“No one wants to hear me vent about Christopher Nolan's woman problem...”
written by the Moon Houston
Shutterstock image of an explosion. Looks like orange broccoli.
Daytime therapist, nighttime theater-maker, and part time amateur roller derbyist by the name of Scary Grant, Theo Embeck returns again to Joy Who Lived to give the people what they need: a critical analysis of your favorite filmmaker. Or least favorite filmmaker. Or just some guy who’s name you think you heard once before who made a movie, or something.
Christopher Nolan Hates Women. There’s not much else to it; Embeck says, “It's a comedy (I promise!) that’s one part lecture about how Christopher Nolan, the Oscar-winning filmmaker, writes women (badly, like he hates them) and one part reckoning with the harms of my own Sacred Art Dude, [...] with questions about how to deal with loving the art of someone who's done harm.” So actually there is much to it!
The story behind this show is that Embeck “originally wrote a ten-minute version of this show for Coin and Ghost's one-person show festival, Index of Forbidden Books, which curates original works about things we feel like we're not allowed to say. I pitched that no one wants to hear me vent about Christopher Nolan's woman problem, and it turned out that actually, people did want to hear me vent about Christopher Nolan's woman problem!”
We can all name some artist who’s work moved us and later we moved away from associating with. (I think I can count mine on both hands...) And it is pretty sad, but I personally love conversations about whether or not you can separate the art from the artist, and I also love film despite being a film major who’s never seen a movie, and I love analyzing things that may not seem important in the grand scheme but actually have vast minute consequences (which is part of why I became a film major despite never having seen a movie), but above all I’m an ardent believer in the idea comedy comes from tragedy, or as I famously like to quote, you gotta laugh to keep from crying.
(If you’ve never heard me say this, yes you have.)
Embeck also sacrificed a lot for a show like this to exist. Hours of, one might say, painful, torturous research. “I watched every Christopher Nolan movie.” Don’t let his sacrifice of a number of hours of his life he can’t get back be in vain!
Embeck is a triple threat! As writer, performer, and co-producer, Embeck thinks you’ll enjoy this show if you:
hate Christopher Nolan
love Christopher Nolan
don’t know Christopher Nolan enough to hate or love him
or his movies
enjoy classic video essayist like Jenny Nicholson and Lindsay Ellis
enjoy podcasts like How Did This Get Made? or The Worst Bestsellers
have a short attention span
so really, it’s perfect for everyone!
Christopher Nolan Hates Women will be at the Hudson Theater on Friday, April 3, 2026, showtime at 7 pm. Tickets available at https://joywholived.com/events/the-man-who-ate-time-85rbs.