The emotional crux of Ocean’s 8 happens fairly early on in the movie, when the titular Debbie Ocean, played by Sandra Bullock, is out of prison and back on her bullshit with a master plan to steal a $150 million Cartier necklace at the Met Gala. In order to pull off the heist, she needs to convince her partner in crime, “Lou,†played by Cate Blanchett, to join her. Cate knows she’s going to say yes, but she’s loving this little cat-and-mouse thing they’ve got going on, so she demurs for a few scenes.
Undeterred, Sandra takes Cate to noted drunk-people diner Veselka and offers her a forkful of her food — and the promise of $16.5 million. Cate hesitates. The two lock eyes across the table. And finally, Cate assents, putting her entire mouth around Sandra’s fork. The world shakes: Demi Lovato becomes cool for the summer; Kristen Stewart bites her lower lip; Rita Ora screams at her agent. Harold, they’re lesbians.
While Ocean’s 8 is technically a heist movie, it is actually a movie about how men are boring and peripheral and women are fun and should have sex with each other. And while we regret to inform you that there is no kissing that actually matters in Ocean’s 8 (men do not matter), there are plenty of meaningful woman-on-woman looks and lewks. So here’s a list of the eight women of Ocean’s 8 — Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Mindy Kaling, Sarah Paulson, Awkwafina, Helena Bonham Carter, Rihanna, and Anne Hathaway — in ascending order of lesbian energy. Happy Pride!
8. Helena Bonham Carter
Helena Bonham Carter plays distressed, has-been Irish designer Rose Weil, whom Cate and Sandra target as the woman to dress Anne Hathaway’s Daphne Kluger — and help them steal the Cartier diamond necklace. In the process, Rose is revivified by these women, and dresses Daphne in a dress with a long train in Barbie pink, which we all know is Janelle Monáe Sapphic pink. (The color is a metaphor, Harold.)
7. Mindy Kaling
Mindy Kaling plays someone who works at a shop in Queens and gets harassed by neighborhood busybodies about the fact that she’s not married yet. Obviously this is because she’s a lesbian and is waiting for a Bette-from–The L Word type to convince her to run a scam. Enter: Sandra Bullock.
6. Awkwafina
Awkafina likes to steal from rich white ladies. Lesbian!
5. Anne Hathaway
Everything you’ve heard is true: Anne Hathaway steals the show. As A-list actress Daphne Kluger, she’s really playing “Anne Hathaway,†sending up the Hatha-hate that beleaguered her for years. Throughout the film, she coos, whines, touches her neck, and has a brief panic attack about the size of her own features. It should be noted that, of the octet, she is the only one to have sex with a man — but it’s a ruse, ladies! Anne Hathaway’s performance is a post-modern interpretation of high-femme celebrity. Call up Judith Butler, because that’s extremely gay!
4. Sarah Paulson
Sarah Paulson plays bored suburban housewife Tammy, which we choose to believe is a reference to Debbie Reynolds’s iconic performance and song “Tammy,†where she plays a simple country girl from Mississippi looking for love. Well, this Tammy is all grown up and locked in the prison of heterosexuality — until Sandra Bullock pays a visit to her in her garage, where she’s been running her scams in secret. (This is the lesbian equivalent of a closet.) Sarah Paulson suddenly feels alive again and tells her son that she’s going on “Mommy’s very special work trip.†That’s called lesbianism, honey!
3. Rihanna
Real-life Rihanna allegedly dumped her hot billionaire boyfriend because she “gets tired of men,†which is secretly the theme of every Rihanna look at the Met Gala. Ocean’s 8 Rihanna is named 9-ball, and she is definitely that queer girl who reads birth charts and makes her own rosewater. If she could read her own chart (which I’m certain she has), she’d know that she’s a Rihanna sun with a Rihanna rising. It’s called Pride for a reason!
2. Sandra Bullock
As Debbie Ocean, sister of Danny Ocean, Sandra Bullock is the lesbian whisperer of these proceedings. She has that perfect beach wave that whispers, Step into my ocean, ladies. She feeds Cate Blanchett a forkful of Veselka, cruises Awkwafina in the park, and presses up very closely against Sarah Paulson. She is a little scary and has set out to exact revenge on a man who wronged her, because in prison she learned the important lesson that the greatest scam in life is heterosexuality.
1. Cate Blanchett
Cate Blanchett playing “Lou†(lol) in Ocean’s 8 is easily the most lesbian thing to have happened since Cate Blanchett played Carol in Carol or the summer Kristen Stewart spent gazing at Cate Blanchett at Cannes. Cate Blanchett exudes power lesbian with a pantsuit in every shade of envy. The biggest conflict of the movie occurs when Cate Blanchett and Sandra Bullock both try to top each other. (“Do not run a job in a job!â€) Cate Blanchett in Ocean’s 8 is a lesbian. This is canon.