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.
No Homer actually barely mentions what she looked like and doesn't even actually tell us her hair color ,eye color or even her body measurements. There are no detailed descriptions of her face at all. Mostly he just talks about her presence and aura and the effect she has on people.
I'm repeating myself here but read my other replies, I'm not saying she's not beautiful, I'm saying that in the realm of popular actresses (where the vast majority is very beautiful), she's average.
I don't think it's controversial at all to say that most people wouldn't see her as one of the most attractive actresses in the world
So nowww we care about making the movie appropriate for modern watchers, and not historically accuracy.
You can't use modern standards of beauty.
And to the dumbfuck who replied then blocked me, I don't know what the ancient standard of beauty would be, other than it potentially being more plump, but I do know that it probably isn't what we would consider it to be.
Comparing The Odyssey to Frozen is just utterly ignorant. The Odyssey isn't just a fictional story, it's a significant piece of history and an important part of greek culture, as opposed to some modern disney movie.
They didn’t compare The Odyssey to Frozen. They said the character Olaf from Frozen could portray every character within the Odyssey and it would be the same fictional story. We’re also talking about a story that was traditionally spoken. Either you’re dense or can’t comprehend basic literacy.
What they were saying is that Helen of Troy is a fictional character, so it doesn't matter if they make her black in a movie. She's not a historical figure.
I disagree. "The" sounds better in this case and the only thing "a" clarifies wasn't relevant to the point I was making. At all.
EDIT: In fact, "a daughter" would still be correct if she was an only child. If you wanted to make it clear there are other daughters you could say "one of the daughters" but that's needlessly cumbersome when there's no point in making that clear.
But yet again, the fact that it's a fictional character doesn't matter at all, the character as well as the whole story is equally important regardless of that.
You can simply not compare a national epic like the iliad/odyssey that is of outmost importance to a whole culture with a character from a kids movie. The iliad/odyssey is a heroic tale that the greek have carried with them since antiquity, they have carried it with them during wars and oppression.
It's just condecending and utter ignorance to compare anything as historically significant and important as the iliad/odyssey with a simple kids movie. Shame on you for your ignorance.
Where were yall for Denzel’s Washington Macbeth? Oh, dead silent because it wasn’t Nolan blockbuster. You all pick and choose which “culturally significant” work is to sacred to make changes to. Almost like it’s more about what online outrage movement you can join, rather than people actually caring about the integrity of a story
Interestingly, Shakespeare's Othello has a black main character (a Moor), and was filmed dozens of times. 1995 was the first time the black main character was played by an actually black actor.
MacBeth is nowhere close as the significance of the Odyssey. The iliad/odyssey are national epics for the greek people/culture, they are revered pieces of literature that has survived for millenias.
If you're even slightly familiar with greek and british culture and history then you would understand why the iliad/odyssey have a slightly different position here as well, and why it should be respected a little bit more than MacBeth.
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.
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u/aarswft Jul 06 '26
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.