sexual assault of performers, notably Kesha, he continues to work with high profile musicians like Niki Minaj
I could add R. Kelly and Kanye to this list, but the intersection of racism, mental health, and public perception is much more complicated than it is for Elon and Trump who skate because of their privilege and family wealth.
It happens over and over again, men’s emotional outbursts are excused as just the price of genius, while women are under constant scrutiny for anything that might be out of place. We are so afraid of women’s emotions that women aren’t even allowed in the arena.
But don’t just take my word for it. Marin Alsop, a real life lesbian orchestra conductor (who was name dropped in the film!) weighed in on the portrayal:
“So many superficial aspects of ‘Tár’ seemed to align with my own personal life… To have an opportunity to portray a woman in that role and to make her an abuser – for me that was heartbreaking… There are so many men this film could have been based on but, instead, it puts a woman in the role but gives her all the attributes of those men. That feels anti-woman. To assume that women will either behave identically to men or become hysterical, crazy, insane is to perpetuate something we’ve already seen on film so many times before.”
Representation
Todd Field, the director of Tár, obviously thinks he’s being very clever by telling the story of a woman behaving the same way as a man abusing power. Tár bullies her students, is always looking for an opportunity to hook up, and shows clear favoritism.
In the words of reviewer Mary Cox, “I am sad that Field makes Lydia Tár a lesbian sexual predator who cheats on her significant other. We have no idea why she is that way.”
We don’t even get to see her enjoying her abuse of power, à la Don Draper. When Tár bullies a student in class, he calls her a bitch and walks out. Her hook up attempts are pathetic. We watch her lurking around in a restroom like a sad Republican Congressman. The young cellist she targets has no trouble fending off her advances, while simultaneously taking advantage of the favoritism (The scene where the cellist orders the veal, while Tár is left with a cucumber salad had me cackling).
In movies about male abuse of power, there is usually a montage of pleasure and excess, think Wolf of Wall Street, Mad Men, Succession, The Sopranos. Villainous men get to enjoy their abuse of power, living out a fantasy. Women rarely get the same treatment. Tár is the same, the movie revolves around her misuse of power and predatory sexual relationships with students, but we never actually see her succeed at it.
Disclaimer- I don’t want to see rape or sexual coercion scenes with a female perpetrator, I just want to point out that we portray men taking pleasure in villainy while women never seem to be able to enjoy their infamy.
Tár isn’t even original in presenting the issue of female perpetrators. In Blade Runner 2049 Denis Villeneuve casts Robin Wright as the head of the LAPD and presents her relationship with the Replicant and staff Blade Runner, Ryan Gosling. As a Replicant, Ryan is unable to say no or disobey orders given by regular humans. With this set up we are given a masterful and understated scene of workplace harassment. Robin arrives at Ryan Gosling’s apartment under pretense. When she propositions him, he has to find a creative way out of the situation. This is an accurate gender reversal where a woman is sexually harassing a man, and puts the man in the position that so many women have experienced, needing to find a peaceful way out of a threatening situation, unable to make an outright refusal.
While we’re on the topic of representation, can we please stop making movies about anguished lesbian relationships? Cate Blanchett already had a go at this in Carol. We also have a reprisal from Noémie Merlant, who played one half of a yearning lesbian couple in Portrait of a Lady on Fire. Just as with all the other lesbian movies before it, Tár’s relationship with her wife is played out through strained glances. The relationship is unhappy from the get-go with Tár arriving home to her wife having a panic attack. They have a young daughter, but we never see all three women interacting at the same time. The cold cement house is devoid of love or any real family responsibilities. This is obviously supposed to be representative of Tár’s lack of connection to the people around her, but 90% of movies about lesbians are like this. For more on this read my other essay: ‘Why Can’t Lesbians Have Any Fun?’
Tár opens with an interviewer listing off her accomplishments. But we never see Tár’s successes, only her slide downhill, only her flaws. This is too often the case for successful women in the real world.
It’s just a movie. What’s the Problem?
Remember when Hillary Clinton ran for President? She is a Yale graduate, who has worked as a lawyer, US Senator, and the US Secretary of State. Her opponent, Donald Trump, is a twice-divorced reality TV star with six bankruptcies under his belt and a history of sexual misconduct. And yet it was Hillary who was portrayed as the one emotionally unsuited for the pressures of the presidency.
And it worked.
Let’s just sit with that for a moment.
Compared to the rest of the world, America has some of the lowest representation of women in politics. In our current Congress, women only make up a quarter of the elected representatives. “…Just over a quarter… the highest percentage in U.S. history,” Pew Research proudly proclaims.
Women are 51% of the population of America, and only make up 28% of the highest levels of government.
We have never elected a woman to be president of the United States.
This is why the message in Tár bothers me so much. It isn’t groundbreaking to portray a woman descending from importance into ruin. The movie seems even more tone-deaf now that Roe v. Wade has been overturned. We obviously aren’t facing a cultural epidemic of women abusing power.
I still remember watching Brett Kavanaugh, red faced and angry as he was outed as a prep-school sexual predator. Despite getting emotional under pressure, Brett received his lifetime appointment to shape the legal landscape of our country alongside Clarence Thomas, who also has a documented history of sexual abuse.
But sure, let’s focus on an imaginary lesbian orchestra conductor drunk on her own power.
It’s just not representative of the issue.
What we need are more stories that highlight women’s leadership and resilience. Now, more than ever, we need stories where femininity is strength.
The Solution
We can’t make movies like Tár without first having a backlog of movies where women are successful in their positions of power.
I always like to point out films that did a good job. For this essay, it took me a long time to find ones that have the right narrative and message.
One of the best examples is Furiosa from Mad Max Fury Road.
She is the unquestioned leader of the group, respected by everyone around her. At the end of the movie, she and her team of women are literally ascending to power, taking over from the old oppressive warlord.
The women alongside Furiosa are varied in their gender presentation. Some are very traditionally femme, others more masc leaning, all with their own unique strengths.
Max is a side character. He collaborates with Furiosa and we see his respect for her develop across the film.
Princess Mononoke-Lady Eboshi
This movie has some of the best portrayals of women I have ever seen in film.
Lady Eboshi is elegant and feminine. She wears makeup and beautiful clothes. She is also the unquestioned leader of Irontown, having organized the mining colony from scratch. She’s calculating, but also clearly cares about her people and is rewarded with their loyalty.
When Lady Eboshi is brought in on the quest to capture the forest spirit, she could have succumbed and died a villain, but she is given a chance at redemption.
On the other side we have Mononoke and her adopted mother, the wolf-spirit San. Both women are fierce, intimidating. We see Ashitaka fall in love with Mononoke for her strength and determination.
The movie also portrays sex workers as real people, worthy of empathy. The women are joyful and hardworking, flirtatious and sassy. They share a sense of community that is missing from so many stories.
For some less-serious examples- the roles of Legally Blonde’s Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon) and Barbarella (Jane Fonda) are love letters to ditzes. So often a woman’s strength is measured by her closeness to masculinity. Elle and Barbarella are free to be silly, girly, and unabashedly feminine, while still enjoying success on their own terms.
My final shout out goes to the late-great Angela Lansbury as Jessica Fletcher in ‘Murder She Wrote‘.
In every episode, Jessica, over 60 and perfectly coiffed, is always the leader. People come to her for her expertise. She’s active, cheerful, and an expert in many subjects. I was reintroduced to this show in 2022, and I am amazed at how well it holds up. When I’m having an off-day I’ve taken to asking myself, ‘What would Jessica Fletcher do?’
But these examples are few and far between. Women’s experiences are defined by patriarchy, so most stories feature women struggling in that framework. It’s reflected in the narratives where women are questioned, belittled, or ignored as leaders and their character arc is to overcome that system.
And the cycle perpetuates itself.
One of the reasons so few women are in government is that they never even get started. People don’t believe that women will win. Women don’t get the support they need to run. ‘Who’s going to watch the kids? Where will the money come from?’ We don’t see women as leaders, so women don’t become leaders. As a result, our political arena becomes stuffed with Matt Gaetz’s and George Santos’s, insufferable hypocrites who were never told that they should just stay at home.
When women run, they face a gauntlet of double standards. Are they too emotional or too frigid? Too matronly or too fuckable? Too quiet or too shrill? Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren were ruled out for being too old, while Bernie Sanders (despite being older than both women) is still regarded as a liberal folk hero.
Tár is being marketed as a groundbreaking portrayal of a complicated woman, while only delivering on worn out tropes. What would have made Tár revolutionary was showing Lydia’s rise to greatness, letting us see the talents and skills that allowed her to conduct ten Mahler symphonies in Berlin, to earn her EGOT, and rise to the private jet, international-lifestyle set.
With so few women in these positions, why do we continue to tell stories of the ones who fail?
P.S. Go read Marin Alsop’s interview. She was obviously an inspiration for Tár and deserves a much better story for something that so clearly was modeled off of her life.
