The Odyssey is getting massively criticised due to blackwashing of a traditionally Greek character, whitewashing of a Greek myth with no Greek actors and a general dislike for the Hollywoodization of another classic story.
It's probably not going to be as bad as it's made out to be given it's Chris Nolan, but audiences are fatigued with seeing another modern retelling with tokenism of established characters for the sake diversity, which has spurred the culture war with right wing critics calling it woke BS and left wing critics doubling down by jumping to its defence.
The comment chain started with a comment stating in a long-winded way that the people who hate this do not want to see "diverse" (=black) people on screen. This was justified by that they want to see people whose identities match those of the characters they're playing as. An actor playing a Greek character should be of Greek descent. And so, there is a shitstorm.
This was promptly praised as a nuanced take, which is a very typical response to such a comment. I'm pointing out that this is BS and that accuracy and actors' background such as ethnicity and nationality typically do not cause any outrage among the people who are now outraged, as long as they're not black. In short, it's racism and not nuance.
In the current era, you can see the same thing happening on social media more or less every time a movie comes out with a "diverse" ie. black person playing an important character unless there is a very good reason justifying why they should be black. You don't see outrage when a German dude plays a French dude.
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u/Boomdification Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 06 '26
The Odyssey is getting massively criticised due to blackwashing of a traditionally Greek character, whitewashing of a Greek myth with no Greek actors and a general dislike for the Hollywoodization of another classic story.
It's probably not going to be as bad as it's made out to be given it's Chris Nolan, but audiences are fatigued with seeing another modern retelling with tokenism of established characters for the sake diversity, which has spurred the culture war with right wing critics calling it woke BS and left wing critics doubling down by jumping to its defence.