There are two ways a historical drama can diminish men. It can give their achievements to somebody else. It can also rewrite their judgment and ability so that they appear incapable of succeeding without an invented heroine.
Both deserve scrutiny.
A strong female character is not the problem. Taking a real man’s place in history, or manufacturing male incompetence to establish her superiority, is. When these choices appear inside a film presented as inspired by true events, viewers deserve to know what has been changed.
Netflix’s UNABOMBER (2026) brings that question into focus.
Shailene Woodley plays Joanne Miller, a fictional FBI investigator. Netflix describes her as the only member of the team who believes the key to identifying the bomber lies in analysing his manifesto. Screenwriter Sam Chalsen acknowledges that the investigators and their dramatic conflict were created for the film. Netflix’s production account.
That is more than adding a woman to the story. It gives her exclusive possession of the insight that matters.
The distinction is consequential. A colleague who disagrees with a sound proposal may have understandable reasons. But a story in which the heroine repeatedly sees what the surrounding men cannot can build her authority by diminishing theirs. Their failure becomes the measure of her brilliance.
Our objection concerns that manufactured disparity as much as the reassignment of credit.
The FBI’s historical account describes investigators already analysing the bomber’s writings, Kathleen Puckett leading profiling efforts, and senior officials supporting publication of the manifesto because someone might recognise its author. Terry Turchie and others contributed to the investigative work. This was a collective effort involving both men and women, not the exclusive insight of Joanne Miller. FBI retrospective.
Because Miller and her colleagues are fictionalised, we cannot simply identify one real man whose name was changed. But fictional names do not prevent audiences from drawing conclusions about the real investigation. Viewers can leave believing that the men responsible lacked the understanding supplied by one exceptional woman.
Why construct that impression when the historical achievement already provides a compelling story?
The Courier (2020/2021) supplies an unusually explicit comparison.
Its fictional CIA officer Emily Donovan, played by Rachel Brosnahan, combines roles held by male officers. Writer Tom O’Connor openly explains that the filmmakers preferred a woman for the part. The accompanying production commentary describes her male superiors believing they are directing plans that Emily devised. She must manage their perceptions while concealing the extent of her own capability. Production commentary.
The invention therefore operates on two levels. Men’s historical roles help furnish the female character, while the dramatic relationship makes men less perceptive than she is.
We do not need to claim that every male character is incompetent in every scene to challenge this device. The relevant question is why an invented contrast in competence should become part of the audience’s understanding of a real operation.
In The Aeronauts (2019), an identifiable man disappears from the central achievement.
On 5 September 1862, James Glaisher and Henry Coxwell made their record-breaking balloon ascent. Glaisher lost consciousness. Coxwell, whose hands had become unusable, opened the gas-release valve with his teeth, enabling their descent. Linda Hall Library’s historical account.
The film retains Glaisher but replaces Coxwell with Amelia Wren, a fictional balloonist played by Felicity Jones. Wren draws inspiration from real female balloonists, but those women were not Glaisher’s partner on that flight. Coxwell’s place in the partnership—and the central rescue role—passes to an invented heroine. Smithsonian’s comparison.
Director Tom Harper connected the creation of Wren to the need for substantial female characters and efforts to address gender imbalance. That explains the representational ambition. It does not make Coxwell’s contribution expendable. Harper’s explanation.
The portrayal of Glaisher raises a related question. TIME’s reviewer criticised the film for rendering him a “brainy bumbler” alongside its heroic woman. That is a critical assessment, but it identifies precisely the contrast worth examining: female capability heightened through male inadequacy. Film review.
Glaisher really did need rescuing. Showing that is not unfair to him. Removing the man who rescued him is the historical distortion; any additional portrayal of Glaisher as ineffectual must be judged against the scenes and the record.
Operation Finale (2018) provides another clear case of a man’s role being reassigned.
Dr Yonah Elian helped sedate Adolf Eichmann for his removal from Argentina. The film gives that medical role to Dr Hanna Elian, played by Mélanie Laurent, and adds a romance. NPR independently documented Elian’s contribution through reporting involving his family and the Mossad officer who recruited him. NPR’s investigation.
Screenwriter Matthew Orton said the gender change partly responded to casual sexism in participants’ accounts of the operation’s female agent. Challenging those attitudes is an understandable creative aim. Why should another man’s identity and contribution be the price of doing so? Creator interview.
These films do not all make the same changes. Some replace a historical participant. Others combine contributions or invent professional conflict. The evidence should determine the criticism in each case.
But the underlying standard is consistent: men’s achievements deserve accurate attribution, and their competence should not be diminished through invention merely to make another character more impressive.
Calling a production a drama does not answer that objection. Nobody expects every conversation to have been recorded or every event to appear in full. Changing who supplied decisive expertise, or who failed to recognise it, shapes the substance of the story.
Nor does “creative licence” tell an audience enough. A viewer cannot assess a substantial alteration they have not been told about.
Where a film replaces a historical participant, transfers significant achievements or invents a central contrast in professional competence, we argue that it should say so plainly before the story begins. Publicity interviews explaining those decisions elsewhere are not a substitute for informing the people watching.
Disclosure would not put those choices beyond criticism. A film can openly acknowledge an invention and still deserve challenge for the way it portrays men. But disclosure would prevent viewers from having to discover afterwards that the history they believed was a constructed version of who deserved credit and who lacked ability.
We do not need to establish hostility toward men as a private motive to examine these effects. The choices on screen, and their departure from the historical record, are legitimate subjects for men’s advocacy.
Strong female characters do not require real men to disappear—or the men around them to be made to seem incompetent or incapable.