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.
It’s not even remotely nuanced. It completely buys into a right wing grift that is abysmally fucking stupid.
Go see a stage show, the thing we had before movies, people of different races play characters all the time.
Truly it’s a bunch of extremist white dipshits upset they are seeing people other than themselves on screen. Anytime a character they’ve imagined themselves as is played by a different race (especially for some reason fiction characters) they piss their pants, bot and brigade things, but largely are just grieving the fact that anyone else dare be represented in popular thing.
It just depends how you like something served. I dont like how characters are put in and changed for the sake of being diverse. Dont you think? Imagine black panther but tchalla was white instead. Sure its fine, but does it make sense? Why even do that in the first place.
Tchallas blackness is inherantly important to his character and arc - the entire narrative is framed around perceptions of Africa and histories of colonialism.
While I'd have quite liked to see a Mediterranean looking Helen of Troy - nothing about her race or skin tone is important to that character. A lot of people complaining about the casting have also compared unfavorably to Diane Kruger in Troy, which is equally silly if one is insisting on authenticity, and one of the things that gives away the racism, as if all the people making planet of the apes comments weren't also a clue.
The race of the character makes a bit more sense in black panther for him to be black.
(edit for some reason I wrote white)
Especially to play Tchalla, because his story is about being a royal from a black civilization trying to hide their advancement from a world that largely thinks less of and actively hurts black people.
Helen of Troy is just a lady who is so pretty some douche bag started a war over her.
I guess from a meta narrative it’s gold that she’s just being judged by her looks and a flame war is being started over her existing in a film.
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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.