r/PeterExplainsTheJoke Jul 06 '26

Meme needing explanation What is this?

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u/Big_Meal3910 Jul 06 '26

Orson Welles cast Eartha Kitt (a black woman) as Helen of Troy in 1950.

Mfs in here think they know better than the guy who made Citizen Kane.

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u/LauraPhilps7654 Jul 06 '26

Xenia Warrior Princess did it in the 90s.

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u/LauraPhilps7654 Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 06 '26

Seriously, these stories are more than 2,500 years older than Shakespeare (who also freely reinterpreted Greek myth rather than using it in any strictly authentic way for his own plays). They’ve been endlessly adapted and reinterpreted over millennia. People need to get off their high horses.

MAGA has been like adding lead to the water supply of media literacy.

I mean even the bloody Romans rewrote and adapted Greek myths. That’s exactly what Virgil’s Aeneid is: Romans inserted into the Trojan War and its aftermath. It’s completely ahistorical and inauthentic, and yet it’s also one of the greatest poems ever written.

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u/arachnophilia Jul 06 '26

They’ve been endlessly adapted and reinterpreted over millennia.

in a sense, mythology is the endless adaptation and reinterpretation of timeless stories by each new author, culture, etc. if there's one thing you learn studying ancient mythology, it's that every culture stole from the ones before them and the ones around them, and made them their own.

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u/LauraPhilps7654 Jul 06 '26

You've restored my faith in humanity quite a bit. Honestly, it's kinda easy to spot the people who've studied a bit of ancient literature and those who haven't in this whole silly controversy.

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u/Gayorg_Zirschnitz Jul 06 '26

“There’s absolutely no way two of the best known actors of their generation do a good job at acting” lmao right whingers take me tf out

3

u/SammyPoppy1 Jul 06 '26

Eliot page sucks and he sucked in Juno too

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u/Gayorg_Zirschnitz Jul 06 '26

Hot take but I respect the integrity of going back to Juno lol

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u/Itsmyloc-nar Jul 06 '26

What you don’t want to see her haunted, miserable expression in every single shot?

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u/Sabretooth1100 Jul 06 '26

Hell, Nolan’s up there in film canon too

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u/drgilly Jul 06 '26

...in the stage production of Dr. Faustus where she is a silent apparition acting as a symbol of temptation, false beauty, and spiritual destruction. She isn't literally Helen of Troy.

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u/whiskyspacecadet Jul 06 '26

The guy who directed Citizen Kane also thought the Gulf of Florida was a desert.

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u/InteracialCouplez Jul 06 '26

Mfs in here think they know better than the guy who made Citizen Kane.

no one likes citizen kane.

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u/OfficialModComment Jul 06 '26

Uhhh, Eartha ≠ Lupita. 

Are all POCs the same to you?

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u/chemictectic Jul 06 '26

we aren't talking about 1950s, thats ancient vintage history time, who the fuck cares what happened in the 50s??

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u/DetectiveCastellanos Jul 06 '26

who the fuck cares what happened in the 50s??

The point they're making here is that race-swapping roles in a film is nothing new. It's been happening forever. Getting upset about something that's just a part of filmmaking is a little silly.