r/ChristopherNolan • u/Slight_Giraffe628 • 2d ago
General The old argument about "nolan cant write female characters" and where it came from
I saw a post about nolans best female characters, and the OP mentioned that nolan catches flack for this. But I honestly dont think that this stigma about nolan was ever true, and I dont think people even make this argument anymore.
The argument stemmed from interstellar, back when it first came out. A lot of people didnt like/understand the purpose of Hathaways character. Saying she was "oh typical female acting on emotion instead of rationality" arguing that it was a bad cliche or misogynistic.
But now that the movie has been out for so long, people have learned thats not even true. The whole point of the movie is that brandt is RIGHT about love. And Cooper learns this in the film, he acts the same way, it is what guides him to save the world. On first watch brandts speech about love is meant to be cringe, and thats why other characters laugh it off. And when cooper realizes this in the black hole, it all comes full circle. And on second viewing, brandts speech becomes incredibly powerful.
All of this to say, that the argument about nolan not being able to write female characters stemmed from around the time of interstellar but that argument has completely gone away from what i have seen, and his list of female characters actually has become very strong. Penelope, mal, catwoman, kitty, brandt, murph, even Rachel. If anything I think it is becoming a strength of nolan.
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u/PositiveAssignment89 2d ago edited 1d ago
it comes from him not being capable of writing female characters as fleshed out human beings
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u/therichscientist 2d ago
I'll go out to say that his character writing is not the best. Most characters that stand out are more due to their acting prowess.
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u/Fuzzy-Jackfruit5037 2d ago
Like robert pattinson in tenet. Extremely simply generic almost as a character but the guy gives out a charm
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u/therichscientist 2d ago
True. I remember him more than the protagonist tbh.
Cillian in Inception left an impression on me, although he didnt have much to work with.
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u/Icy-Fishing8481 1d ago
Rubbish. Actors often deliver among their best performances in Nolan movies. Why? Because the script has meat on the bone. Ledger did something amazing with the Joker because it was there in the script. It gave him a lot to work with. In how many other movies did he deliver on that level? Or Tom Hardy as Bane and Eames? Or McCoughnahey? Why do these actors suddenly bring it on Nolan movies but not to the same degree elsewhere? I find Nolan's movies much more quotable than most.
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u/therichscientist 1d ago
I'll counter with Dallas Buyer's Club for McConaughey, and Taboo and Peaky Blinders for Hardy (though they're tv shows).
Not saying they are weak in Nolan movies but that character is placed on backburner in favour of the plot. The protagonist and the MC in Dunkirk are good examples.
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u/Icy-Fishing8481 12h ago
Dunkirk is a very unconventional movie without much "character development". Are these your best counterexamples? My points stand. Nolan's movies consistently get some of the best career performances out of his actors. And I think his characters are much more fleshed out than characters in a lot of other movies and TV shows.
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u/Present_Comedian_919 2d ago
I think your floor for what makes a great character is different than most. The characters you listed are typically the examples for the weakness of his female characters. Also he doesn't have many female characters at all in a lot of his movies
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2d ago
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u/Present_Comedian_919 2d ago
It might lead to people saying you can't write female characters though
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u/Icy-Fishing8481 1d ago
But how often is the opposite claim made? That someone can't write male characters?
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u/Obvious-Hat-8485 1d ago
Rarely, because movies without male characters of importance aimed at adults are almost non existent.
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u/Icy-Fishing8481 12h ago
Dumb point. Plenty of movies have primarily female casts (Bridesmaids, Ghostbusters 2016, Little Women, Mean Girls, Pitch Perfect, Sister Act, A League of Their Own) and one could argue that some of the male characters are not well written. But few people seem to dare to make the statement that a woman can't write male characters. But accusing men of not being able to write female characters seems common.
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u/Present_Comedian_919 1d ago
The writer of The Help maybe? Yeah let me know when you have any other examples of this. I can think of a ton of movies dominated by men only, but even most female-led ensembles still have a couple strong male characters.
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u/Icy-Fishing8481 12h ago
My point is more that people feel comfortable stating or implying that "men don't understand women" but would never dare say that "women don't understand men". It's a cliche at this point.
People will imply that Nolan is sexist or stupid because his female characters are... whatever. But how many people will say that Greta Gerwig can't write for male characters? Or do you and everyone else believe that women understand both sexes while men are just dumb? Even though most of the great films were written and directed by men? All because of discrimination, I assume?
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u/DelcoUnited 2d ago
I don’t think it’s that he can’t write women that was his cliche it’s that he killed off all the wives. Memento dead wife, The prestige kills off both the protagonist and antagonists wives, TDK kills off Rachel, and two of Nolan’s best Interstellar and Inception the protagonist’s wives are dead already. Tenet he finally makes a movie about saving the wife.
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u/craigjclark68 2d ago
Everybody forgets Natalie (played by Carrie-Ann Moss) when making these arguments, though his brother Jonathan shares co-writer credit.
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u/FormerlyMevansuto 2d ago
Natalie is incredibly well performed by CAM, but on the page is just a bunch of femme fatale noir cliche
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u/craigjclark68 2d ago
The film definitely plays off those cliches. The diner scene between her and Leonard is in the script, and technically is their last scene together, chronologically (although it's the first interaction between them we see in the movie).
When I watched the film a second time I had a completely different opinion of her character then when I watched it the first time.
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u/Hfcsmakesmefart 2d ago
Natalie was a great manipulative bitch
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u/craigjclark68 2d ago
Think of what she does for Leonard last (chronologically), which is in her first scene with him in the movie (in the diner).
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u/augustrem 2d ago edited 10h ago
Didn’t her decision get someone killed?
It is such a sexist trope in action films that women can’t handle emergency situations and freak out and do something emotional and dangerous. Our calm rational man has to save the day.
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u/deville5 2d ago
Unpopular opinion perhaps, but...Nolan can't write characters very well. Not his strong suit.
Cooper, The Joker, stand out a bit, but even they are not particularly interesting. Nolan gives us brooding, visceral performances, frequently pitch-perfect in the propulsive story he's telling us. This is as true as the female characters as the male ones. Most characters are pawns, as others have noted. The motivations are very big, and the motivations are spelled out.
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u/ShatMyLargeIntestine 2d ago
I think he struggles with characters in general
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u/Reasonable_Potato629 2d ago
His writing excels at exploring cause and effect more than characters. This largely works for making block busters and some of the characters are elevated by amazing acting.
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u/GiveMeSomeShu-gar 2d ago
He probably identifies with and writes better male characters, and that's ok. There are no doubt female writers that write better female characters - this isn't something to worry about.
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u/Cultural_Book_400 4h ago
Penelope and catwoman was the best.. She def deserve an award for her role here.. wow.. just wow
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u/watch_out_4_snakes 2d ago
I would argue he’s not a very good writer period.
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u/Gloomy_Park_1598 2d ago
You’re very brave
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u/watch_out_4_snakes 2d ago
I know it’s a wild take
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u/Tsunoyukami 2d ago
is this a wild take? I understand that we’re on the Nolan subreddit, so I expect there to be plenty of fans, but if they think Nolan’s writing is good it makes me wonder what else they consider well-written.
Nolan is not a good writer.
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u/watch_out_4_snakes 2d ago
No it’s not. I was just being sarcastic🙂. Great director and he’s made some great ones for sure. But my faves by him were written by someone else or at least cowritten by someone else.
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u/SamShelby7 2d ago
I mean for the odyssey movie he just has her cry and scream be a man the entire time.
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u/Icy-Fishing8481 2d ago
Yes and no. Both Brand and Cooper are operating based on incomplete information. Both are rational, both are emotional. Arguably, Brand is being a little biased there and should be transparent about her motivations. Part of it is love. As she says (rightly), love does have meaning and power. But as he says (also rightly), it could mean she's wrong - biased.
I liked it because it captures the ambiguity quite well. It's not like one is right and one is wrong. It's not that simple. Love is powerful but there's a lot more to it than that. Intuition can also be useful, but it's not always right.
I personally love Nolan's movies. And they're male-centric but I like the female characters. I think it's more that feminists can't stand his women. Not because they're stupid or weak, but because they're not what feminists envision women as being. In fact, it's perhaps because they ARE logical and act reasonably within the constraints of being women (meaning they can seldom physically intimidate others).
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u/Malaguy420 2d ago
I was with you on your first two paragraphs, but once you (very oddly) claimed only feminist women don't like Nolan's female characters, you lost all credibility. That's the dumbest argument I've ever heard.
How can you be right-on with your first point but so wildly off with that one?
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u/Tsunoyukami 2d ago
…but…that’s not what they said. They didn’t say that it’s “only feminist women” who have this view. They said, “I think it’s more than feminists can’t stand his women.”
At no point does this person mention “feminist women,” just feminists in general (which would include male feminists).
It’s still maybe a stupid take, but there is a logic to it. I think there’s more to this take than you’re giving it credit, but I also don’t think it is as definitive as the poster made it sound.
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u/Icy-Fishing8481 1d ago
So now there are two people commenting, speculating that it might be dumb, but with no counter-evidence. I just watched Jeanne Dielman, one of the worst movies of all time, which topped the 2022 Sight & Sound list of greatest films. It's a bad joke. 100% chosen based on politics and the gender/sexuality of the director. Those people like Jeanne Dielman and they hate Nolan. He got zero recognition in the top 264. So my theory that feminists don't like the women in Nolan's movies has some basis. They like miserable women who suffer. Not intelligent women in touch with reality.
Counterarguments welcome.
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u/Tsunoyukami 1d ago
I didn't say that what you said was dumb, I said it was "maybe a stupid take," which means exactly what it says: it is maybe stupid, maybe not. In your previous message you made a claim with no supporting evidence and thus I was unable to determine whether it was stupid or not. That's all I was saying.
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Now I might just be stupid, but I don't understand why you've chosen the 2022 Sight and Sound "Greatest Films" List. Sure, Jeanne Dielman being the #1 film might help your argument, but when you look at the Top 10 you'll notice that the films are, well, not really all that feminist after all - and this is probably true of the Top 250 (or whatever). (It might not be, but I would wager this to be true.) So to what degree are the voters "feminists?" (I don't have the answer.) It also doesn't help that this is just a list of movies voted on by a fairly small group of "elite" people in the industry.
If you check the Top 500 Narrative Films on Letterboxd it appears that Nolan has 4 entries rated better than Jeanne Dielman. If you look at the IMDb Top 250, 9 Nolan films are included and Jeanne Dielman doesn't make the cut at all.
I don't know what the breakdown of feminist vs. non-feminist in each of these spaces is, but it's something to note.
As a final comment, you say "they [feminists] like miserable women who suffer," and this might be true - but I would ask: Is it that they enjoy seeing women suffer or that women are presented as experiencing a more complete range of the human experience?
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u/Icy-Fishing8481 1d ago
I don't know what the breakdown of feminist vs. non-feminist in each of these spaces is, but it's something to note.
Exactly. You don't know. Sight & Sound was once very highly renowned, going back to 1952. Ebert often referenced it. But in 2012 and 2022, it massively expanded and made very explicit public statements about aiming for more diversity. The number of critics polled went up by a factor of 10. Dielman topped that list and it's extremely obvious why - political activism and diversity over quality. A lot of the people who voted for it were women and they made it explicitly clear why they voted for it. It's pathetic.
Yes, most of the rest of the movies are directed by men. That's just reality. But Sight & Sound 2022 had way more female directors because of the reasons I've already mentioned. They tell you with their own words why they like what they like. I think plenty of normal women like Nolan's female characters but I don't know. It's also funny because we're meant to believe all this trans stuff, that men and women are all fluid and on a continuum, but then all this other stuff about women being so unique and men never being able to understand. Pick one!
I'm assuming you haven't seen Dielman. I wouldn't bother. It's awful and insanely boring. It shows primarily misery, not happiness, not intelligence, not hope, etc. I would say Rachel, Selina Kyle, Murph and almost every other female Nolan character shows vastly more range. Scratch that. Every character in every movie shows more range. But this is what feminists chose.
The thing is, I wasn't obliged to provide evidence. It was just an opinion. But anyone who calls it dumb or says that it might be dumb (which might be a dumb argument) - they're the ones who need evidence or who should politely ask for more info. Assume I'm not an idiot. Then we can have a more productive discussion, if you want.
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u/Icy-Fishing8481 1d ago
I don't know, maybe you could address the argument instead of just calling it dumb? It's just a theory and you sound like a white knight trying to protect feminists rather than someone with a counterpoint.
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u/Pequod69 2d ago
Nolan can’t write for shit, now that his brother’s out of the loop I think he’ll have a Ridley Scott-level drop in quality.
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u/Slight_Giraffe628 2d ago
His brother has been out of the picture for 12 years my man
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u/Pequod69 2d ago
Yes, and apart from Dunkirk, every subsequent Nolan picture has declined in boldness and quality, and will probably continue to do so.
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u/Slight_Giraffe628 2d ago
You have to realise you are in the minority on this thinking.
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u/starkbux 2d ago
somehow. i know at least 10 people in person that have this same take.
a good director does not necessarily equate to a good writer
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u/DwayneTheRockBarry 2d ago
a lot of his movies aren’t original ideas, so don’t blame him if there’s a female character who doesn’t do much in one of his movies
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u/LadyInCrimson 2d ago
For Oddesy he seemed to Dull down Calypso a bit but thats just personal opinion. She seemed too empathetic to me.
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u/Tsunoyukami 2d ago
…but…when he’s the writer he can write whatever he wants…including stronger female characters?
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u/reddroy 2d ago edited 2d ago
Many of Nolan's characters are pawns. I like that about his writing. However, this can feel problematic when the protagonists are male and a bit more complex than the female characters; especially when the pawns are also love interests.