Javier Bardem used a press appearance at the Cannes Film Festival to speak at length about toxic masculinity, political power, and what he called the danger of concentrated media control, drawing a direct line between male violence and the behavior of world leaders including Donald Trump.
Bardem is in Cannes for the premiere of Rodrigo Sorogoyen's The Beloved, a psychological drama in which he plays Esteban Martinez, an Oscar-winning director and recovering alcoholic attempting to reconnect with a daughter he has not seen in 13 years. Asked about the theme of absent fathers and the damage they cause, a subject running through several films at this year's festival, Bardem reached for a broader context.
"I'm 57 years old, coming from a very machista country called Spain, where there is an average of two women killed monthly by their ex-husbands or ex-boyfriends, which is horrible. Just that amount of women being murdered, it's unbelievable," he said. "And we kind of normalized it. It's like, 'Well, yeah, it's horrible.' I mean, are we fucking nuts? We are killing women because some men think they own them, they possess them."
He then expanded his remarks to include heads of state. "And that problem also goes to Mr. Trump and Mr. Putin and Mr. Netanyahu, the big balls man saying, 'My big, my c*ck is bigger than yours, and I'm gonna bomb the shit out of you.' It's a fucking male toxic behavior that is creating thousands of dead people, so yeah, we have to talk about it. And I think we are talking about it…We are more aware of it, thankfully, because maybe 20 years ago [this] was something that nobody will pay attention as a problem, and, and I think this movie speaks about that…in this movie there are three people that say 'No' to Stephan: three women."
Bardem also addressed a question about the state of democracy and media consolidation, though he noted some difficulty following it. "I'm not sure I fully understood the question," he said, "but I believe that there is an increasing monopoly in the world of information, that's one of the problems, we know. Given Paramount and Warner Brothers in their merger, for example, in terms of information, who's actually going to control all this? What we're listening [to], what we're seeing."
He expressed particular concern about the effect of algorithmically driven social media on younger generations. "I think we have to ensure that the younger generation continues to think by reason. They need to understand, to compare, information, and if they don't, it's very dangerous indeed, because that could lead to major radicalization in Spain. We're suffering from this very phenomenon, and the other European countries too, in addition to the United States," he said, according to Deadline.
Bardem also spoke separately about genocide, saying: "Genocide is a fact. You can fight against it, you can try to justify it, explain it. That is a fact."
The Beloved is among the films listed as a Palme d'Or contender at this year's festival.
