Christopher Nolan is facing a backlash from Gen Z viewers who accuse him of sidelining female characters in his latest blockbuster, The Odyssey, with particular anger directed at his treatment of Zendaya’s role as the goddess Athena.
Since the film’s release three weeks ago, TikTok has been flooded with videos criticising the 56-year-old director for giving women less depth than Homer’s original text. Videos carrying that message have racked up millions of views and likes, with many users branding Nolan the patriarchy’s favourite movie director.
The central complaint is that Athena, played by Zendaya, 29, appears on screen for less than five minutes and amounts to what fans are calling a head-nodding side character. In Homer’s text, Athena is the second most important figure, actively petitioning Zeus to allow Odysseus home. Zendaya’s husband Tom Holland, who plays Telemachus, the son of Odysseus, has a noticeably larger part.
Matt Damon, 55, stars as Odysseus in the three-hour epic. Viewers also noted that Odysseus’s year-long capture by the goddess Circe, played by Samantha Morton, was written out of the film entirely, while Charlize Theron’s Calypso is said to serve only as a foil for the lead male character.
Critics on the app have also argued that none of Nolan’s 13 feature films, apart from Interstellar, pass the Bechdel Test, a measure of whether two women speak to each other about something other than a man.
Writing in Vulture, critic Angelica Bastien said Nolan’s genius ends when a woman enters the frame.
