Stop the presses! Decadence dominated the publicity oozing out of the Cannes Film Festival in France. The festival’s highest honor, the Palme d’Or (or Golden Palm) went to “Blue Is the Warmest Color,” which drew most of its buzz from an explicit ten-minute lesbian sex scene.
This, apparently, was art, not pornography. The Cannes jury headed by Steven Spielberg took the unprecedented step of insisting that the movie’s two stars be included as Palme award recipients. New York magazine’s Vulture blog cooed these awards were the festival’s “Most Pleasant Progressive Surprise.”