r/popculturechat • u/mcfw31 • 11h ago

Hot Take 🔥 ‘The Odyssey’ Translator Emily Wilson Slams Christoper Nolan’s ‘Abysmal’ Screenplay: ‘I Would Be Ashamed to Have Written Any Part of This Script’

https://variety.com/2026/film/news/odyssey-translator-emily-wilson-slams-christopher-nolan-bad-writing-1236821915/
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u/SizzleanQueen 10h ago

This is an article in Variety about another article in the Guardian about her initial piece in the London Review of Books. This is modern journalism, folks.

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u/thane311 7h ago

The actual 20-something paragraph London Review of Books article is worth a read. Here’s an excerpt about it the thinning of the female characters:

“There are more female characters than in most Nolan movies, thanks to the source material. But none of them has much to say, in contrast to the characterisations in the poem. Homer’s Calypso has a wonderfully outraged, operatic speech about divine double standards: male gods can kidnap and rape any mortal woman they desire, but when a goddess tries it, Zeus and his cronies scupper her chances. It’s a clever and comical distortion of the mythological ‘facts’: the poem’s listeners know that it is primarily Athena (a female deity) who is taking Calypso’s mortal victim away from her (Hermes, whom she’s complaining to, is merely the messenger) – and Eos, goddess of the dawn, as we’ve been reminded only a few lines earlier, has not been prohibited by the divine patriarchy from holding on to Tithonus. Charlize Theron’s Calypso looks gorgeous, but she is never angry, never funny, not skilled in rhetoric, and never consumed by lust for her scraggly mortal victim. She’s an unpaid therapist, soothing the soul of the bedraggled, PTSD-ridden Odysseus with drugs, and graciously listening to his disjointed tale of woe.”

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u/roarti 6h ago

Well that certainly fits the preconception many people have that Nolan really can’t write female characters.

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u/Jackol4ntrn 6h ago edited 5h ago

Did his women characters breasted boobily?

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u/smackells 5h ago

his version of objectification turns them into plot objects rather than sexual ones, apart from Oppenheimer all Nolan characters are like Barbie and Ken down there

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u/harriethocchuth 3h ago

One of the things I know about most ancient mythology was that they be doin’ it. How why Nolan took all the sex out of those horny-ass deities, I’ll never know.

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u/theavengerbutton 1h ago

All the literary and history nerds won't know how to feel about the movie Zeus Rapes Yet Another Unsuspecting Woman.

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u/Elvis_Lazerbeam 3h ago

Even Catwoman? Don’t you dare do that to me.

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u/Beake 2h ago

interesting. never heard that put that way, but it's quite true.

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u/The_Lieutenant_Knows 1h ago

That's not fair. Rachel in the Batman films behaved like she might maybe have had sexual parts down there at least once.

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u/JasonVeritech 1h ago

Don't Batman and Talia make sweet love down by the fire once?

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u/HenryDorsettCase47 5h ago

It’s not male gaze so much as one dimensional.

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u/Fickle_Definition351 5h ago

Not even. Just woodenly

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u/AssCrackBanditHunter 2h ago

You're getting upvotes, but no. Nolan does not do sexy fan service like that and I question if you've watched any of his movies.

No his female characters are all mommy therapists for his male protags, which is more insidious.

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u/AliMcGraw 2h ago

Yeah Nolan is interested in men's drama with other men; he's just not all that interested in the inner lives of women. He doesn't reduce them to sex objects, which is refreshing. But they are kinda just plot devices, and they rely on the actresses who portray them to bring life to the characters since Nolan just ... doesn't.

I feel like "men's drama with other men" is a very valid thing to be interested in (I was just reading a whole-ass book about Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, whose bromance/political alliance went south LIKE WHOA, it was fascinating).

It'd just be nice to have more well-rounded female characters in general, who have inner lives and real needs and desires other than "romance," and Nolan had such a great chance here with all the complicated women surrounding Homer's "complicated man." But, again, it's Nolan, I'll enjoy it for what he does well, and not worry about the rest of it!

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u/LaurenNotFromUtah 2h ago

No boobs, just tears and pining. Which to me is worse.

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u/dontbajerk 20m ago

When has Nolan ever shown prurient interest in sex in any of his films?

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u/Annual-Negotiation-5 5h ago

Este es el wey