Christopher Nolan and political messaging in movies

Can a film be political without losing its audience?

I'm a huge fan of cinema. Catching a new film or revisiting an old favourite for the hundredth time is something I like to do with my downtime.

A movie’s narrative will naturally be influenced by the zeitgeist and the political worldview of its writers and director. There is nothing new about political messaging or political subtext in movies.

However, I find myself immediately irked and taken out of a movie when any ideological messaging is too on the nose. This remains the case whether or not I agree with the political message that’s being clumsily imparted.

Like I said, movies have always been political, but I feel like in the last decade or so political subtext has strayed into the realm of heavy-handed finger wagging. The principle of “show, don't tell” appears to have gone missing as some modern writers believe it’s their duty to tell us the correct opinions rather than give us serviceable stories and interesting characters.

Which brings me to a Christopher Nolan quote I've just stumbled across which seems to perfectly summarise my own feelings on the matter:

“I’ve had conversations with friends of mine and they all ask about why I don’t make a film about the things I care about politically, and I always say, ‘Well, because it doesn’t work.’ You can’t use narrative to tell people what to think. It never works. People just react against it. You have to be purer about it. You have to be truer to the principles of narrative and telling a story, and that means risking misinterpretation.

It doesn’t mean you don’t care about something, or that it doesn’t mean anything to you, but you have to be neutral or objective in your approach. You can’t tell people what to think, you can only invite them to feel something. I always think of the great moment in Gladiator, where he chops off his head and then turns to the audience and asks them, ‘Are you not entertained?’ Whatever it is, you’ve got to entertain.”¹

It’s telling that many of the responses on social media to this Christopher Nolan quote accuse him of being “right-wing” or failing in his duties as a filmmaker. Because in the current political climate, failing to hammer home a political message in storytelling is a political act to some people—namely an unforgivable one.

I think social media goes some way to explaining the desire to push a lot of heavy handed “progressive” messaging into modern movies. Social media has provided lazy Hollywood marketing teams with access to an endless stream of free data from the ‘audience’, telling them exactly what this audience expects to see in movies.

However, as numerous elections and box office flops can attest: social media is no reliable measure of what the general population want. Social media is a breeding ground for obnoxious social justice activism—which can create the false impression that their worldview and desires reflect society in general.

This is why Nolan's name can be mud online in light of this quote, yet in the real world he's just picked up 7 Academy awards and $970 million at the box office for his latest movie, Oppenheimer. Not to mention a Knighthood for his contributions to cinema. Yet the extremely online anime avatar types have the hubris to tell him he's doing it all wrong.

The simple fact is that general audiences want to see classic movie concepts on the big screen: spectacle, drama, action, interesting characters (beautiful if possible please), great performances with twists and turns. These things sell a movie—not its political message.

This is why Top Gun: Maverick made $1.4 billion at the box office. A sequel to an 80s classic arriving over 30 years later had no right to be any good—but it was, largely because it avoided the pit falls of trying to appeal to a ‘modern audience’.

It says a lot about audience expectations in the current day that the Top Gun sequel was both lauded and decried as “anti-woke” simply for its “back to basics” approach to storytelling. The movie wasn’t ‘anti-woke’ of course—it just simply refused to tell the audience what to think about anything.

Ironically, Top Gun: Maverick actually did have a diverse cast of characters (some female, some non-white, an age appropriate love interest), but this didn’t win the movie any progressive points as these characters went about their business without feeling the need to mention their immutable characteristics. Sort of like how normal humans behave.

The movie also failed to include the obligatory message about the evils of American militarism, nor was it made clear who the foreign antagonist was (definitely Iran though, right?).

The woke wanted a progressive message and didn’t get one, so therefore it was anti-woke. The anti-woke also expected to be subjected toa progressive political message and didn’t get one, therefore it was anti-woke.

The debate over political messaging in movies appears to have become terribly annoying on both sides of the aisle. On one side, we have the foot-soldiers of DEI (Diversity, Equity & Inclusion) who won't be happy until the next James Bond is a black, trans-lesbian sent on Zir Majesty's secret mission to free Palestine.

Every new movie and rebooted franchise must be ‘diverse’ (see ‘fewer white men’) and full of whatever progressive messaging is the flavour of the day. Movies can even be aborted before they have began filming for failing to cast a sufficiently ‘diverse’ actor in the lead role.

Then there is the terminally anti-woke, reflexively reacting with hostility to any casting news of non-white or female talent in big franchises before they have even seen a single frame of the movie. My beloved cinema has very much become a battleground for the culture war.

Luckily, box office is king. And audiences will still only turn out en masse for great stories and characters and will generally stay home if they think they are going to be treated to a political sermon.

I expect a bigger shift to the “back to basics” approach to filmmaking from faltering movie studios in the coming years. Maybe then we can just go to the movies, watch TV and be entertained without being patronised.

What are some of the worst movies for ideological finger wagging in your view? Which movies actually carried a strong political message organically, in a way that didn't detract from the experience? Let me know in the comments.

1. The Nolan Variations: The Movies, Mysteries, and Marvels of Christopher Nolan