‘Inception’ (2010) is praised for its originality, determination and success, and is one of Christopher Nolan’s best-known films, winning 4 Oscars. Although the concept of ‘Inception’ is extremely compelling, with astonishing performances from DiCaprio and Watanabe, the portrayal of women in this production is disappointing, and poor, objectifying its female characters and portraying prototypical female mania. In this essay I will be examining gender portrayal and the unfortunate sexism in Christopher Nolan’s 2010 award-winning ‘Inception’.
To state the obvious, ‘Inception’ is overall an extremely male heavy film, including only two female characters, Mal (Marion Cotillard) and Ariadne (Elliot page). Many viewers would neglect the status of these characters altogether as they do not contribute a great deal to the overall outcome, as the main focus is on Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his plan to steal corporate information through the subconscious. The director of ‘Inception’, Christopher Nolan is known for creating very male dominated films, much like ‘Inception’, ‘Batman Begins’ and ‘Tenet’, which both include an extremely limited number of female characters. However, it is important to mention that Nolan does get better over the years at introducing strong female characters later in his career, and he proves this in ‘Batman: The Dark Night Rises’, its actually Catwoman who kills Bain, after Batman fails to do so.
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To expand on how ‘Inception’ is in many ways objectifying of its female characters, I will be discussing the character of Mal, Cobb’s wife who died before the period of ‘Inception’, who became disorientated and distressed through the multiple dream-within-a-dream scenarios, and was unsure which reality was true. She ended up killing herself in an attempt to wake up from a dream she was never in. Mal, throughout the film, is essentially a dream projection who has the power to save or end Cobb, therefore, she has no control over herself or any free will of her own in the story and is entirely under the control of Cobb’s subconscious. Mal doesn’t exist in a tangible matter through the duration of ‘Inception’, and only is involved in the plot as a figure of Cobb’s imagination. This, in term doesn’t make Mal a separate female character as she is created through Cobb’s brain. This rules her out as a character entirely as she is a figure of Cobbs imagination, although she did exist at one point, she doesn’t throughout the film, and therefore isn’t a true representation of herself as she does not exist. On top of the fact that Mal doesn’t exist in the preface of the story, the only interaction she has with another woman is brief. Mal and Ariadne have a 10-second conversation, whilst it is not overtly regarding a man, it is still about love, and how Mal needs Cobb in her life to feel complete, so sub textually it is still about a man. Regarding this fact, ‘Inception’ does not pass the Bechdel test. This short-lived interaction is also the only woman-to-woman interaction in the entire 148-minute film.
To expand on the other female character, Ariadne, and how the portrayal of her is also objectified, I will be discussing the Dream Fortress scene, in which everyone is male apart from Ariadne. This scene appears to be Cobb and Ariadne fighting for survival, but most of the scene fixates on Ariadne following Cobb for safety, showing her as weak and helpless. Alongside this, every character in the scene has a weapon, excluding Ariadne, which explains why she is following Cobb. Similarly, every single character in this scene, even the extras are conducting a treacherous task, while Ariadne is doing the bare minimum. This scene in tone, highlights that women are not capable of handling deadly weapons and rely on men to protect them, using them in some ways as a shield for their own safety. Towards the end of this scene, Cobb takes Ariadne inside to keep her safe, whilst he goes outside to continue fighting, emphasizing that women cannot handle fighting in cold weather and need to be in the safety of indoors to keep themselves safe. The objectification in this scene is a clear stereotype of a ‘damsel in distress’, who relies on a man for safety and survival. This is a clear objectification of women in film, especially in a film which focuses on a man, and shows the woman as weak and incapable of defending or saving herself.
To sum up everything that has been stated so far, this actively demonstrates that the women of this film are portrayed as nothing but an object of men’s fixation, and weak to the point of needing rescuing.
Mal, in my opinion, is the most objectified character in this film, and I will further go into detail about how. Mal is portrayed as a prototypical hysteria figure. Once a common medical diagnosis for a woman, who had anxiety, nervousness, sexual desires, insomnia, and irritability, which is how Mal is greatly portrayed throughout ‘Inception’. As the wife who drives herself to insanity due to her frail nature and susceptibility to be manipulated by her husband, Cobb. Female hysteria is widely overused in films to the point where it becomes stereotypical. In this film it is also unreliable, as I’ve stated before, because all the scenes with Mal are created from Cobb’s subconscious, so the projections of her being violent and hysterical are not sure to be true. In Phyllis Chesler’s book ‘Women and Madness’, she states that “women are in a continual state of mourning - for what they never had - or had too briefly, and for what they can’t have in the present, be it prince charming or direct worldly power”. Mal is a stand in for the manipulated female lover who cannot get her own grasp on reality, what’s real and what’s fake, what is her own sincere view of the world and what is a male constructed dream state. For the viewer it’s hard to watch, and in the end, she tries to manipulate the man herself in a desperate attempt of not being left alone and ends up exactly how she didn’t want to be.
As well as the objectification of the female characters, there are also very obvious and very glorified scenes of stereotypical masculine violence, which reinforces patriarchal patters of aggression, as well as very clear gender politics portraying the man as the main focus. Men are always the perpetrators of all of the violent and harmful ideas created, Cobb producing ‘Inception’ and testing it on his own wife before himself. “The reason I knew it was real is because I did it to her first”, Cobb admits. The entire plot of the film is Cobb committing theft of secret information by infiltrating the perpetrators dreams. But the audience never seems affected by the fact that Cobb is carrying out extremely illegal activities, and essentially triggering the death of his own wife due to the fact of the way it’s portrayed throughout the film as cool and exciting to the viewers, keeping them rooting for Cobb and the men he’s working with. Christopher Nolan’s filmography seems to satisfy the so-called masculinity malaise, where he offers male heroes- or anti-heroes- a fictional means and pathway to exceed the limitations of their ruptured male reality. ‘Inception’, from the start, creates the world from a male perspective, the initial scene being Cobb and his children on the beach (which come back later in a dream memory) is shot is through Cobbs eyes, during which, there is continually an extremely delicate salutation of the first-person perspective of the camera, for example, the opening discussion with Saito, the camera does not engage the viewpoint of reversals of Ariadne and Cobb’s conversation, but it shifts focus from Cobb to the corporate mogul and back. The film presents itself as the effect of masculine perspectives, and let’s Ariadne mostly to be observed rather than understood. The male perspective triggers the audience to see the film as if they are men themselves, and because they are observing through Cobbs eyes, they are compelled to see the world the way that men see it. The result of this should be obvious. The movie would have forced audience classification with masculinity, to be expected in union with the recognition of the feminine as inferior to men and at the same time threatening to men, as well as creating yet another obstacle to female representation in film.
This proves that there is not only objectification of women in this production, but also male objectification, proving the stereotypes that men are constantly the top of the hierarchy, over-powering women and making all the calls, this is something that Christopher Nolan has a habit of doing in his films, making men the star focus and forgetting about the women.
On top of the violence and inhumane activities Cobb carries out, like driving his wife insane to the point of hysteria and suicide, as well as the multiple crimes committed throughout ‘Inception’, Christopher Nolan humanizes Cobb, an otherwise violent character, by having his character place being a loving husband and father above all the illegal activities. Cobb’s motivations are based on the miniscule subplot of his relationship with his wife and young children. The cliche hetero-monogamous love story creates a character that the audience can sympathize and relate with, instead of dismissing him for being the violent man he has proven to be. The subplot of his family also has Cobb be the central focus, and the peace maker of the family, whilst Mal shown to be resentful, calculating and agitated, and the children are the complete opposite being faceless, quiet and innocent. This subtly makes the audience believe that Cobb is a good father, by creating an environment for the children to grow up in whilst their mother is basically going insane, and making the viewers believe he is an active father in their lives. Having a father seem to be nurturing and involved in their children’s lives would make the audience relate them to the role usually applied to the mother, what you would expect a mother to be, and although we never see Mal interact with the children, we also never see her dismiss them, it’s simply something that’s implied by having Cobb come across in the way he does regarding the kids. This makes the audience already believe Mal is a bad mother, from the moment we meet her and the children, because of the contrast between her and Cobb. The way that the film depends on a shallow emotional family story weakens the plot and characters of Mal, Cobb and even the children who are essentially never involved. If the film went into more detail about the family’s circumstance and showed how they function after the death of Mal, it may be easier to sympathize with him and his children, but due to the fact, its brushed over and treated poorly to the plot, it seems like it’s been ignored and unimportant to the story.
In conclusion, this actively demonstrates that in 2010, Christopher Nolan had fragile masculinity and didn’t know how to portray a woman that wasn’t sexist and stereotypical of a woman in distress. There were many ways for ‘Inception’ to avoid the sexist stereotypes of this production and they were intentionally avoided to have the viewers focused on Cobb and the mission of ‘Inception’. This makes the entire film sexist.
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