I Saw Nolan's THE ODYSSEY as a Greek Archaeologist...
The Greek Mythologist, Jul 21, 2026 #TheOdyssey #ChristopherNolan #Homer
Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey is finally here... but did
it truly capture the essence of Homer's epic?
As a Greek archaeologist specializing in Classical Archaeology and Greek mythology, I wanted to answer a different question than most movie reviews. Rather than judging the cinematography or performances, I examine whether Nolan's adaptation preserves the themes, symbolism, and philosophy that made the Odyssey one of the greatest works ever written.
[…]
Chapters 00:00 - Intro 01:13 - Where I am coming from 03:17 - Judging an adaptation 04:52 - Does the movie capture the essence 10:02 - Nolan's additions 12:43 - Nolan's omissions 20:15 - One more issue 23:26 - Black Helen 30:30 - Homer's defenders 32:45 - Final verdict
****
Edited by Azizi Powell
This post provides the complete excerpt of the "chapter" of that podcast's auto-generated transcript that is labeled "Black Helen". In that chapter that Greek archeologist gives his opinion about Lupita Nyong'o being cast as Helen of Troy in that movie and his opinions about the public's reaction to that casting decision.
This post also presents some comments form that podcast's discussion thread with a focus on the subject about Black actress Lupita Nyong'o being casts in that movie as Helen of Troy.
The content of this post is presented for historical, folkloric, socio-cultural, and entertainment purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to all those who are featured in these videos and thanks to all those who are quoted in this pancocojams post.
-snip-
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2026/07/race-standards-of-beauty-and-odyssey.html for the closely related pancocojams post entitled "
That post includes a brief Wikipedia excerpt about The Odyssey epic poem.
Also, click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2026/07/race-in-ancient-greece-comments-from.html for the closely related pancocojams post entitled "Race In Ancient Greece: Comments From A YouTube Discussion Thread About Christopher Nolan's 2026 The Odyssey Movie".
****
TRANSCRIPT EXCERPT: "BLACK HELEN"
This is the complete transcript excerpt for a little prior to the "Black Helen" chapter of that podcast . (from 23:00 to 30:30; Chapter 8 "Black Helen" begins at 23: 26 in that auto-transcript).
This excerpt is given without time stamps. It includes a few minor spelling corrections for names.
"Personally, I thought Matt
Damon was excellent as Odysseus and Ann Hathaway was outstanding as Penelope.
Tom Holland did a solid job as
the Lemacus. Zendaya was fine as Athena. Nothing particularly remarkable,
but good. Overall, I had no major issues with the principal cast.
I mention all of these, of course, because the casting
sparked such an enormous controversy that some people even described it as an insult to Homer, to Greek history,
and even to Greek identity. Of course, none of these reactions had anything to
do with the actors I just mentioned.
They were directed at one particular casting choice, so it's time. Let's talk
about the elephant in the
room.
I remember when it was announced that Lupita Nyong'o would play both Helen of Troy and , Clytemnestra. And, I'll be honest, when I picture Helen of Troy, I don't imagine a black woman. So, I completely understand why that casting choice might have surprised some people. It isn't the image most of us have traditionally associated with the character. But I also remember thinking something else almost immediately. I thought, "We're no longer going to be talking about Homer, are we? We're going to end up talking about politics." And that's exactly what happened. The conversation quickly turned into an ideological battlefield.
People accused the film of
insulting Homer, insulting Greece, insulting Greek history, Greek mythology,
Greek identity. They spoke about
political agendas, called for boycots. The noise became overwhelming. So when I
finally watched the film, I wanted to
answer one simple question. Was all that outrage justified? In my opinion, not
even close.
Lupita Nyong'o appears on screen for only a few minutes and the
color of her skin has absolutely no relevance to the story. Nobody comments on
it. Her ethnicity is never discussed or
disputed. At no point does the film suggest that Nolan is trying to convince us that the ancient Greeks imagined Helen or
Clytemnestra as black women.
Within Nolan's film, her skin
color belongs to the actress, not to the character. The story never assigns it any narrative meaning, and I
think that's an important distinction. I have no idea why Nolan made that
casting choice. I don't know whether he
had any political motivations. I can't prove it.
And I'm certainly not going to
accuse him of something simply because other people believe it. All I can judge
is the film itself and watching the
film I never once felt that her race was part of the story. That leads to a
much more interesting question in my
opinion. When does a creative decision in an adaptation become genuinely
problematic and when is it simply part of an
artist's creative freedom? Because historical accuracy and artistic freedom are not the same thing. If a film
presented false ideas as historical fact or fundamentally distorted the
meaning of the original work, I would absolutely have a problem with that.
But
cinema isn't archaeology. It's art. And art has always interpreted, selected,
removed, and reinvented. If it didn't, adaptations wouldn't exist at all. We'd simply remake the exact same
story over and over again with newer technology. Of course, that doesn't mean
every artistic decision is beyond criticism. It
simply means those decisions should be judged by the work itself, not by
assumptions about the creator's intentions.
If someone's main concern was truly faithfulness to Homer, then I would expect the same level of outrage
over all of Nolan's other changes, the omissions, the additions, the
reinterpretations of characters. Instead, almost the entire public
conversation focused on the skin color of an actress who appears for only a few minutes. And I think that says a
great deal.
This entire controversy also reminded me one of the biggest
mistakes we can make when approaching the
ancient world. Anachronism, the tendency to read people from the past throughout
the ideological conflicts of the present. Ironically, I think Lupita Nyong'o herself fell into that trap when she said she would like to ask Homer why he
didn't devote more attention to women.
That's an entirely modern question, but it's being asked of a poet who lived
nearly 3,000 years ago. We cannot expect
someone from the 8th century BC to write according to the social values
and expectations of the 21st century. That is not a fair way to understand the past. But I think it's equally
unfair to claim that a film is trying to insult Homer, Greek history, Greek
identity, or an entire civilization based on a
single casting decision. If you're going to make a claim that serious, it
should be supported by the work itself.
Personally, and shoot me for it,
I didn't see anything in the film that justified it. What saddened me instead was this: Rather than discussing
nosttos, human resilience, hospitality, audacious intelligence, or the extraordinary poetry of
Homer, we ended up spending countless hours debating the skin color of an
actress who appears for only a few minutes.
Unfortunately, the discussion also brought out openly racist comments directed at Lupita Nyong'o, and that's genuinely disappointing. and disgusting. There is an enormous difference between criticizing a creative decision and attacking someone because of the race.
To be clear, I am not saying that everyone who disliked the casting choice was racist. Far from it. There were people who objected for reasons of historical aesthetics, and that's okay.
Others were concerned about what
they see as broader trends within the film industry. And yes, there were also
people expressing openly racist views.
Those are three completely
different positions. They should never be treated as if they're all the same.
In the end, the controversy certainly brought
more attention to the film, just not for the reasons it should have. And if
there's one positive thing to come out of
all this, it is that more people started talking about both the film and the Odyssey itself. I even saw people
quoting Homer's original description of Helen, which between us, I suspect many of them hadn't looked since high
school in Greece.
In any case, hopefully the next time we spend this much time discussing the Odyssey, we'll
spend more of it talking about the questions Homer asks and less about the skin
color of an actress."
****
SELECTED COMMENTS ABOUT THIS SUBJECT FROM THIS PODCAST'S DISCUSSION THREAD
Disclaimer: These are only a small portion of comments about Lupita Nyong'o being cast as Helen of Troy in Christopher Nolan's 2026 movie The Odyssey.
I don't agree with all of these comments that I selected to quote in this pancocojams compilation.
**
All of these comments are from July 17, 2026 to July 30, 2026.
These comments are presented without any explanations.
Numbers are added for referencing purposes only.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ol1K0-LZ1E
1. @germancuervo945
"Sometimes ethnicity doesn't matter, and sometimes it does.
Take Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, for example. Hardly anyone complained
about that casting, even though the character is white in the comics. But it
would definitely be jarring if Moana were played by Margot Robbie, or if King
T'Challa were played by Chris Pine. I think you should try a bit harder to
convince us why we shouldn't be bothered by Helen of Troy being portrayed as a
dark-skinned woman who, for that era, would have had to come from Sub-Saharan
Africa."
**
Reply
2. @djoetma
"Nicky Fury already was changed to Sam Jackson's look in the comics well before he was cast. He actually called Marvel about it and they said that this was their revamp of the character and they indeed too his image as a benchmark and that they hoped he would play him in case they would make a movie adaption.
Also Helen of Troy is the daughter of a swan, so why is casting a black actress a bridge too far? It's basically a fantasy story. Wakanda is in deep Africa and the point of the character when Kirby and Lee created him was that he was black because there weren't enough black superheroes. So it's definitely part of the character. Moana is from the original Oceanic cultures. So the idea is to have a historically accurate portrayal of that. The Mediterranean has Northern Africa as part of it, so to pick a black actress for, again, a character that was born out of a fantasy story, really isn't that far fetched."
**
Reply
3. @germancuervo945
"@djoetma All the same. The black Nick Fury did not replace the original, as he was created for an alternate universe. I think the fact that Helen is Black requires some context, just as there is an explanation for why Tarzan is white; otherwise, it becomes a mere distraction, as it is impossible not to view it as a decision imposed by inclusion policies."
**
Reply
4. @jyurimae
"the casting is issue is that how for other films like Moana or Black Panther, Hollywood wants/need it to be ethnically correct while saying that its OK to mix cast for Odyssey because it is just a myth."
**
5. @daniel_brqlo
"Regarding the "Black Helen", you got it
backwards.
The fact that the movie never explains or talk about why she is black (or also so many other characters are black, indian, korean) is precisely what angers the critics of modern diverse casting the most. It's perfeclty ok to have a person that doesn't belong to the region/period in a movie, as long as you explain why. If you just insert people from different ethnicities without logic or reason, it completelly takes you out of the immersion and the only reason this is done is for socio-political agendas now a days.
Imagine if in The Woman King, instead of Viola Davis we had Charlize Theron. No one would say that's ok.
And yes... Hollywood has done this thousands of times in the
past, but that doesn't make it right either."
**
6. @Refreshment01
"28:35 Dishonest argument. The casting was leaked months
before the movie release so understandably it was the practical thing to debate
about."
**
7. @MissMy5.0
"I think the reason nolan cast each was the problem. Nobody cared when Vanessa Williams was cast previously. Lupita constantly and consistently makes openly racist and bigoted remarks herself. This is what draws so many comebacks towards her. The reasons he made the choices he did was and is still problematic at best and malicious at worst."
**
Reply
8. @ready_here
"No. Most people who were angry about the casting of lupita came forth without knowing anything about what she might have said or written about anything. They just did not like the blackness of her. And they made that very clear repeatedly."
**
Reply
9. @Skeevy111
"@ready_here because it’s been forced to us for the last 10 years and we get shouted down if we complain. Let’s be real, that is exactly the intention for Nolan casting Lupita. To spark outrage which then leads to buzz online and essentially free press"
**
10. @pagemastrogiovanni9195
"Here's the thing in EVERY version of Clash of the Titans,
a very white actress plays Andromeda. Andromeda is described as dark and
Ethiopian BUT I have NEVER heard anyone have a problem with this. I only
know this because I have always been obsessed with Greek and Roman mythology
since I was very young.
The language is Greek NEITHER British English or American English is true to what they spoke in Homer's Odyssey.
My ex boyfriend was British because he was born in Birmingham, England, BUT both of his parents are very Greek. He had olive skin, so only darker Europeans would fit the Greek look. Also I visited Greece in the summer of 2004 while they were prepping for the Olympics and 99% had very dark hair, dark eyes, and tans. Diane Kruger who played Helen of Troy in Troy isn't what I think of when I think of Helen. Jessica Alba perhaps.
[In Greek mythology, Andromeda is the Ethiopian princess and
daughter of King Cepheus and Queen Cassiopeia. After her mother boasted that
Andromeda was more beautiful than the sea-nymphs (Nereids), an angry Poseidon
sent a sea monster to ravage the kingdom. To appease the god, Andromeda was
chained to a coastal rock as a human sacrifice. She was rescued by the hero
Perseus, who slew the monster and married her ]
[The only description of Helen from the Illiad and the
Odyssey:
In the ancient texts, Helen's specific physical features are
rarely described, allowing her beauty to remain an abstract, idealized concept.
Homer’s Iliad frequently describes her as "white-armed," which in
ancient Greece denoted high social status and a life free of manual labor. When
she appears on the walls of Troy, the elders remark that she possesses the face
and aura of an immortal goddess. Later classical and Renaissance artists often
depicted her with fair skin and long, golden locks.]
**
Reply
11. @AnneBoleyn-p8d
"My husband is Greek and he has pale skin, although he also
tans well. His family are pale unless they sit in the sun. So no, you wouldn’t
need to cast “dark” Europeans to play a Greek. My husband literally passes as
English until he opens his mouth. My mum is 100% Scottish but she tans darker
than my husband and has darker hair and eyes, so do my aunt and grandmother.
Pale skin was considered a beauty ideal in ancient times as it meant you didn’t
need to go outside much. That was the same in Greece as many are pale
underneath their shirts.
Skin tones in Greece are very varied and there are a lot of
Roma who are brown skinned. You could cast someone with very olive skin and
black hair, but also someone like my husband with pale brown hair, green eyes
and sunburnt skin (yes he burns in Greece because his skin isn’t used to strong
sunlight anymore) and still accurately depict a Greek. Each time I’ve been to
Greece in the winter, there were many without tans. Islanders can be pretty
dark though. Ime, Greek skin tones and features are more diverse than northern
and Western Europe.
Saying only darker Europeans can play a Greek is like saying
only people like me can play an Irish woman because I have red hair, despite
90% of Irish people having dark hair just because red hair is more common there
than say Poland.
Personally, I wouldn’t care if Nollywood ran a film about
King Arthur and cast a black Nigerian to play him. I also don’t care how gods
and goddesses are portrayed cause they’re not human and I also don’t care how
mythological people like Helen of Troy is depicted. For me what’s important is
the themes of the story, not what the characters look like.
**
12.
"This is one of the best reasoned responses about Nolan's Odyssey. You've helped change my mind in a few spots, for the better I believe. Your perspective on Helen was especially appreciated."
**
13. s2xg112
"Nolan did a Bridgerton by casting a black woman in a role
with no context as to why he made such a weird casting decision. He became a
provocatour"
**
Reply
14. @vetinaris1297
"Wait until you find out what West Side Story did with Romeo
and Juliet.
Or what U571 did with documented historical facts.
Youre gonna be so outraged ๐"
**
Reply
15. @billydavis4252
"Just like when Shakespeare used men to
play the part of women and a white man to play the part of Othello?
Then again, you might be an expert on women who are born from an egg.
It's funny how people get so upset at fictional characters not matching their preferences. Remember when people got upset at a black woman playing a mermaid yet they had no idea that the mermaid was a substitute for the male author.
Ah, what a whimpering collection of generations.
Now the man in the video makes excellent
points, but he isn't showing an addiction to a woke or anti-woke social
identity."
**
Reply
16. @runehjelm9406
"@billydavis4252 Waiiitt... so you are saying that Shakespeare
took HIS OWN story and did with it what he wanted??
Ya, that is really the same as taking
someone else's work and vandalising it."
**
Reply
17. @madgeapple
"
@runehjelm9406 ALL of Shakespeare's
plays were inspired by ancient stories and myths."
**
18. @tripletrollface
"I've enjoyed listening to your assessment overall, but the
breakdown of Lupita's casting is missing key points.
1. When you race-swap a story's "most beautiful woman in the world", you insult a race. This would be the universal reaction if a white woman would have been cast in a reverse scenario. The same would be true if you race-swap a story's hero or god. They represent a culture's virtues and role models. Race-swapping them is expropriating those virtues to another race. It's deeply insulting and insensitive.
One should also see this race-swapping in the context of the cultural condition of our time. Race-swapping has become a systematic pattern and almost always in one direction. It is not acceptable for that soul-wrecking cultural abuse to continue as if Europeans aren't entitled to their own history, culture and myths.
2. The universe you create as a filmmaker has to remain internally consistent in order not to break immersion, even if it's fictional. The serious viewer expects to be transported to ancient Greece without having that immersion interrupted by seeing representation of characters that are not credibly of that time and period. The same is true for armour and costumes (although the latter would only affect people aware of what it historically looked like).
A viewer shouldn't be asking himself the question "I thought Helen was Greek. Why is she black?" in the middle of the spectacle. He shouldn't wonder "Is she a sub-Saharan princess now? How did she get married to Menelaus? Why is there a Korean in Odysseus' retinue?"
3. If her skin colour is irrelevant to Nolan's adaptation, why cast a different skin colour to begin with? Is there any benefit to casting her except checking the quota to be eligible for an Oscar? Is she the best actress? No. Is she the most beautiful woman on Earth? Not even close. Is she cheaper? Earning 2-3 million $$ for less than 4 minutes of screentime, I guess not.
The only benefit I can think of is that it would create controversy and a viral online debate. And there's no such thing as bad publicity when everyone's talking about your product. And that the debate of Homer's The Odyssey is now centered around casting, skin colour and cultural apropriation, is ENTIRELY the fault of Christopher Nolan.
The casting is a blunder of epic proportions. That it's made by one of my favourite film directors, doesn't change that fact.
And I understand that you'd rather talk about Homer's questions and story than this, but people have talked about Homer for 3.000 years and will for many more. But THIS is a question of our time, and our lives, and our cultural, political situation which concerns us all right now."
**
19. @frankblaeuer3571
"I couldn't care less about by the color of Helen
of Troy’s skin but I struggle with the decision to use the same actress in the
roles of both Helen and Clytemnestra. I know the two characters are
half-sisters but the choice still feels odd to me. The dual casting distracted
me not her skin color."
**
20. @0wlet290
"Nolan went Meta with Lupita as Helen. He knew exactly what
it will do. Her face will once again be a reason for a stupid war."
**
Reply
21. @aboucard93
"I said the same thing. Her face started a war. Nolan is a
genius and the people fell right into it"
**
Reply
22. @vekonglengkong
"Omfg you are absolutely right! He did that on purpose to
create a "war" on the internet. Once again Helen caused a useless war
๐คฃ
So Mindblowing!!!"
**
Reply
23. @guitardisco
"I was on the fence abt her casting but now I love it lmao.
She rly did start an ideological war, how funny"
**
Reply
24. @puri2911
"The ironic thing: She was the reason why I went on the first
day. Usually I don't go on the premiere instead I would have gone at some later
point into the movie. But after all the conflicts cooked up so intensively, I
couldn't wait any longer too see which community is right."
**
Reply
25. @CuriousCrow-mp4cx
"Exactly. The culture war priests went for the bait hook,
line, and sinker."
**
Reply
26. @malkuusha
"There is no “stupid war” right now. People are rightfully
disappointed because of the sheer hypocrisy flourishing in the Hollywood and
the slop they make just to ponder to the modern “progressive” audience and to
qualify for the Oscars. We should respect all cultures unless it’s a white
people’s culture, that’s what they say. Also, Nolan saying that he won’t
include an orchestra score in the movie because it didn’t exist back then but
casting a black woman as Helen of Troy, 80lb trans man as one of the strongest
warriors, and black rappers as poets, while also using Viking ships as a prom
instead of the Greek ones. And not a single Greek actor either. That’s
“representation” for you. Do you really think people are angry at this for no
reason? Like, imagine someone would cast a white person for the new Black
Panther movie. Or for a movie about, let’s say, Nelson Mandela. What would you
say then? That it’s stupid to be mad about it, that it’s not a big deal? I
doubt it. Not to mention, the writing of this movie is downright awful and
Odysseus character lacks any depth, unlike in the Homer’s epic."
**
Reply
27. @0wlet290
"@malkuusha yes, there are people giving actual critique
and this is fine. But a lot of it goes into the racism direction - which is no.
Also, Homers story is pure fiction, a Biographical movie about a real person is
something completely else - so the casting does actually matter more - The
odyssey is purely an artpiece that can be interpreted as you wish - history is
not. I also agree that the writing and accuracy isnt the best thing, but people
also say they wish it would be more like the movie Troy, which wasnt accurate
at all as well - just that the cast was whiter.
Also, again, This is nolan - he doesnt have to pander to anyone to earn an oscar. He won an oscar for a movie where nothing is being pandered to a certain audience. He won awards for movies where people stated that the women were written badly. You are exaggerating and underestimate Nolans position in the cinema world."
Reply
28. @SouravDas-vi1jh
"@malkuusha I have seen many Helen statue or sculpture
that is black or dark grey or dark brown. So it is historically correct"
**
Reply
29. @luccasdubai
"Its not that deep, he simply pandered to the “modern
audience” nothing more, nothing less."
Reply
30. @shaggy9756
"@luccasdubai like they pandered to audiences by making
greeks speak in yee haw and making her human instead of half bird? what are you
on about a movie it LITERALLY made for audiances."
**
Reply
31. @luccasdubai
"@shaggy9756 A normal audiance doesn't require DEI to be
included everywhere. I won't argue something so stupid as denying reality with
you."
**
"The joke is that recent archaeological analysis of ancient
gene sample found that during the bronze age most Europeans had dark skin, it
wasn't until the Iron age that light skin became dominant largely due to modern
farming meaning that people got less vitamin D from their food."
**
Reply
33. @malkuusha
"@comicipedia okay, they had darker skin than now maybe,
but they still were white, not black. Helen of Troy in the Odyssey is literally
depicted as a blond woman with fair skin."
**
Reply
34. @comicipedia
"@malkuusha This is a quote from the study
"many Europeans kept the dark skins of their African
ancestors well within the Bronze and Iron ages."
At least 50% of Europeans were not white well in to the
Iron Age with many having what we would consider black skin. Helen of Troy is
not depicted as a blonde woman by Homer, she appears as blonde in 15th-century
Renaissance Italian art, 2000 years after it was written."
**
Reply
35. @C_R_O_M________
"@comicipedia Absolute and utter nonsense!"
**
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36. @RuthStaus
"@C_R_O_M______Perhaps you should be reading the genetics
research regarding skin color, which is a highly complex trait, just like
height? The genes for light skin and blue eyes are ancient, and African in
origin. The San people of the Kalahari are generally light skinned with blue
eyes. One can choose willful ignorance regarding science or one can decide to
engage with it in a critical, informed, educated manner. The choice, of course,
is yours."
**
Reply
37. @Abstraction-5249
"@C_R_O_M______ Even the ROMANS used to be more brown. A 2019
study on Roman genetics found that ancient Romans were genetically most related
to modern day Cypriots. In turn, modern day Cypriots are genetically closer to
modern day Near Eastern peoples than they are to Europeans.
In other words, the Romans were genetically Near Eastern, or at least closer to Near Eastern than to Europeans. In fact, a later study from 2024 found a similar result in Pompeii. The ancient Pompians were most related to modern Near Eastern peoples.
So if even the Romans and Pompians were genetically Near
Eastern, imagine how much more Near Eastern the ancient Greeks would've been
since Greece is even closer to the Near East than Italy is."
**
38. @christoph4977
" "The skin belongs to the actress, not the
character" - there, what a beautiful statement."
"I enjoyed your take but I do argue with your logic in regard
to the many anachronisms, including the casting choices.
Nolan clearly sought to position his film as serious and as being set particularly in ancient Greece. The characters proclaim that they are Greeks. The film goes to painstaking lengths to appear ancient and as if it is a retelling of the Odyssey story through all of its marketing.
It’s only natural for the audience to be confused by the
ruptures with accuracy, the broad liberties Nolan took without providing solid
explanation or reason for. He stated in interviews that he sought to bring
historical accuracy, but then contradicted himself saying he wanted to ground
it in the modern. I think he made conflicting choices and they aren’t perceived
well, which is a flaw in the work itself, not an error in how the audience
reads it. We don’t have to make excuses for his lapses in judgement."
**
Reply
40. @CatHasOpinions734
"Sincere question: is this an objection that you've had with
basically every Hollywood adaptation of this kind of story? Because it's
nothing new. Lupita Nyong'o isn't any less Greek than 99.9% of actors cast as
Greek characters in Greek stories. The only difference between her and those
casting decisions you probably didn't object to is that she isn't white, but
honestly if we're going by American culture it wasn't that long ago that Greek
immigrants weren't considered white, either. And if we want to discuss
historical accuracy, the modern notion of "whiteness" would seem
absolutely absurd in Homer's time.
I'm Greek, and I'd love to see more Greek/Mediterranean
representation in Hollywood films, but I don't mind the current casting, there
aren't that many Greek actors in Hollywood and I think most of the cast does a
really great job. But if we're going to be casting non-Greek people in these
roles, I have a lot of skepticism for people who think casting a person with
Anglo-Saxon heritage is fine but casting a person with African heritage isn't."
**
41. @gbrcards2469
"Black Helen pulled me completely out sorry not sorry"
**
Reply
42. @tree9273
"why when there were other black characters?"
**
43. @shmittysmok3910
"Helen of Detroit"
**
44. @D_and_B_Gaming
"This is one of the best reasoned responses about Nolan's
Odyssey. You've helped change my mind in a few spots, for the better I believe.
Your perspective on Helen was especially appreciated."
**
45. @grepora
"Helen being long marketed as the most beautiful woman in the
world and "the face that launched a thousand ships" led to high
expectations for the actor casted. I
doubt that a Greek king would choose to marry a woman from Africa with dark
skin since she would be considered a barbarian (i.e., not a Greek). The ancient Greeks were racists."
**
Reply
46. @OhioTies
"@grepora who gives af its a made up poem, the movie
isn't real the characters can be casted however the director sees fit. Lupita
is one of the most beautiful women in the world today. so real person into a
movie about some sh-t* that never happened whats the issue? yall so weird
with this bullsh-t*
-snip-
*These words are fully spelled out in this comment.
**
Reply
47. @DarlinAkaDarlene
"@OhioTies, I like Lupita but one of the most beautiful women
today she is not. But to each his own."
**
Reply
48. @martinpavlak7052
"@OhioTies Lot of people give a fu-k* Greek´s standards
of beauty were simply different. Even the maker of this video said this is not
how they imagine Helen. If you don´t care or the author of the video doesn´t
really care that´s great. Personally I don´t care that much either but Helen
represents a concept not a historical figure and people should be allowed to
give a fu-k* because let´s be honest there was a very specific calculation from
Noland to cast her. . That being said 90% of opinions are stricly coming from
racist perspectives, that´s true"
-snip-
**
Reply
49. @joedorben3504
"@DarlinAkaDarlene there is no woman he couldve casted
that'd have universally been viewed as one of the most beautiful women on
Earth. It's just way too subjective"
**
Reply
50. @zero1343
"@OhioTies the poem
in question is one of the foundational pieces of western literature.
Yes people give a fu-k* about it."
-snip-
**
Reply
51. @chancellorpalpatine7486
"@g @grepora
You dont know what mycenaeans thought about black people, it was too
long ago to know that for sure. Its also pretty irrelevant, since its just the
actors skin color and helen isn't even a major character in the odyssey really"
**
52. @stevedocherty1816
"The issue with Helen, for me, isn't about her
being black, but more - from a political
viewpoint - knowing that if this was a culturally Black mythos being adapted,
there would be no situation where a white actor would be allowed to be cast as
a black character. That single hypocrisy is what makes black casting of
historical European races fail the argument that it's performance that matters.
Which, by the way, is my issue with the movie in it's entirety. All these US
and English actors piss me off just as much. We live in an age where Greek cast
could star in this level of a movie. In fact for me, it would be better as I
wouldn't have the see "
**
53. @justbenelson
"You never felt Lupita's race had anything to do with the
story, perhaps, but just as every casting choice of actors and actresses who
are so very apparently NOT Greek, it no doubt must've removed you from the
story every time you saw them in those positions when they either claimed to be
Greek, or are known as Greeks. You can't
tell me a black man and an Asian man pass as Greeks. It's subtle things like that that personally
remove me from being fully immersed in a story,
especially when said story is directed by a person who is known for his
grounded approach to storytelling, casting and special effects. I also reject the excuse that "she was
only in the film for a few minutes," as if to say out of sight, out of
mind. Lupita's Helen is now a part of
that Odyssey universe...she's cannon.
She didn't go away once she left the screen. I have the exact same problem with casting
John Wayne as Genghis Khan and countless other white actors cast in ethnically
wrong roles. I don't have a problem with
passable casting choices, but blatant miscasting choices, I do.
I'll tell you what the motivation to casting such people in those roles is: Oscar nominations that require DEI casting. DEI is a modern invention that didn't exist 3000 years ago. The reason why so many people are outraged is because even though we live in an era in Hollywood of where remakes are the norm, no studio will have the guts to make The Odyssey anytime soon because Nolan's films have become a cultural event that they're untouchable, so we're stuck with this version for a long, long time. I need to be clear that I'm not condemning this film altogether. I intend to see it, in fact, but I do have a problem with a director of Nolan's prestige selling out his principles to guarantee himself some awards"
**
54. @abarbar06
"I think the racial controversy comes from the fact that this
satiation happens in Hollywood so often these days. European stories are made
with multiracial casts, but non-European stories are made with without such
diverse casting. That's my take anyway"
**
55. @ScoutSolis
"For the last 40 or so years, theatre companies
in the US have been producing works in which non-white actors have been cast in
roles that have traditionally been given to white actors. There are Black,
Asian, Latinx and even women who have played Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Hamlet,
Falstaff, and any number of characters from Greek Classical Theatre. This, in
turn, opened up other roles in more recent classical plays (Ibsen, Chekhov,
Miller) to actors of color. Audiences have had no trouble seeing past color and
cultural background in these productions. Film is finally catching up with this
contemporary trend and I am glad to see it.
You, sir, have made an admirable stand on this issue. Art is not
archeology. Homer does not belong to Greece, but to the world. This is
Christopher Nolan's approach: find the best actors for HIS adaptation."
**
56. @jollyandwaylo
"Why do you think Helen was white? Greeks knew about
Ethiopians which I understand from other experts, the Greeks considered the
Ethiopian women to be beautiful."
**
Reply
57. @enyalios316
"@jollyandwaylo In the Iliad and Odyssee, Helen has the
epithet ฮปฮตฯ
ฮบฯ́ฮปฮตฮฝฮฟฯ, meaning something like "white-armed". Euripides
and Sappho describe her hair as ฮพฮฑฮฝฮธฮฟ́ฯ (blonde or golden)."
**
Reply
58. @compatriot852
"@jollyandwaylo
because when they were actually black, they were pointed out like Memnon
and the Ethiopians for having burnt faces"
**
59. @VRO_000
"Yeah, i can't believe they wouldn't want to face accusations
of minority erasure... it's not like hollywood had a history of doing that for
a long time. What next, germans being careful about what they say about jews ?
**
Reply
60. @vladimirrodionov5391
"Well, for decades (and if you count theatre as well, then
for centuries) white actors in blackface played black characters. Same for
native american characters. And now you
can't take a little backlash?"
**
Reply
61. @YuriXRamirez
"@VRO @VRO_000 are you saying it’s ok to erase
white people because Hollywood has done that in the past?"
**
62. @lindmo
"Is it believable that a sub-saharan black character as the
most beautiful woman in the world, would NOT be commented upon by any of the
Greeks? I doubt that the ancient greeks where color-blind in the way Martin
Luther King envisioned. So the fact that her color plays no part as you say,
makes it hard to suspend my belief. I don't see the character from the book, I
see a modern political statement about diversity and inclusion. Just like
having a black queen of england in the tv-series Bridgerton should have had an
effect on the british aristocracts, (yet it is threated as perfectly normal)."
**
Reply
63. @MrRayRockstar
"Its a MOVIE!!!!!"
**
Reply
64. @lindmo
"@MrRayRockstar Why do
You care so much? It is just an opinion, calm down"
**
65. @Mr.HistoryPodcast
"Helen of Troy: 'The color of her skin has absolutely no
relevance to the story. Nobody comments on it.'
Isn't that exaxtly the issue? None of the Greeks are surprised to see the king of Sparta being married to an African woman? In a world that Nolan depicts as being very aware of its own culture, society and civilization, just after bringing another to its end? There is a scene where one 'Greek' says: 'We are Greeks.' But what does that mean, if an Indian and Korean man stand next to him?
An artist is free to interpret source material. And the
audience is free to point out mistakes in their interpretation. They could have
chosen to call the movie 'An Odyssey' instead of 'THE Odyssey'.
It's not political. It's not racist. It's anachronism and misrepresenting tradition and the origin of modern culture. And it ads absolutely nothing to the storytelling. If nothint else, it only distracts from it."
**
66. @anson.meadows
"I would have preferred a mostly Greek cast, spoken in Ionic
Greek, with more faithfulness to every element of the original text. But that’s
my preference."
**
Reply
67. @brostelio
"Mel Gibson's the man!"
**
Reply
68. @gamatoutsikos
"@brostelio I thought he is Scottish"
**
Reply
69. @whiteman6967
" @gamatoutsikos yeah but he would make a very faithful
adaptation of the oddysey if he wanted to."
**
Reply
70. @gamatoutsikos
"@whiteman6967 I was joking. He's not Scottish and that was
the entire controversy when he played Braveheart. There is nothing
Mediterranean about him so I'm not understanding how he would make anything
more realistic"
**
Reply
71. @whiteman6967
"@gamatoutsikos I couldn't be a farked looking up his
ethnicity so i guess you got me there lol. The reason people mention him is because he directed apocalypto which was a
movie about pre colonial central america and he cast solely south americans for
the movie and from what I hear its pretty historically accurate. Though I know
little about central american history and havent seen the movie so that could
be incorrect."
**
Reply
72. @gamatoutsikos
"@whiteman6967 what do you want to be historically accurate
about Helen of Troy? According to Homer her mother was from Sparta and her
father was a swan. Is that accurate enough for you? Do you know any half humans
half swans?
I'm Greek and I've read the Odyssey story (it is a story not
a historical telling of a real event). Nolan did a banging job capturing the
essence and if a few people get interested after this movie to read Homer's
work then that makes the film super successful."
****
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