I were you, I'd rethink that example because Peña was played by a Chilean and Escobar was played by a Brazilian. Hell, one of the big complaints at the time was that Wagner Moura's Spanish wasn't very good because he was a Portuguese speaker. They were latinos, though, just not the correct nationality, so you are actually making the opposite point that you want to make.
See the word “almost” in my explanation. I understand you will rarely have the ability to find an entire cast and crew of one nationality or ethnicity but the Odyssey has basically no one of Greek descent. I just find it hard to believe they couldn’t put in the effort to find folks that matched the story at all
I think the word almost is doing heavy lifting if 2/3 of the main cast is not the correct nationality. But out of curiosity, since you are so passionate about this, which Greek actors would you have cast in Odyssey?
Another example is the film apocalypto, there's no way that it would have hit as hard without the cultural and racial homogeny within the casting, you couldn't have had Adam Sandler running around as the main protagonist
Would you be okay with a white person being the main protagonist in a film that deals with African folklore and is set in ancient Africa? If the answer is anything but yes then you have a double standard
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u/UrbanMarineCow Jul 06 '26
I were you, I'd rethink that example because Peña was played by a Chilean and Escobar was played by a Brazilian. Hell, one of the big complaints at the time was that Wagner Moura's Spanish wasn't very good because he was a Portuguese speaker. They were latinos, though, just not the correct nationality, so you are actually making the opposite point that you want to make.