Dakota Beacon

The pandering cynicism of Christopher Nolan is on full display with the release of trailers for his new film, The Odyssey. He took the Western world’s most fundamental mythical legend, that of the Trojan war and its immediate aftermath and turned it into a shameless grab for approval by the rest of his woke kind.   It is a legend woven into our everyday speech, in fact:  “the face that launched a thousand ships”.  Helen of Troy.  A woman so surpassingly beautiful - the daughter of a god - that great nations went to war just over her.  The myth belongs to the world, but it also belongs to Greek culture.

So for some perverse reason, Nolan wronged the Greeks, the general public, women in general and his choice for Helen of Troy - Lupita N’yongo, and threw everything in their faces.  Lupita N’yongo, very obviously sub-Saharan African, was loaded into the canon and Nolan lit the fuse.  She would have been well-advised to simply turn down the part.  And Nolan might as well have tapped Michelle Obama (she’d have said yes).  It is as much an insult to N’yongo as to the Greek myth.  In fact, my question is this:  why did Nolan go so traditional and cast a cis-woman in the first place?  He could have checked one more box.  Now N’yongo is out there having to defend herself and Nolan.  About all she can offer up is “Our cast represents the world”, or words to that effect.  But this isn’t a story about the “whole world” - it is specifically a Greek myth about an incredibly beautiful Western woman, whose scant description can’t possibly include even the greatest African beauty.  And to be fair, it could not include the most beautiful Asian or Indian woman either.  These peoples were hardly known to the ancient Greeks.  This is essentially a Western and classcal European story.  

Maybe he thought he covered the bases by casting Elliot Page as Achilles.  Who knows.  But there is a lot wrong with this film.  The translation he used to craft his script is apparently comic book level.  

We know why he did all this, really.  He figures it is the one way to get this year’s Oscar.  He figures the Academy of Motion Pictures would not dare not to hand it over to him after all this “controversy”.  All this unnecessary controversy.  It is sad, but this kind of product is destroying what is left of Hollywood and the film industry.  No one can possibly take any of this nonsense seriously any more.  So perhaps pictures with authentic stories about believable people, stories that could enrich us, won’t ever be made.  

None of this controvery has anything to do with racism.  It has to do with objectivity.  N’yongo is objectively NOT “Helen of Troy”.  Elliot Page is objectively NOT “Achilles”.  Miscasting at this level is a cruel joke played upon those cast, really.  Nolan sort of holds them up to inevitable ridicule.  Of course they should have said no, but they, too, have flawed judgment.

It is also sad that in our present illiterate society so many get their “education” through the movies.  Overall, most of them are not equipped to question or research any of this for themselves.  So to them, Michelle Obama look-alike N’yongo is “Helen of Troy” and the whole reason thousands of Greek soldiers went to war to rescue their Queen from rival power Troy.  It flies in the face of all we know and all Helen has come to be.

Here is a thought:  why doesn’t someone make another movie about the life of Martin Luther King?  Think about it.  A producer could go traditional and cast Liam Neeson as King.  Why not?  Oh, wait.  That would be “cultural appropriation”, wouldn’t it?  And that’s a no-no.  Or he could cast Meryl Streep as King and check the box.  Martin Luther King doesn’t have to be male or black - he “belongs to the world”.  Of course there would be no truth whatsoever in this depiction, but then, why should we care about truth or accuracy of any kind, or keeping faith with our foundational material or our facts when we can just play with them Lego-style and make what we want of them?  And call them “The Odyssey”?

In the end their is objective classic beauty, there is objective valor.  Neither is appropriately represented here.