Nolan's The Odyssey real problem
The most irritating thing for me about this adaptation is the fact that the main problem with all these reinterpretations and retellings is not touched upon: that is, the appropriation of Greek heritage without any kind of respect, understanding, or care.
There are many right-wing American men who say this adaptation is "an attack on Western civilization" and "white culture"; that Nolan is "rewriting history."
The fact is that history has already been rewritten, by Western European intellectuals during the Enlightenment, and not by Christopher Nolan in 2026.
The Enlightenment thinkers of Western Europe (England, Germany, France) were obsessed with classical culture (Greek and Roman) and began the "Grand Tour" to visit the cradles of these ancient civilizations.
If they loved the ancient Greeks and Romans very much, the same cannot be said for the descendants of these populations: they openly hated both modern Greeks and Italians, calling them too passionate and lacking in self-control; incompatible with progress and corrupted by the warm climate, which they believed made Greeks and Italians "lazy"; in some cases they defined Greek men as "submissive" and Italian men as "effeminate", while fetishizing Greek women as tragic figures with a statuary appearance and Italian women as seductresses devoid of morality. They thought of Italy as an uncivilized place more akin to Africa (against which they had, clearly, a racial prejudice) than to them; and in the same way they regarded Greece as part "of the east".
Italians and Greeks were not white enough to be included in the new concept of "West" and "Europe", even though those same intellectuals appropriated the classical legacy belonging to these peoples as the foundation of "Western civilization". They stole, either explicitly illegally or by exploiting moments of political instability in these countries, statues, artifacts, even entire pieces of temples, to take them to their museums, where they washed them with aggressive chemicals, ruining them to "preserve" the myth of classicism as "white, colorless" despite it being clear that those statues and artifacts were painted, ruining forever something they shouldn't have even had in their hands and that they still, to this day, refuse to give back. They even went so far as to say that neither modern Italians nor modern Greeks were truly descendants of the ancient Romans and Greeks, that our blood was corrupted or that those ancient civilizations went extinct and that we "replaced" them, declaring instead that THEY were the true heirs of classicism. And finally, after having despised and robbed the children of the ancient peoples whom they "admire" so much, they also altered and distorted the history of those civilitations, erasing the connection they had with the other civilitations of the Mediterranean and how they were influenced by them; only in this way could the classical world become "white", "European" and "Western", because those racist and xenophobic intellectuals would never have taken as the foundation of their "superior civilization" two civilizations deeply connected to civilizations they considered inferior and so THEY "rewrote" history!
All this to say that this desire to call classical culture "white", "European", "Western" arises from acts of zenophobia towards the very heirs of those cultures and racism towards the other peoples who helped form those cultures, without whom we would never have had Ancient Greece and Rome, because the Mediterranean is a place of connection between peoples and even today it is possible to see in small cultural aspects how we Mediterraneans are very connected.
History has already been rewritten by the Western European Enlightenment thinkers and if Nolan is doing anything it is simply keeping that rewrite intact: there are only Anglo-Saxon and American actors), no Greeks, no Turks, no Italians, no Mediterranean, yet the Homeric poems speak about us, but we are erased and we must be fine for someone who looks nothing like us to "represent" us in the founding poems of our civilizations (even if for now Roman mythology is still quite safe, even though Roman history is constantly distorted by their films) because according to them we are all now "white" (and it is true that Greece and Italy now have access to the privileges of being Western, European and white, but this doesn't change the whole problematic nature of how these concepts were formed and should make us reflect on how they initially excluded us and how our legacy and history have been distorted in a way that only now we are finally starting to see).
On the other hand, the people who defend this cast are equally blind to the problem, because they compare mythology to modern fantasy, without even knowing that these are different genres.
Mythology is a historical tale that presents fantastical elements that serve to explain what the ancients failed to understand, in addition to the fact that ancient peoples were extremely religious and their worldview was deeply connected to divinity.
People who listened to this story didn't believe the characters were "fictional," we in modern times today believe that!
For the people who heard that story, everything was true, every character was real, and that was the story of their civilization, of their ancestors.
Modern fantasy is completely fictional and therefore must not meet canons of historical accuracy, because it does not speak of real history, but of a story and a world invented by the author!
it's clear that neither the first ones, that until it was announced that a talented black actress had a role that is also quite marginal beyond anything else, were enthusiastic about this film and calm with the cast of Anglo-Saxons and zero Greeks; nor the other ones, who don't even know the basic difference between mythology and fantasy, care anything about these poems and this mythology; Most of the actors said they hadn't even read the odyssey and didn't know what it was before this adaptation and I know that this reflects a lot of American (and English) society and that all the people who talk a lot, both bad and good, of this film so far (or at least most of them) they have never even read the Odyssey or any other epic poem, and this for me is perhaps another of the most problematic aspects, because in both cases the country with the most power in the world appropriates something that it doesn't care about.
Americans have no right to take everything; if someone announced the film of a Nigerian myth, for example, but the cast only included African Americans, it would be equally offensive and problematic, because there is a difference between Nigerians and African Americans, and Americans have no right to appropriate the culture of others and erase their rightful heirs as clear as it is that culture belongs to everyone, as we are all humans and it is wonderful to connect through our stories.
This, however, should be done with the utmost respect and care, something the United States is not always capable of doing, from its perspective of profit and domination; this Odyssey will be a distorted version, made of individualism that fails to understand ancient religiosity and the value of community, in addition to the fact that Odysseus' masculinity is somewhat different from that typically Anglo-Saxon, because in general Mediterranean masculinity is different from Nordic masculinity, but this aspect will also be completely altered to please a certain segment of the American male audience.
Finally, I think it's controversial that there isn't even an effort at historical verosimilarity; it's not a fact of not being "historically accurate," but do we really want to pretend that it's right to put Viking ships, pants, and medieval armor with a cast of Anglo-Saxon actors in ancient Greece? What message does it send me to want to include a culture belonging not only to a different people and geographical area, but also to another era, while pretending that that is Ancient Greece?Were the clothes of ancient Greece not beautiful enough? weren't the ships of ancient Greece beautiful enough? weren't the Greek actors good and handsome enough? because this seems like the message of this movie, like this: "Your story is good, but I don't like your people, so I'll change history with my culture instead of yours by continuing to pretend we're in ancient Greece" which considering the whole story of cultural appropriation and xenophobic hatred towards the Greeks, carried out precisely by Western Europe (Nolan is English), certainly takes on a rather problematic nuance; they stole statues, rewrote history and now they also replace people visually, it's unfair!
It would have been much more interesting and beautiful if Nolan had taken all the artistic freedom he possesses and actually made a Norse version of the Odyssey, that would have been a much more appreciable creative move than imposing the Nordic scenario in the Mediterranean.
Or at least point out that this is an American/Anglo-Saxon/Nordic version of the Odyssey and that it doesn't really adapt the actual Greek Odyssey, because that's what it is and I thought so right from the moment this adaptation was announced.
There are many other things that could be talked about this adaptation and about the American obsession with Greek mythology (and Roman history) in general, but as far as this film is concerned, in my opinion this aspect is the most problematic.
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