Still, she is completely focused on the male hero and on helping him instead of having a motivation and journey of her own, and her main trait is being similar to the protagonist and therefor able to understand him so well.(and the male supporting characters are not like that) She's a cool girl because she just gets you(you being a guy).
Very true, the only things we see Ariadne do outside of Cobb are her brief interactions with Arthur and a montage of teaching the dream levels. She does essentially play his therapist for an unclear motivation. I'd like to think that she chose to join the mission out of both fear for the others, her own confidence that she could help, and some selfish desire to see her creation through, and not because she had a crush on Cobb and disregarded the risks to help him. I don't get the vibe that it was the latter mostly because of how Ellen Page played the role and that they didn't emphasize any UST between the characters with lingering glances and that sort of thing - the age difference and the fact that they didn't sexualize her through costuming also helped. Generally, the relationship struck me as very platonic, but that doesn't negate the fact that she spent most of her time focused on Cobb in a way that was different from the male characters - who were helping Cobb.
Yusuf seemed to have been motivated by money, Eames by professional curiosity, Arthur...I don't really know. I like to suppose loyalty but only because of the fact that he knew Mal when she was alive and that leads me to think that he and Cobb have been friends for a long time and not merely co-workers. I would have really liked another scene between the two of them just to get a handle on their relationship. We are told that they are partners but I would have liked it to be shown.
I think Nolan is noticeably bad at female characters
I think Nolan is bad at characterisation for both genders but it's perhaps less noticeable with the men because they get more screen time. I think he gives the actors good emotions to play and has the characters do interesting things, but I'm never sure of who they are as individuals. His characters are always in service of the plot - there are no scenes where you just get to see the characters interacting for the sake of the pure enjoyment of watching skilled actors trade back and forth (probably because Nolan isn't good at dialogue, either). This sort of scene between Arthur and Cobb would have explained a lot about their relationship even if it didn't specifically advance the plot.
I really don't buy this "It's just Hollywood. It's just how the world is!" excuse
Yeah, it's just disappointing when you look at his film posters and see a bunch of guys and then one (now two) woman. At my count there are 15 male speaking roles in Inception (if you count the Japanese boy on the train, the young Australian lawyer, the dream den assistant, the passport official, James) in addition to the significant roles of the team members (C, A, E, Y, S), Miles, Robert, Maurice, and Browning.
There are six speaking roles for women. One (the grandmother) is only heard and never seen, the flight attendant has one line, then there's Phillipa and Eames' blonde projection (technically a role for an actress, but actually a male character), and of course, Ariadne and Mal (who is also a male construct). I think the role of Mal is a complex one for an actress to play, but the character itself is said to be not complex - she's a shade, not a real woman.
Only thing I disagree with is Ariadne asking about destroying parts of Fischer's mind. This is actually the first time this question makes sense.
For her, yes, but for the audience? It was something that I'd been wondering about for most of the movie and definitely would have appreciated an answer to earlier. So while it was the right time for her to ask, it seemed a little late in the game to for such important information to come up.
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Very true, the only things we see Ariadne do outside of Cobb are her brief interactions with Arthur and a montage of teaching the dream levels. She does essentially play his therapist for an unclear motivation. I'd like to think that she chose to join the mission out of both fear for the others, her own confidence that she could help, and some selfish desire to see her creation through, and not because she had a crush on Cobb and disregarded the risks to help him. I don't get the vibe that it was the latter mostly because of how Ellen Page played the role and that they didn't emphasize any UST between the characters with lingering glances and that sort of thing - the age difference and the fact that they didn't sexualize her through costuming also helped. Generally, the relationship struck me as very platonic, but that doesn't negate the fact that she spent most of her time focused on Cobb in a way that was different from the male characters - who were helping Cobb.
Yusuf seemed to have been motivated by money, Eames by professional curiosity, Arthur...I don't really know. I like to suppose loyalty but only because of the fact that he knew Mal when she was alive and that leads me to think that he and Cobb have been friends for a long time and not merely co-workers. I would have really liked another scene between the two of them just to get a handle on their relationship. We are told that they are partners but I would have liked it to be shown.
I think Nolan is noticeably bad at female characters
I think Nolan is bad at characterisation for both genders but it's perhaps less noticeable with the men because they get more screen time. I think he gives the actors good emotions to play and has the characters do interesting things, but I'm never sure of who they are as individuals. His characters are always in service of the plot - there are no scenes where you just get to see the characters interacting for the sake of the pure enjoyment of watching skilled actors trade back and forth (probably because Nolan isn't good at dialogue, either). This sort of scene between Arthur and Cobb would have explained a lot about their relationship even if it didn't specifically advance the plot.
I really don't buy this "It's just Hollywood. It's just how the world is!" excuse
Yeah, it's just disappointing when you look at his film posters and see a bunch of guys and then one (now two) woman. At my count there are 15 male speaking roles in Inception (if you count the Japanese boy on the train, the young Australian lawyer, the dream den assistant, the passport official, James) in addition to the significant roles of the team members (C, A, E, Y, S), Miles, Robert, Maurice, and Browning.
There are six speaking roles for women. One (the grandmother) is only heard and never seen, the flight attendant has one line, then there's Phillipa and Eames' blonde projection (technically a role for an actress, but actually a male character), and of course, Ariadne and Mal (who is also a male construct). I think the role of Mal is a complex one for an actress to play, but the character itself is said to be not complex - she's a shade, not a real woman.
Only thing I disagree with is Ariadne asking about destroying parts of Fischer's mind. This is actually the first time this question makes sense.
For her, yes, but for the audience? It was something that I'd been wondering about for most of the movie and definitely would have appreciated an answer to earlier. So while it was the right time for her to ask, it seemed a little late in the game to for such important information to come up.