Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey and His Canonic Treatment of Female Character

Zara Lyne

The Odyssey: I’m sure you’ve heard of it, because everyone everywhere seems to be talking about it! Each day, thousands of people flock to their local cinemas to see Christopher Nolan’s newest spectacle. The three-hour Greek epic currently sits at a 4.4 on Letterboxd and has become the fastest film in history to reach one million views on their app. I’m sure many of you have also heard about the purpose-built 70mm IMAX camera it was shot on, the mirrors and brand-new sound system designed to make it possible, and the star-studded cast. So yes, it is quite a big deal. If we ignore Nolan playing fast and loose with Homer’s original text and some of the questionable dialogue, Matt Damon, Tom Holland, and Robert Pattinson shine as strong, masculine characters, driving the plot forward and delivering the most forefront performances as The Odyssey’s central figures. 

The actresses are wonderful too, I’m sure we can all agree. Anne Hathaway, Lupita Nyong'o, Zendaya, and Samantha Morton really commit to their roles, yet their characters do not drive the film’s plot forward as much as the male characters did. In fact, it seems that every female character in The Odyssey is secondary to or defined by a male counterpart. Instead of functioning as individual, intelligent beings, Penelope, Athena, Melantho, Calypso, Helen, and others are minimised in order to support or yearn for the men around them. They remain stagnant and seem to desire nothing more than peace between men, romantic love, or motherhood. These may be lovely things to desire, but why is this all they are destined for? As a modern and highly decorated filmmaker, is it not rather shocking that Nolan chooses to portray female characters in this way, using them as plot props? 

Maybe it is unfair to comment on gender politics in The Odyssey. The story was written nearly 2,700 years ago in Ancient Greece, where women were considered far from warriors unless they were Goddesses. Perhaps Nolan was solely staying true to Homer’s text and representing female characters in the way the author intended. In order to know for sure whether The Odyssey is an outlier, we have to dive into Nolan’s filmography. Take Tenet, for example. The story follows the main character, aptly named Protagonist, and the mysterious organisation he is a part of. Protagonist, with the help of his friend Neil, learns to manipulate the current of time in order to stop Sator from ending the world. Another very male-centric story, Tenet gives all of its starring roles to men. Kat is the only notable woman in the film. At first, we are invited to view her as mildly clever and slightly haughty. Yet, as the story unfolds, Kat becomes a liability. She loses her tough exterior and is revealed to be pathetic, helplessly in love, overly emotional, and seemingly unable to desire much beyond motherhood. She does not drive or help the plot in any way other than being a love interest for Protagonist. Kat is used as a prop to aid her male counterpart in showing his softer and more impressive side, because next to Kat, anyone seems impressive. 

Oppenheimer—one half of the Barbenheimer phenomenon that had us all in a chokehold back in 2023—is also very revealing about the way that Nolan writes women. Kitty, whose real-life counterpart was known to be very intelligent, is introduced to us as a cheating, drunken mess. Her identity is built around her affairs, divorces, and barely acknowledged post-natal depression. Kitty is given one brief moment to shine in the entire three-hour film, but is quickly put back in her box as Oppenheimer’s amenable wife. Jean, Oppenheimer’s lover, is not treated with any more dignity. A brilliant psychoanalyst in real life, Jean is given limited screentime, which is used to portray her as a nymphomaniac. She is almost always naked and then is killed off almost as quickly as she comes onto the screen. Both women serve as sexual and domestic fantasies for the film’s male lead, causing their intelligence and personalities to be sidelined. 

We can also look at Interstellar, in my opinion Nolan’s best work. We see a visually and emotionally captivating movie which broadens your mind and breaks your heart, but we also see female characters that work to serve men and reject logic as soon as they feel the spark of love. In Batman Begins, Rachel Dawes is totally unmemorable and exists as a desperate, weak love interest to give Bruce something to lose. In Memento, the female characters are either saintly homemakers or whorish devils. Regardless of which category they fall into, they are totally one-dimensional. And, if we want to go to the extreme, we can look at Dunkirk, which does not even have any female characters. Not even one! Many of Nolan’s films are littered with dead wives and lovers, damsels in distress, or yearning harlots, as though the suffering of a woman makes a male lead more manly. All of these examples and more recur uncomfortably often throughout his films. There is clearly an issue here. 

I’d like to be clear in stating that male-centric stories are not inherently bad simply because they follow men. The Lord of The Rings is one of the best trilogies ever made, and it BARELY passes the Bechdel Test. Some male writers or filmmakers may choose to only write or show male characters because they want to draw from their own experiences, just as some female writers and filmmakers only tell stories from female perspectives. This is not intrinsically bad. However, an issue arises when female characters are only used as devices to frame male characters; an issue arises when these female characters are not given desires, opinions, strengths, or autonomy beyond that of very harmful and outdated stereotypes. Just because a story is male-focused it does not mean a female character is automatically destined to be soleless and ambitionless. In the 21st century, where women are apparently as equal to men as they ever have been, this style of writing still appears to be acceptable. In fact, it is the standard in most Hollywood blockbusters. 

So why is this a problem if films aren’t real? I think the main issue—though art imitating real-life gender imbalance is still a valid concern—lies less in that imitation and more in the sense of anti-mimesis that grows from poorly represented female characters. Unfortunately, life does indeed imitate art. At least three million people have already seen The Odyssey, meaning that at least three million people have understood and accepted its female characters being defined by male characters. I include myself in this as someone who enjoyed the movie before critically engaging with its gendered ramifications. 

When a man like Nolan—with such a grasp over his audience and of cinema as a tool to create and influence—writes modern films with the steadfast desire to use women as devices to explain and promote men, then we start to learn from his art. Subconsciously, we start to accept that this is okay. We start to understand that a woman’s place on the screen is either to support her man, to fall in love, to ruin things with her emotions, or to raise her family. How damaging is that for the way we view real women in our societies? This doesn't occur only in Nolan’s films, either. Thousands of films decentre women and do not give them the same volition as men, sometimes even adding women solely to tick the diversity box or to provide a sex symbol. More often than not, this does not go the other way. 

This subtle misogyny is not just a side effect of filmmaking and screenwriting: it is a choice. Stories like Little Women and The Hunger Games display excellent female leads. They too fall in love, want families, and support the men around them, but those are the least interesting things about them. So, surprise surprise, it is possible to write well-rounded and compelling female characters if you choose to. Unfortunately, writers like Nolan are choosing not to. If these filmic platforms are already given mostly to men, and most of these men write stories that take away female autonomy and identity, then we are living in a world where art does not serve or adequately represent 50% of the population. I cannot understand this to be acceptable, even in a spectacular film like The Odyssey. 

Nolan’s treatment of female characters certainly does not invalidate the rest of his artistic genius. I also don’t agree that he is a hardcore misogynist, as others may suggest. Instead, his films subtly display the intergenerational, longstanding idea that a woman’s place is beside, or defined by, her male counterpart. And when we watch a film like The Odyssey and do not pick up on or call this out, we allow ourselves to be swept into this stereotype as well, causing it to spiral onwards into future generations and perpetuating the view that women are secondary to men. We become part of the problem which de-centres women and subconsciously drives a wedge through the society we rely upon.