That being said, there was one thing that did kinda bother me about Inception. Just one teeny nitpicky little thing, namely: WHAT IN THE HELL WAS ELLEN PAGE WEARING?!!! Ok, I get that she's supposed to be student so she maybe wouldn't have the most expensive wardrobe in the world, but why would she have such a drab and frumpy one? I mean, there are plenty of stylish students out there. Just because a girl has a brain doesn't mean she has to dress like a sad sack.
Page's wardrobe is even more glaring when compared with what the other characters were wearing. It seemed like everybody looked good, like really good, except for Ellen Page! I mean, check it out if you don't believe me:
Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Leo Dicaprio looked like they just walked off a GQ photoshoot, for goodness sake! And Marion Cotillard looked like an old-school Hollywood bombshell in glamorous, sensual couture. (On a side note, did anybody else want to scream "No!!" when she dropped her fabulous shoes over the side of the building? No? Am I bad person for thinking that during that scene? Well, maybe...)
Anyway, I'm not saying that every female movie character has to be dressed to the nines like Mal in Inception or that all film women need to have an specific "look". I mean, Mal isn't real, even within the context of the movie; she's a projection of Cobb's memory and is no doubt idealized. No real women dress like that all of the time!
I actually like it when movies have female characters who look like real women. I wouldn't have wanted Ellen Page's character to look like a Bond girl or like some sort of sex kitten, or even like a fashionista. However, it seemed like she was purposely dressed to look jarringly bad! Everyone else looked like clothing models, while her pants didn't even fit! They were way too long and bunched up weirdly around her dirty-looking boots.
Also, take the shirt that she's wearing in the above photo. It's way too baggy and boxed-shaped to be even slightly flattering. She actually looks kinda like she's pregnant. The colors she wore throughout the movie were pretty dull as well. I actually thought her neckerchiefs were cute and quirky, but I think I counted 87 of them, which is overkill, needless to say. There are other accessories a girl can wear, you know. Like earrings. Or a necklace. Or a bracelet. Page wears not a single one of these in the movie, at least not that I could see.
So I'm left wondering: did they dress Ellen Page this way because Ariadne was a "geek"? Apparently just because she was an intelligent woman, she had to be dressed in the most unflattering, frumpy wardrobe of any character in the film. Leo DiCaprio's and Joseph Gordon-Levitt's characters are presumably extremely smart as well, yet these geek guys look great!
What's the deal with making geek women in movies look either extremely over-sexualized (like in librarian glasses and some sort of ridiculously tight lab coat) or really disheveled and unattractive? The stereotype of the homely, poorly dressed nerd girl is clearly still with us. Not all intelligent or "geeky" women dress like they just threw on the worst clothes in their closets and called it a day. Plenty of them are stylish! Even geek girls who aren't that into fashion probably have some clothes that at least fit. Or wear an accessory once in a while. Nobody likes stereotypes, and hopefully ones about geek girls are on their way out.
