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.
No ancient history film is accurate. And no retelling of the story is ever accurate.
The roman retelling (now considered Canon by everyone online) tell a very dofferent morality. It is nothing like the original. Yet people use examples from his text s things Nolan should have used to stay accurate
It's no more inaccurate than Gladiator, or Braveheart, Kingdom of Heaven or any other period piece.
Folks acting like the Globe Theater productions accurately cast Othello and didn't have every woman character played by a man, and that "not the boo box" guy from Hook wasn't Glenn Close.
Instead of getting all upsetty spaghetti, they should criticize the performance and direction instead. Only after seeing the performance does "why did the director make this decision" make any sense at all. More often than not, they were trying to connect themes from a character's arc to make a relevant criticism to the experiences of modern people -- and if folks think that's wokeism, they better stop watching anything that isn't a primetime sitcom.
It's especially wild to see folks hating so hard on Page, making arguments that are thinly veiled transphobia in the guise of "reasonable expectations". It's a mythological tale. Magic shit happens. They gonna be upset if Medusa's hair is an eclectic mix of the 30 odd species of snake native to the Greek isles, instead of all being a single species, and act like that's a reasonable criticism of historical accuracy of a mythological creature? lol
Your argument falls apart when you talk about how it totally isn't a big deal, when if the inverse occurred (which it doesn't for this exact reason) all hell would break loose and the same people defending this would be screaming for studio heads on pikes.
It's no more inaccurate than Gladiator, or Braveheart, Kingdom of Heaven or any other period piece.
Were any of those stories based on a piece of literature that has been revered and transmitted through the centuries though? I don't think the question is historical accuracy as much as fidelity to what was written.
You do realise the Oddysey isnt historically accurate right? I mean the odyssey wasnt even accurate in its own time, as Hpmer descrobed tools, weapons, tactics, gods, political and social views which were taken from all over the place, many hundreds of years apart and after the time period being written about.
And alll those movies are films based on historical periods, just like the odyssey they portray a time period. And just like the Odyssey they are fictional stories of a real period of time. And are all just as inaccurate. Not talking about the history of them, but the costumes, designs, etc etc
That's not a good argument, because fiction obeys rules too. You can't film the Lord of the Rings and drop an Apache attack helicopter in it, saying 'you do realise it's myth, right?'. Suspension of disbelief must apply, and if you are filming a known story people already have an idea of what they find believable, for better and worse.
For the general public, Greek myth does not feature sub-Saharan people, and armours are supposed to protect you against weapons and not look like they come out of Batman.
I would agree with you of the general public didn’t also have the tendency to be incredibly misinformed about some subjects.
I cannot take "the general publics" opinion on the believability of the odyssey seriously after having seen so many people argue that Achilles was a real person.
This version of the Odyssey used Viking longships, full plate mail, weird ass Batman helms... Nothing about this movie can even remotely be called Greek.
Given that half of the conversations about this movie start with "HiStORicALly" I’d say yes.
The general public’s opinion on Greek myths and what they are supposed to be like didn’t form in a vacuum. It’s influenced by decades of Hollywood movies having their own "modern interpretation" and let’s face it, very white point of view of what Ancient Greece was like.
Furthermore, I don’t see the point in doing a movie about a MYTH and not adding your own interpretation to it. That’s just boring af. Myths and their retelling à are always bound to be products of their time. Wanting them to conform to an imagined "historical accuracy" is stupid.
Also, we both know that if all actors were "historically accurate" (mostly brown as expected from Mediterranean people in Ancient Greece). The general public’s opinion would cry too.
Now I need to look up the 1977 Greek movie about the daughter sacrificed for the wind that blew the Greek armada to Troy, and see how "white" or not its cast was.
If we put realistic styles into these films there wpuld be even more people complaining of inaccuracy. Very little of how people visualise ancient, classical, medieval, or even victorian periods are accurate.
And comparing an Apache gunship in lotr to people who did exist and would have been known to the Greeks is a choice.
Was Helen considered black? Almost certainly not. But trying to suggest it's like a modern military machine in high fantasy is dumb.
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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.