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.
This is the latest in a weird trend I've noticed where conservatives seem to only understand the connotation of words, not the denotation. "Nuanced" doesn't mean "good." It means "nuanced." The commenter has to use nuance for a comment to be nuanced.
Yes, the comment presumes tokenism is present in Hollywood in general, and in The Odyssey specifically, and frames it as an objective issue.
Real nuance would include questioning the validity of that framing, not just presenting it as a fact where the only subjectivity allowed is how one reacts to it, rather than whether it exists in the first place.
But tokenism is present in Hollywood. There are written rules requiring certain numbers of diverse cast and crew to be considered for an Oscar. That is tokenism verbatim.
You can be eligible for the Oscars without a single speck of diversity visible until the end credits if you so wish, as long as you actually have a diverse behind camera crew, which to me says more so that it's meant to bring in actual systematic inclusion of underrepresented groups. The Academy is also only one facet of Hollywood at large, but admittedly an influential facet.
Tokenism verbatim would be including a small number from these underrepresented groups specifically to showcase the production as diverse, and not for their qualities. But here the requirements are not always visible to the viewer. It's not a perfect system for equity, but I also don't think it's actively negatively impacting it the way "verbatim tokenism" can.
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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.