TheQuartering [7/26/2023]
Christopher Nolan’s latest blockbuster Oppenheimer has received rave reviews from critics and viewers alike, and made a huge $80 million in its opening weekend but not everyone is happy.
Cinema-goers from around the world who have seen the new film have taken to Twitter to blast how the movie’s female characters were written and portrayed.
One viewer wrote: ‘The women of Oppenheimer. Boobs, babies and a bit of booze. Bring the washing in dear. They may as well have been blow up dolls.’
Oppenheimer tells the complex story of J. Robert Oppenheimer, leader of the Manhattan Project, the team who built the world’s first atomic bomb.
The film stars Cillian Murphy in the titular role alongside an ensemble cast include Robert Downey Jr, Emily Blunt, Matt Damon and Florence Pugh, and marks the first time director Christopher Nolan has ever included a sex scene in one his films.
Nolan previously told that he was ‘appropriately nervous and appropriately careful’ filming the scenes which involve Pugh and Murphy.
One point that was noted by many social media users is that Oppenheimer fails the Bechdel test, which is used to measure the representation of women in film and other fiction.
To pass, it requires at least two women in a film, series etc to talk to each other about something other than a man. Often those women should also be named.
Taking to social media in their droves, many people lambasted the characters played by Emily Blunt and Florence Pugh, criticising Nolan’s ability to develop female characters.
‘Oppenheimer is largely told through an unreliable narrator. this narrator considered the women in his life to be nothing more than “hysterical set dressings” and only realized this wasn’t the case until it was too late. As such, Kitty is the closest thing we have to a hero,’ added another disgruntled viewer.
While someone else asked: ‘Oppenheimer was so bad I walked out. Just go see Barbie I guess? Has anyone given Nolan s**t about the way women are portrayed in this movie?’
A fourth person joked: ‘I don’t know why people are complaining. Oppenheimer featured all three types of women! young lover who’s an unstable communist, alcoholic wife with a sharp tongue, plucky lady scientist just trying to make a bomb but society is in the way.’
‘The women in Oppenheimer were there to release Oppy’s… tension. And that’s about it,’ wrote a fifth Twitter user.
However, not everyone was against it calling the backlash ‘woke behaviour’.
