My Weekend Crush

Extraordinary. Brave. Luminous. Real. Oh, I’m sorry, I’m not talking about Cate Blanchett. I’m talking about Cate Blanchett’s face. You see, Cate Blanchett’s face made the headlines recently for being, well, Cate Blanchett’s face. Unadorned. Unaltered. Unphotoshopped. On the cover of a magazine. THE HORRORS. Cate Blanchett and Cate Blanchett’s actual face grace the newest over of Intelligent Life, a lifestyles magazine put out by The Economist. And in the post about the cover, the magazine’s editor made note of the intentionally unairbrushed image.

When other magazines photograph actresses, they routinely end up running heavily Photoshopped images, with every last wrinkle expunged. Their skin is rendered so improbably smooth that, with the biggest stars, you wonder why the photographer didn’t just do a shoot with their waxwork…..

Cate Blanchett, by contrast, appears on our cover in her working clothes, with the odd line on her face and faint bags under her eyes. She looks like what she is—a woman of 42, spending her days in an office, her evenings on stage and the rest of her time looking after three young children.

Granted, Cate Blanchett and her face are still more beautiful and radiant without the help of any digital wizardy than most of us would look after being given the full Pixar treatment. But it’s certainly a comment on our culture when someone actually looking like they actually look in real life actually makes the news. We’ve come to the point where we’re surprised when a photograph reflects the reality of it’s photographing. Call it a little art imitating life for a change. How incredibly refreshing. Happy weekend, all.