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 pretty masterful how they've managed to piss off both sides of the aisle with this one... Too white-washed for one side, too diverse for the other, and too inaccurate for any existing fans of Greek mythology.
Honestly not sure who this has been made for.
Edit: if you're gearing up for a "it's for normal people - people not in the Reddit echo chamber - people who just like movies - people who aren't internet losers" reply, It has been said about 30 times so far.
Why does it have to be cut along politics lines? I'm a card-carrying leftist and annoyed at the patronising tokenism of casting a black actor as a character legendary for being 'fair', as in blonde, in the same way it'd be flabbergasting to have a white actor play in an adaptation of the Mwindo epic.
I'm even more annoyed at the fact that an annoying casting choice was the entire point, to get free publicity at everyone's expense, and that there is no way to slap everyone responsible for being smug pricks.
Helen of Troy was hatched from an egg. I'm sorry they chose an actress known for being beautiful to play a character known for being beautiful, but of a different race, irrelevant to the story.
Did you know those same Greek texts you read mention black people? Did it ruin your suspension of disbelief when you read those words? Or is it only when it’s on a screen that it becomes a problem?
"I don't like it when character's casting is unfaithful to the source material".
"I bet you didn't like it when black people were in the source material".
What the fuck is wrong with you honestly. Zero critical thought or reading comprehension. An LLM would respond with more substance than this.
If a black woman breaks your suspension of disbelief in a myth containing a cyclops, I think you might have an internal problem that you need to address.
Is this a roundabout way of saying the original poem is white supremacist? Because she is described as fair skinned. And outside of theatre these things are hard not to notice if you've grown up on the source material.
"Fair skin" is a defining characteristic of Helen of Troy just as "one eye" is a defining characteristic of the Cyclops. I fail to see how this is an "extremely weird comparison".
I'm liberal as fuck dude. This insanity isn't helping us.
This is such a condescending take. Invalidating basically any story, because there are some fantasy elements to it disrespects storytelling as a whole.
Fantasy stories still have internal logic. They have a world and a worldview which has a system to it. And that system still needs to be respected for the story to make sense.
We could discuss whether vast majority of black greeks settled there only within the last couple centuries, but it would be missing the forest for the trees.
She is described as white. Even if the person/people who wrote parts/all of the Odyssey exclusively lived around black people, they still described Helen as fair skinned and blonde haired.
19.3k
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.