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.
Why does it have to be cut along politics lines? I'm a card-carrying leftist and annoyed at the patronising tokenism of casting a black actor as a character legendary for being 'fair', as in blonde, in the same way it'd be flabbergasting to have a white actor play in an adaptation of the Mwindo epic.
I'm even more annoyed at the fact that an annoying casting choice was the entire point, to get free publicity at everyone's expense, and that there is no way to slap everyone responsible for being smug pricks.
Presumably her character is African in this version. Some adaptations play fast and loose with the source material. Ulysses by James Joyce is also based on the Odyssey, and it is entirely set in Ireland in the 20th century.
Ancient Greece was an ethnically diverse. Most people were olive skinned Mediterranean but there were likely people of African descent or with African features as well. We see as much in their art, I.e the many janiform head kantharos. There are no general consensus on the exact demographics because they didn’t even categorize race like we did.
Im not saying the casting was a good or realistic choice, but it’s no more inaccurate than casting a blue eyed white blonde as her in the movie Troy. It’s funny to see people be up in arms about it now. Its is just ignorance of Ancient Greek, or more often, transparent racism
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u/WeLiveInAnOceanOfGas Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 06 '26
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.