Following claims of misogyny, the debate about Tár – the film starring Cate Blachett as Lydia Tár, a famous, fictional and sexually predatory classical conductor – has been reframed in terms of power, not gender. But is that right?
Yes and no. We can’t ignore that she is a woman of a particular generation. Thirty years younger than second-wave feminists (my generation) who came of age in the early 1970s, she is not identified as the much smaller group of third-wavers, yet she fits that age group. If we take Tár as emblematic of her generation, we may better understand her character and the costs she faced.
