The Odyssey Movie and How the Culture War Broke Everybody's Brain
For the last few days, I’ve been watching an unfolding debate about Christopher Nolan’s movie adaptation of the Odyssey on social media. I say “debate” but in reality it’s mainly people delivering fairly predictable takes based on their pre-existing views and culture war affiliations rather than engaging with each other’s arguments. Those who oppose DEI were outraged by the “woke” casting decisions whereby Elliot Page — formerly known as Ellen Page — was chosen to play Sinon, an Ithacan warrior, while the roles of Helen and her sister Clytemnestra are both played by Lupita Nyong’o, who is black. In response to this news, Elon Musk declared that Nolan had “desecrated” the epic long before the movie was even released. Others, who think “representation” in entertainment is the most important thing since Gaza (about which most of them have now conveniently forgotten) obviously thought the casting was a triumph. It is Pride season, after all, and as we all know the ancient Greeks did have an affinity for at least some sections of the LGBTQ community.
Much of the response to the movie has been expressed in explicitly political terms which seems to me to say a lot more about the times we live in than the movie itself.
Sure, having a small, frail-looking transman play the role of a warrior doesn’t look credible on paper but this is negated by both the role in the story and the fact that we are, mercifully, spared a violation of our voluntary suspension of disbelief by the fact that Page’s character does not go around destroying Trojan warriors by the dozen with the viciousness only artificial testosterone can deliver. Nor are we taken out of the story to be “educated” about how the ancient Greeks really were dogmatic about the idea that “trans men are men”. Page just plays a minor male part well. That’s it.
The same is not quite true of Nyong’o because rather than playing the roles with respect to the source material, the casting of a black actress as Helen is undeniably evidence of the modern fashion for sacrificing historic immersion for the sake of diversity. Pointing this out is widely regarded as evidence of some sort of prejudice whereas, in my humble opinion, if you are remotely historically educated about the periods of time and civilisations in question, it is impossible not to be distracted by it: I can well remember going to see the Lempicka musical in New York — which I loved and wrote about here — and finding it difficult to immerse myself in scenes about the Russian Revolution, through which my ancestors lived, performed by what looked like the cast of NWA. I shouldn’t complain, really, as my local friend pointed out: “you should be grateful that Lenin’s murdering, raping and pillaging communist goons weren’t portrayed as the good guys!”
But while the characters of Helen and Clytemnestra are important, they are also minor. And they stand out precisely because the rest of the film looks like ancient Greece. It feels more like a creative quirk than yet another example of diversity being rammed down your throat. It helps that, as with Page, Nyong’o’s performance is solid and convincing.
The one criticism that can be made here is that Clytemnestra is for some reason portrayed as Helen’s twin, as big a travesty as Peter Jackson’s inexcusable decision to ruin the character of Faramir in the Lord of the Rings movie adaptation.
