Post by Maressa Brown.
Don't love heels? Have a physical condition that prevents you from wearing heels? Too darn bad. If you're in flats, don't even DARE attempt to go to the Cannes Film Festival. Or various other exclusive hot spots that seem to be stuck in a misogynistic time warp.
The film festival is reportedly not allowing women into screenings if they're not in heels. The story broke on Twitter this week after several women were turned away from a red carpet screening of Cate Blanchett’s new movie Carol on Sunday night, because they were in flats. According to Screen Daily:
Multiple guests, some older with medical conditions, were denied access to the anticipated world-premiere screening for wearing rhinestone flats. ... The festival declined to comment on the matter, but did confirm that it is obligatory for all women to wear high-heels to red-carpet screenings.
Asif Kapadia, director of the new Amy Winehouse documentary Amy, confirmed on Twitter that his wife, too, nearly missed a screening, because she was wearing flats. (She was eventually allowed in.)
More from The Stir: Cannes Film Fest 2015: The Most Gorgeous Styles (So Far) (PHOTOS)
Wish I could say I was surprised, but after a similar experience in Manhattan last summer, I'm not. My husband and I went out with our close friends, who were celebrating their first night away together since having their toddler. After dinner, we thought we'd try to hit up rooftop hot spots in the Meatpacking district.
We were dressed to the nines and willing to spend on drinks and the view, so we couldn't understand why we kept getting turned away at one velvet rope after the next ... until one forthcoming bouncer explained to us that he couldn't let us in because I was in sparkly gold designer flats. THE HORROR! But no, really, what the hell? He explained it's just the "dress code," that heels are required for ladies, and that I'd have trouble getting in just about anywhere for that reason. Meanwhile, the line was filled with men who were breezing on in wearing Converse. Sick.
We actually ended up leaving our friends to party without us, and I wasn't even sorry, because I don't need to patronize a business that is enforcing antiquated, discriminatory rules.
Still, plenty of women do and are fine with tottering around in heels and tending to blisters and back pain the next day, because "dress codes."
Maybe change is afoot (ha) after this controversy at Cannes, though? After all, who could argue with Emily Blunt, who told Variety of the flats controversy during a press conference for her new film Sicario:
I think everyone should wear flats, to be honest. We shouldn’t wear high heels anymore. That’s just my point of view I prefer to wear Converse sneakers. That’s very disappointing.
Not to mention that believing women can only look stylish and "formal" in painful footwear is just plain asinine. Case in point:
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Have you ever been turned away from a venue or given the cold shoulder for wearing flats? How did it make yo feel?
Image via Matt Summer/Splash News